The man in charge

The Giants begin the second half Friday but the games aren’t really the focus from now on. Sure, at bats will be checked for Barry Bonds home runs and to figure out which youngsters can hack it for next season. But from now on this is Brian Sabean’s season.

The second half starts amid rumors of his impending extension, to which I’m moving between slight nausea and a deep depression that I will never seen a champion at May’s Field in my lifetime. Sabean hasn’t done much in the last five years at least to prove he knows how the game, both on the field and in the GM’s office, is played anymore. Not to say the game has changed significantly in that time frame, but he seems less and less able to learn from what has happened and execute a plan.

Through the rest of this month at least he has the ability to try and change that. I’m sure the team could win its next 10 (sure meaning possible in the coin-flip sense) and make it to .500. San Diego and Los Angeles don’t play each other out of the break so they could both lose their first 10 and the Giants could be right back in this. But if the whole NL West doesn’t meet in the middle over the next two weeks the Giants are sellers at the deadline.

With Matt Morris and Ray Durham on the block the team can’t get much back but Sabean can prove he has a plan and try and execute it. It’s pretty much accepted the team has to move to rebuild the farm system and develop young hitters. Morris and Durham, even Jonathan Sanchez, aren’t going to get Adm Jones from Seattle are anything like that but moving guys such as that will show that Sabean knows this team isn’t built to contend. Even though he’s around hitting milestone homeruns every couple of weeks, the window to win a championship has passed. Basically all I’m looking for from Sabean is an acknowledgment of that fact.

There have been rumblings that Peter Magowan and the rest of the Giants management have been hampering Sabean (see link above), including hoisting the Barry Zito contract on him, which is infinitely more frightening. As any Raiders fan can tell you, having crazy people in ownership can kill any franchise. If Magowan is the problem there is no one to fire him and no hope beyond praying he comes to his senses and gets out of the way. If all he wants is to contend enough to keep revenue up there’s nothing a fan can do besides abandoning the team, which very few want to do.

Some have said one of Sabean’s conditions for the extension is more autonomy. If he stays I hope he gets it. But right now I want to see him take steps to fix the mess that was created, whoever made it. I’ll take a symbolic Morris for B-level prospect, something that shows he’s looking to what he can do and not what has happened.