SF Gate: Ratto: Pressure on Sabean to produce

Sufferin’ senescence! Did Sabean actually utter “scouting and statistical analysis”?

But Renteria represents something different for the Giants, and no, lowering the age of the shortstop by almost a decade doesn’t count.

The tip was in general manager Brain Sabean’s use of the phrase “scouting and statistical analysis” in explaining the Renteria signing. That Renteria, at age 33, coming off a year in which he played like he was 53, and costing Randy Winn money, cleared all the Giants’ newfound analytical hurdles makes him the test case for the Neukom World Order.

...No, this is Sabean’s big signing to date for his new boss, Neukom, a boss redistricting the organization of a team whose best years are now six years behind it.

There has always been a myth that Sabean didn’t believe in baseball’s more involved numbers, when in fact he wasn’t a difficult sell on them at all. The flaw had always been the lack of position players in the system, and Renteria is both an acknowledgement of and a temporary fix for that. It is not, as is often portrayed, another retreat to the AARP Era, but an admission that while the problem has been addressed, it has not yet fully been repaired.