A (Long) Note About Sabean/Bochy/Guillen

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/08/SPOK1FPV85.DTL

So I had some nice words to say about Brian Sabean a few days ago, so I'll balance that out with some not-as-nice words about Bruce Bochy. I'm still 96.5% positive that it was Sabean's call to leave Jose Guillen off the playoff roster, so really this post SHOULD be directed much more at Bruce Bochy. If it comes out that Sabean also wanted Guillen on there but Gavin Newsom demanded that he not be allowed on, then I'll have to take back my nice words for Sabean. But onto some Bochy hate.

When Jose Guillen was left off the playoff roster, I was genuinely shocked. I had figured he would be starting every single game of the playoffs, regardless of performance...which has been exactly what had been happening over Guillen's entire run with the Giants. Guillen started 42 of 46 games with the Giants over August/September, and to say he did poorly would be an understatement.

Over those two months, the man the Giants acquired to be the "big bat" down the home stretch had a slash line that looked like this: .238/.286/.336, with only 24% of his total hits being for extra bases (26 singles, 5 doubles, and 3 HR). He grounded into double plays (8) more often than he took a base on balls (5). The player the Giants acquired for his power and his (sigh) "run production" was one of the more putrid players on the team, and that's if you only count his offensive production.

His "speed" and baserunning ranked as almost the worst on the entire team (even behind Bengie Molina!! Thinks about that!!), and that's including pitchers (who are rarely put into dangerous baserunning situations and don't exactly get used in speed situations). Over the season with the Giants, the only player who ranked worse on the team than him was Barry Zito (who ranks as almost his equal in baserunning). Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, even Todd freaking Wellemeyer ranked higher (actually WAY higher) in baserunning. So Guillen (whom the Giants acquired for his power) would most often get singles if he got a hit at all, and that would put arguably the WORST runner on the TEAM on first base, instantly clogging up the bases for anybody hitting after him.

His "speed" also significantly affected his defense, as it took him ages to get to balls. It would be painful at time to see him hobbling after balls, costing us runs more than a few times (I'm thinking 9/3/10, against the Dodgers, not being able to properly charge Chad Billingsley's line drive that ends up falling for 2 RBI).

The Guillen experiment failed miserably. It would be like if Kurosawa filmed Seven Samurai, handed it over to his new editor (who had been recommended by a friend), and the editor handed him back a finished product that turned out to be B.A.P.S.

So Guillen was left to fail day after day, as Bochy kept starting him despite horrid performance, and also despite Cody Ross sitting on the bench. There is not one thing Cody Ross does worse than Jose Guillen. There is a chance that Cody still gets carded when he buys alcohol, whereas Guillen definitely does not. So in theory Guillen would be more effective than Cody in regards to late night beer runs, as if both of them went to buy beer, and both forgot their ID, then Guillen would more likely be able to get beer than Cody. That's the only thing I can think of that Guillen might do better than Cody Ross.

I was not opposed to Jose Guillen being acquired, but I was opposed to him being an every day starter. Off the bench power, sure. Regular, almost EVERY DAY starter? No way, no how. But I knew that's how Bruce Bochy wanted to use him. When Cody Ross was acquired a week after Guillen, Guillen SHOULD HAVE become instantly obsolete. But he didn't. He still was played, almost daily, despite proving daily that he shouldn't have been playing.

So you'd naturally think that a man that starts 27 of the last 28 games of the regular season (when games were REALLY starting to mean something) would also land on the postseason roster. He wouldn't deserve it, but he didn't deserve to start the whole month of September either, and look what happened.

And then he didn't get put on the roster, and Cody Ross did.

So I said kudos to Brian Sabean for that move as I still assume that Bruce Bochy had nothing to do with it. Bochy showed over the last two months that Guillen was his guy in RF, and he was starting him no matter what. If he was available to be played, then by gum Bochy was going to play him.

Then that article (linked WAY above at the top of this post) came out that showed that despite being hardly able to move (obvious to anybody who had been watching Giants games), Bochy had continued to start Guillen. Guillen stated that he could not move his head from side to side, and could not lift his shoulder to drive the ball because of the daily pain he was in. AND BOCHY KEPT PLAYING HIM.

This is identical to what happened last year with Edgar Renteria, who looked and hit like slow hot garbage all season, yet continued to start all the way to the bitter end until hitting the DL. Renteria was easily the worst hitter on an epically horrible-hitting club, but he was Bochy's guy, he was Bochy's shortstop, and he was gonna continue to take starts away from Juan Uribe (the team's 2nd best hitter last year behind Panda). If Renteria was taking starts away from Emmanuel Burriss it wouldn't have been that bad, but he was taking them from an actual productive player. It later came out in the offseason that Renteria played through major pain the entire season due to bone spurs in his elbow. Bochy was quoted as saying it wasn't his call to bench Renteria, as Renteria kept saying he was fine and was putting on a GRITTY veteran presence for the younger players. Bochy KNEW Renteria's elbow was held together by duct tape and bubble gum, but because Renteria WANTED to start, he kept getting to start.

Just as Guillen kept wanting to start besides being hardly able to move and clearly affecting the team in a variety of negative ways. If he wanted it, Bochy was going to keep letting him have it, not caring about putting the best team on the field during the last month.

So thank you, Brian Sabean, again, for forcing Bochy's hand and not putting Jose Guillen on the postseason roster. I know he got a lot of tasty ribeyes and dingerz over the course of his mostly below-average career, but thank you for recognizing that he was affecting the team negatively in every way, and did not deserve a spot in the playoffs.

I'm sorry to be griping about stuff when the Giants only have NINE more wins to go this season, but I was just legitimately stunned by that article, that Bochy had played an injured unproductive player over better players two straight seasons.

Win the Series and I won't gripe for at least a few weeks, at least until Sabean signs Jose Guillen to a 2 yr./20 mil deal in the offseason.