[BARRY BONDS] ‘The Sabean Corollary’ Proves Rays Should Not Sign Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds, Brian Sabean, Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria August 14th. 2008, 12:15pmNow that Carl Crawford is going to be lost for the remainder of the regular season and Evan Longoria is out for 3 weeks, some think the Rays need to sign Barry Bonds more than ever. After months of saying the Rays wouldn’t, yesterday we finally warmed-up a bit to the idea of the all-time home run king in a Rays uniform.
But then we figured out why the Rays should absolutely, positively NOT sign Bonds. Brian Sabean thinks it is a good idea.
“I certainly think if he DH’d for somebody, even at this late juncture in the season…it doesn’t take much for him to get ready, we all saw that in spring training, after 10 at-bats he’d get bored…I think it would be smart for Tampa Bay because they are in a very unique position…as history goes with baseball with a chance to win that division against those two counterparts is pretty amazing…”
This should be a no-brainer now. Even if Sabean had not traded Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser to the Twins for AJ Pierzynski, many would still consider Sabean the worst GM in baseball. This is a guy that thought it was a good idea to give $126 million to a pitcher that had averaged less than 14 wins in the previous four seasons. And the Rays are now supposed to jump on the bandwagon of lunacy?
For those of you that have ever gambled, it is like that one guy you knew in college that never won a bet. It got so bad that you started picking the exact opposite. Thanks to your buddy, you made a lot of money (If you don’t know the guy we are talking about, there is a good chance you were the guy). And then it would start to roll over into the rest of your lives. Like, if you guys were trying to figure out which bar to go to that would have the hottest girls and that guy picked bar A, the rest of you knew to go to Bar B.
Bill Simmons would call this “The Sabean Corollary”. In being such a bad GM, Sabean has proven the Rays should not sign Barry Bonds.
Brian Sabean thinks the Rays should Persue [sic] Bonds [MLB on XM]
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dude I really enjoy your writing and I understand your point in the anti-Zito bit, but did you really have to use WINS to make your argument?
yes. i know wins is about as telling as shoe color when it comes to how good a pitcher is.
And i would never use wins to try and distinguish two average pitchers.
BUT. When you give a pitcher more than $100MM you are saying he is one of the “Greats”. And “great” pitchers find ways to win. Maybe they will have a bad year, or even two. But to be that mediocre over a 4-year stretch is not “great”.
agreed. which is why i think we don’t have those pitchers anymore and part of that is specialization of the bullpen.
Tom Seaver. Steve Carlton. Even Pedro from about 4-5 years ago. Those guys knew how to win a 1-0 or 2-1 game.
Today. a pitcher will give up a soft single and allowing a team to tie it up 2-2 in the 6th. He gets pulled in the 7th and we say he was the victim of “bad luck”. No. He just didn’t make the pitch when he needed to.
Zito’s ERA+ was OK his last 3 years in Oakland, but definitely not great (101, 113, 116).
Better stat than wins? yes. but we have to remember that casual fans are not familiar with stats like ERA+.
I have no idea why Sabean still has a job. I know it would have been hard to trade some of his overpriced “talent” before the trading deadline (players he signed to idiotic contracts in the first place). But he just stood pat as if they are still in the pennant race