How They Got Here: The San Francisco Giants is a
one-by-one look at how each member of the 2012 World Series Champion San
Francisco Giants found their way to the squad. We'll look at all of the
players on the roster, as well as notable players who did not make the
postseason roster for whatever reason and the coaching staff and general
manager. Part thirty-three wraps up the series with the architect of it all, General Manager Brian Sabean.
Brian Sabean was born on July 1, 1956, in Concord, New Hampshire. He was a graduate of Concord High School, and went to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida (as did a close friend of mine a year ago). He was an assistant coach with the University of Tampa in 1980 to 1982, before earning the head coach job in 1983, a post he held for two years. He entered into Major League Baseball as a scout for the New York Yankees, responsible for discovering, drafting, and signing big names such as Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, J.T. Snow, and Andy Pettitte. From 1992 through 1994, Sabean worked as an assistant to the general manager and vice president of scouting and player personnel in the San Francisco Giants front office. In 1995, he was the senior vice president of player personnel for the Giants, and in the offseason of 1996 was named the general manager. The previous season had been dismal, but Sabean was able to make a turnaround in 1997 despite a highly unpopular trade of fan favorite Matt Williams to the Cleveland Indians. One of the players they got back, Jeff Kent (most recently of Survivor fame) became one of the best second basemen in history. After 2002, Sabean was greatly tested and had to retool much of the roster for the 2003 season. He worked through this proficiently, turning in a 100 win season. Things went south in 2004, and the Giants missed the playoffs, beginning a short run of mediocrity in which Sabean's every move was questioned by the Giants faithful. The lowlight of all of this came as the team was losing and Sabean signed the then-record contract to Barry Zito for seven years beginning in 2007. As Zito struggled and players sent away in trades excelled, Sabean was very much in danger of losing his job. He gained security with a two-year contract after the All-Star break in 2007, and worked through the adversity. Many now, after separation from the events, have pinned some of the worse signings and trades the Giants made in the middle part of the decade as representative of owner Peter Magowan and not of Sabean's doing on his own. After 2009, the Giants continued to improve, and Sabean was rightfully honored in helping build the 2010 World Series Champion team. While 2011 was a down year, 2012 again saw the Giants win the World Series, and with little moves like trading Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera during the preseason and a pair of prospects for Marco Scutaro at the trade deadline have further established faith in Sabean's work. In his over fifteen years as general manager, the longest tenure of active managers, Sabean has proved that blockbuster deals and flashy free agent signings will not make a team. Instead, he prefers to bring in established major league players to build around, while adding enough youth through the draft to become an effective team. Sabean is responsible for having drafted the following 2012 champions: pitchers Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Sergio Romo, Ryan Vogelsong (who bounced around the majors and international leagues before being signed again prior to 2011), Brian Wilson, and batters Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, and Brett Pill, which is a quarter of the current forty-man roster. In addition, Sabean also acquired pitchers Jeremy Affeldt (free agent), Santiago Casilla (free agent), Javier Lopez (via trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates), Jose Mijares (claimed from waivers), Guillermo Mota (free agent), George Kontos (via trade with the New York Yankees), and batters Gregor Blanco (free agent), Hunter Pence (via trade with the Philadelphia Phillies), Xavier Nady (via trade with the Washington Nationals), Joaquin Arias (free agent), Angel Pagan (free agent), Ryan Theriot (free agent), Aubrey Huff (free agent), Marco Scutaro (via trade with the Colorado Rockies), Hector Sanchez (amateur free agent), Pablo Sandoval (amateur free agent), Melky Cabrera (via trade with the Kansas City Royals), and Eli Whiteside (free agent). The championship team in 2012 can be completely attributed to the work of Sabean and the front office, as well as can be all of the coaching staff, too. That's why he is such a good general manager: he has completely built a Championship team. Without Sabean, there would be no How They Got Here, and that's why he was a great choice to close out the series.
Follow me on Twitter @KipperScorpion. Again, I would like to thank Yahoo! Sports for providing roster and contract information, as well as career statistics for current players season by season. I would also like to thank Wikipedia.org for providing a free service that allowed me to fill in the gaps in players' careers that were unexplainable by statistics alone, and for providing me with milestones in the careers of each player. Additionally, much thanks goes to the tireless efforts of the workers at Baseball-Reference.com for their compilations of minor and major league statistics. Finally, and most importantly of all, I would like to thank anyone who took the time to read this series during the month of November. Your added views to the blog have provided me with my first 1,000+ pageview month, and also the most successful individual series I've posted to date. As I've said before, I appreciate each and every view, and to make this such a success has been overwhelmingly amazing to me. If there's a series you'd like me to try in the future, leave a comment or talk to me on Twitter. As always, thank you very much for a great month and an even better two years and counting.
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