Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Worst GM Champion! It's the Giants' Brian Sabean in a walk, as he easily defeats Houston's Ed Wade, 215-52.
Congratulations, Giants fans!
I didn't intentionally schedule this competition for the Giants-Pirates series, but I'm glad it happened this way. If you're watching the end of the game, as I am right now, you're seeing the Pirates beat the daylights out of the Giants. You're seeing Eugenio Velez, who's basically a AA player, leading off and playing second base. You're seeing Emmanuel Burriss, basically a single-A player, at shortstop. You have a right fielder, John Bowker, who played in AA all last year. You have a catcher, Steve Holm, who's basically a AA player. You have a pretty good fourth outfielder in Fred Lewis. You have Rich Aurilia, a 36-year-old third baseman who's been fading for years, playing first. You have Jose Castillo at third. And you have Dan Ortmeier, basically a AAA hitter, playing left.
If you think I'm exaggerating about the levels, go check out these guys on The Baseball Cube. I'm not. These are minor league journeymen, and they're everywhere. And I haven't even mentioned Brian Bocock.
I'm trying to think of a context in which a team like this might be understandable, but I just can't. And it's not as if the Giants have a history of tiny payrolls, or as if they had a strong team that suddenly fell apart. Their payroll this year is in the middle of the pack, and they haven't had a winning season since 2004, so they've had plenty of time to recalibrate. This is a comically terrible team.
Well done, Mr. Sabean. You couldn't have done better in this competition if you'd tried to.
Here's the competition:
Jon Daniels defeats Bill Smith
J.P. Ricciardi defeats Dan O'Dowd
Jim Hendry defeats Omar Minaya
Wayne Krivsky defeats Ken Williams
Bill Bavasi defeats Jon Daniels
Ned Colletti defeats J.P. Ricciardi
Brian Sabean defeats Wayne Krivsky (forfeit)
Brian Sabean defeats Bill Bavasi