Brian Sabean is bizarrely consistent, no? Obviously, the current team looks nothing like the Bonds-era teams. Sabean's earlier Giants only used one source for hitters: established major league veterans. Now, the Giants seem almost all home grown. So what makes him consistent? Sabean doesn't seem to think of players as individuals, with different types of abilities which can be assessed based on their previous records. Instead, he appears to just see categories. When it was major league veterans, that was all he seemed to need to know -- it could be Ellis Burks (who was terrific), it could be Neifi Perez (who, well, wasn't) -- it didn't matter. The way to assess them was to have them play until they proved that they were Russ Davis, because you couldn't possibly have figured that out in advance.
And so it is with the homegrowns, or at least that sure is how I see it. Sabean says: now we give our minor leaguers a chances. And so they all get a chance -- Posey and Panda, but also Crawford and, this week, Culberson.
Oh well. The one real improvement that Sabean has made is that after a decade where he wouldn't look at them, he's now open to free talent. He struck big with Andres Torres; this season, he picked up Arias and Blanco. No, I have no idea whether they'll wind up helping the team long-term, but so what? They didn't cost anything to find out.
Hey, across the bay, Moneyball gave way to Injuryball for a few years there (getting free agents with injury concerns at a discount) to the new regime: Plethoraball. Under Plethoraball, you get 4 3Bs one year in the hopes that one works out. The next year, you get 9 OFs. Methinks that 2013 will watch Beane pick up 5 1Bs.
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