After three World Series rings and 30 years, Brian Sabean has left the Giants.
The impact Sabean, the longest-tenured general manager in Giants history, made in San Francisco is apparent by the way he rubbed off on some of the most veteran baseball stewards he worked with.
“I’m happy for (Sabes),” former Giants coach Tim Flannery told KNBR.com. “Out of all the people I played for and worked for, I love this baseball man more than he will ever know.”
“It is kind of a sad day knowing that he’s no longer here with the San Francisco Giants,” Ron Wotus told KNBR.com. “Obviously, we’ll remain friends, but when you think about him moving on and all he’s done here in San Francisco, it’s bittersweet.
Sabean, 66, took a job as a special advisor to New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. The former Giants GM let his contract with the Giants expire in October, at which point president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and CEO Larry Baer allowed him to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
He found a new landing spot quickly, with the franchise that gave him his first big league chance as a scout in 1985.
“It’s a little bit emotional and overwhelming,” Sabean opened his introductory Zoom call held by the Yankees. “Somewhat of a strange twist of fate after 30 years, to rejoin the organization that I started with.”
Flannery, who served as the Giants’ third base coach from 2007 through 2014, described his former boss as demanding, tough, proven, honest, and “one of the most brilliant baseball minds I’ve come across.”
Wotus, the longest-tenured coach in Giants history, used many of the same adjectives. The coaching staff wasn’t always on the same page — even as they won three titles in five years — but on the topic of Sabean, Wotus and Flannery are in lockstep.
The coaching staff under Sabean — with Bruce Bochy, Wotus and Flannery as three mainstays — was like a family. Flannery cried with Bochy and Sabean when he decided to retire in 2014. Through the ups and downs, Wotus said, Sabean’s leadership made the coaches feel like everyone was in it together.
Sabean operated with a sense of loyalty. He delegated and stuck with his guys through the years.
“For as long as we were together, I don’t remember any coaches getting fired,” Wotus said. “There were numerous times when he was realistic. He wasn’t going to pass blame. Talking about being together: we won and we lost together. That’s very unique in this business.”
Added Wotus: “I think one of his greatest strengths was his ability to read a room and to read people and cut through all the noise. And address what needed to be addressed, whether it’s in a coach or in a player to get him to perform. Great self-awareness and awareness of the room. Addressing the person more so than the player.”
With the Giants, Sabean was a two-time Baseball America Executive of the Year. He never lost his roots as a scout and built teams around homegrown stars (even before San Francisco, his scouting instincts helped build the Yankees’ dynasty).
As head of the baseball division from 1997 to 2018, Sabean oversaw four National League pennants and five NL West titles.
“We truly believe he’s a Hall of Fame worthy executive in every sense of the word,” the Giants said in a statement.
Eventually, after two consecutive sub-.500 seasons with GM Bobby Evans, Sabean’s role in the Giants’ front office diminished. He transitioned into more of a consulting role in 2019 in which he worked on “strategic initiatives as a senior advisor and evaluator.”
Sabean still helped with the amateur draft, but the position allowed him less opportunity for input than he expected, he said.
“Obviously with new regimes, there’s new dynamics, wants and needs,” Sabean said on the Jan. 3 Zoom. “It became what it was, and I’m just so thankful that I’m relevant enough to get this opportunity. At my age, it’s all about being wanted and needed, and I feel ready.”
Sabean’s 18 years as general manager represents the longest stint in club history. He brought in Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Belt. He gave Ron Wotus — the longest-tenure coach in franchise history — his start. He hired Bochy away from San Diego.
Now much of that core from the winningest era in Giants history is displaced. Bochy is in Texas. Bumgarner in Arizona, Sandoval playing in Mexico. Posey a minority owner of the franchise. Flannery a bluegrass musician. Belt a free agent, and Sabean back in the Bronx — where his front office career began.
“Time moves on,” Wotus, still with the Giants as a special assistant to baseball operations, said. “Nothing lasts forever. I think that’s the bottom line. Nothing lasts forever. I’m happy for them. Everybody has made decisions for what’s best for them.”
If it wasn’t clear already, the Giants are staunchly under the direction of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.
Though Sabean is regarded as somewhat of an old school executive, and Zaidi’s background suggests a lean toward analytics, the truth of both their styles is probably somewhere between their polarized reputations.
Sabean led what was considered a progressive front office at the time and often consulted statistical analysts Yeshaya Goldfarb and Jeremy Shelley — both of whom remain with the team. Zaidi, with his PhD in economics and Billy Beane’s baseball tutelage, often publicly points to the intangible value of things like team chemistry and clubhouse presence.
They’re still two different people who go about the job in different ways, in different eras.
Yet both have endured public vitriol. Both have been at the helm for successes and failures. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
When Sabean made the Jeff Kent trade shortly after he took over the team in 1996, he faced so much criticism that he felt the need to defend himself in the media, saying “I am not an idiot.”
The Kent trade, plus the J.T. Snow acquisition and other key moves, helped catalyze the NL West title in 1997 — SF’s first since 1989. It turned around what was a desparate franchise.
Even after the Giants’ captured their first World Series title in 2010, Internet blogs had popped up to bash Sabean.
“Sabean caught lightning in a bottle with the FA pickups, and I am terrified at the confidence that it gives him,” one anonymous critic wrote on an anti-Sabean site. “As long as he refuses to even talk to other GMs on the phone, I want somebody that can sustain this run, rather than get lucky on a FLUKE.”
Now Zaidi, during arguably the franchise’s most tumultuous offseason ever, has endured criticism far and wide online. He said recently that he opened Twitter this winter only to find his name trending — “that’s generally not a good thing,” he said.
Even as Zaidi maneuvered on the fringes of the roster to lead a franchise record 107-win campaign in 2021 and drafted the game’s most promising left-handed pitching prospect in Kyle Harrison, his detractors are loud as he enters the last year of his five-year deal.
Sabean’s track record is gold and can fit around three of his fingers. Zaidi’s accomplishments haven’t yet added up to the same standard.
But Sabean had 18 years, while Zaidi is embarking on Year 5. Most front office executives need time. Sabean made the most with his.
“I just think this guy has done so much in the Bay Area,” Wotus said. “It’s kind of a shame you don’t really hear that much. Obviously Boch gets all the credit, and deservedly so, but Sabes was the guy.”
“Yankees got a good one,” Flannery said.