Post by rog on Nov 29, 2018 10:10:55 GMT -5
How great were those three World Championships in five years? After nary a World Championship in their first 52 years in San Francisco, they were like sweet wine to parched lips.
But now that past is killing the Giants. They put their efforts into the present, at the cost of the future. That future is now. The future has been the past five seasons.
The first two things they need are infrastructure and flexibility.
Their infrastructure is weak because their funds and efforts were spent on the past. They need better scouts; they need better analytics; they need better development. We're all starved for roster moves, but the biggest need is to go back to the fundamentals. Which in the case of a business like the Giants is acquiring and developing top talent. And to acquire and develop top talent among the players, they first need to acquire and develop the talent to acquire and develop top talent.
The flexibility is needed because the Giants have allowed their over-fondness for loyalty and chemistry to back themselves in the corner of being too old, too overpaid, and not good enough. They need to break free of the hackles of existing contracts to the extent that is feasible, focusing on acquiring YOUNG talent, even if it's not yet ripe.
Then fill in the holes with short-term free agents. Good players who can be signed to one- and two-year pacts. Guys who can help keep the franchise together (not necessarily competitive) in the present and be disposable in the future when the fresh, young talent is acquired and developed.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still players who can contribute in trade value if they play well enough to rebuild it. But use your talent for evaluating players to identify which players to keep in the short term, and which to jettisone.
Untie your hands and build a base from which to build a base. Get rid of the strangulation, and focus on the future, keeping the present alive with acquisitions that don't weight down the future, which should come as soon as 2022 and might come even earlier.
Don't give up completely on competitiveness. That's what the short-term free agents are to keep alive. But realize that any serious competitiveness in the next three years is a bonus to the real work at hand.
The infrastructure is weak, and the inflexibility is strangling. Remedy those two serious hurdles first, and the rest will follow. Farhan Zaidi has a five-year contract. Let him use it. How the Giants look at the end of his contract is far more important than how they look at the beginning of it.
Thank goodness!
But now that past is killing the Giants. They put their efforts into the present, at the cost of the future. That future is now. The future has been the past five seasons.
The first two things they need are infrastructure and flexibility.
Their infrastructure is weak because their funds and efforts were spent on the past. They need better scouts; they need better analytics; they need better development. We're all starved for roster moves, but the biggest need is to go back to the fundamentals. Which in the case of a business like the Giants is acquiring and developing top talent. And to acquire and develop top talent among the players, they first need to acquire and develop the talent to acquire and develop top talent.
The flexibility is needed because the Giants have allowed their over-fondness for loyalty and chemistry to back themselves in the corner of being too old, too overpaid, and not good enough. They need to break free of the hackles of existing contracts to the extent that is feasible, focusing on acquiring YOUNG talent, even if it's not yet ripe.
Then fill in the holes with short-term free agents. Good players who can be signed to one- and two-year pacts. Guys who can help keep the franchise together (not necessarily competitive) in the present and be disposable in the future when the fresh, young talent is acquired and developed.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still players who can contribute in trade value if they play well enough to rebuild it. But use your talent for evaluating players to identify which players to keep in the short term, and which to jettisone.
Untie your hands and build a base from which to build a base. Get rid of the strangulation, and focus on the future, keeping the present alive with acquisitions that don't weight down the future, which should come as soon as 2022 and might come even earlier.
Don't give up completely on competitiveness. That's what the short-term free agents are to keep alive. But realize that any serious competitiveness in the next three years is a bonus to the real work at hand.
The infrastructure is weak, and the inflexibility is strangling. Remedy those two serious hurdles first, and the rest will follow. Farhan Zaidi has a five-year contract. Let him use it. How the Giants look at the end of his contract is far more important than how they look at the beginning of it.
Thank goodness!
