What if Farhan's Players Lead Posey's Giants to Success?
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00:00Let's go to, um, yeah, Chris in San Jose who hung up on himself is back.
00:06Hi Chris.
00:07Hey Mark.
00:08You know what?
00:09I should start to call Mark.
00:10Yeah.
00:11Mark.
00:12Mark.
00:13Mark.
00:14Chris.
00:15Chris.
00:16I mean, I'm not, I'm not calling about the Niners today.
00:17Okay.
00:18Listen, I'm going to try to be more even keel like ballplayers should be.
00:22Okay.
00:23I'm not going to come in hot.
00:24Like I was talking about the Niners last week.
00:25You can come in hot.
00:26I don't know what you're going to say yet though.
00:30I don't even know what I'm going to say, Mark.
00:32I got about eight different topics that I want to talk about and I can only get to two
00:36or three before you hang up on me for calling you out on that.
00:39That is accurate.
00:40One to two.
00:41Actually, if you call me out, you tend to stay longer, but anyway, go ahead.
00:45I was going to say, I was going to say, I know, I know Dipper's a 70 over at one and
00:49a half, but, uh, you know, Mark, I actually agree with you today.
00:53I think earlier at some point you talked about, uh, essentially the grass isn't always greener.
01:00You never know what you're going to get on the other side.
01:02And you know, he has his flaws or I should say had his flaws.
01:09But at the end of the day, you're talking about a guy who had a winning record and had
01:13like the sixth or seventh best record in the national league over the last five or six
01:17years.
01:18So a lot of down, you know, a lot of mediocre years.
01:21He had that one outlier of a year, but you know, I just, just be cautious.
01:27You never know what's going to happen on the other side.
01:29On the other hand, I am optimistic.
01:32It's going to be funny when about two, three, four years from now, the giants are, uh, back
01:37in contention, hopefully.
01:40And half the roster or better is forehands IED drafted players.
01:45I mean, ideally we're all hoping Bryce Eldridge is the new coming of Barry Bonds and he's,
01:51you know, the guy we can buy his Jersey.
01:53He's the guy we want to root for and, you know, perennial all-star future hall of famer,
01:58so on and so forth.
01:59And we're going to be like, Oh, that was a far on guy.
02:02Oh, okay.
02:03Well, we'll give him his credit, I guess, like five years later.
02:06So I just kind of wanted to bring that to the table.
02:09You never know what's going to happen.
02:11Buster's 37.
02:12He's a great ball player.
02:14You know, he's an old Southern boy from Georgia, but he has no experience in this whatsoever.
02:19We were all faithful and we believed in Zayedi because we thought he was a part of building
02:24the A's building the Dodgers and, Oh, he can do the same thing and find guys on the fringes
02:29with giants, which he did, but we were never, never able to find that star.
02:35So hopefully Posey is able to, um, you know, swing the tide a little bit in some, uh, negotiations,
02:42maybe bring in a guy or two.
02:43I think Chapman's a good start.
02:45Um, but at the end of the day, I do think Zayedi got a bad rap.
02:49Um, it was over, it was overplayed.
02:52He's far more than mediocre.
02:53Sure.
02:54He might be the 10th best GM in baseball.
02:57He wasn't the 30th best GM in baseball.
02:59Like we were acting.
03:00So we'll give both, we'll give Buster a chance.
03:04He's young.
03:05I'm 50, 50 on it, but let's ride, baby.
03:09Okay.
03:10Chris, let us give you something to chew on.
03:13Thank you for the call.
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03:28the dealer comment and a prediction because he says, what happens if this goes well?
03:34What happens if it goes well in, in two years?
03:37Well, he gets credit after the fact, you're looking at players who were quote unquote
03:41drafted by Farhan Zaydi.
03:45What if you're looking at a battery of birdsong and Bailey, and then there's Bryce Eldridge
03:50holding down first base and batting third and hitting his 33rd home run of the year.
03:55And it's a splash hit into the San Francisco Bay.
03:58Like, okay, what if it plays that way?
04:02And you'll say, well, these are Farhan's people.
04:06Here's what you actually need to think about.
04:08And Farhan admitted this himself, literally just last week.
04:14And he said, you know what, I probably should have found a way to create more of an avenue
04:20for the young players in this organization.
04:23It's not just about drafting them.
04:27It's about developing them.
04:29It's about having the patience to stick with them through thick and thin, and then creating
04:35somebody who can be an everyday player.
04:38What I'm most excited about today is that as Bryce Eldridge gets to the doorstep of
04:44Major League Baseball, hopefully when he comes up and hits 180 for four weeks, you ride it
04:52out.
04:53You ride that out.
04:55Because if you don't, you will rob the confidence of people.
04:59You will send them back and forth.
05:01You will then kill the morale of your clubhouse.
05:05And you will watch what has happened to Luis Matos.
05:09And you will watch what has happened to Marco Luciano.
05:12The best thing that happened to Tyler Fitzgerald and Elliot Ramos is that they came up, and
05:18then everyone went, dude, go play.
05:21Just go play.
05:22And when you go 0 for 4, you're going to be in the lineup again the next day.
05:27But that very rarely happened in the Farhan Zaidi regime.
05:32So he could draft the right player, but that doesn't do anything for you if you don't then
05:36give that player a chance with a little bit of patience.
05:39Yes.
05:40Draft and develop.
05:41And it's interesting what Chris said about credit, and we've all talked about it with
05:45Eldridge.
05:46Like, in two or three years, if he's a 23-year-old all-star, man, all the credit goes to Farhan
05:53Zaidi.
05:54Well, is that really how it works?
05:55Because Elliot Ramos this year was an all-star.
05:59Do you know who drafted him?
06:00Not Farhan Zaidi.
06:02It was Bobby Evans.
06:03Correct.
06:04So Bobby Evans, who was on with Steini and Guru earlier, and I don't know if he has taken
06:08or will take a victory lap for Elliot Ramos, first-round pick, number 17 overall.
06:15We talked to him about it a couple months ago.
06:17Right.
06:18And so he can take a victory lap, and he can take credit, but what good is that?
06:22It does you no good when you don't currently have the gig.
06:25So yes, Bryce Eldridge, sure, and Patrick Bailey, and Hayden Birdsong, these are all
06:30great picks, maybe, and if they turn out to be the battery on opening day or maybe
06:35a playoff game, and yeah, Farhan Zaidi drafted him, good.
06:38It's a footnote.
06:39It doesn't matter for a hill of beans unless it helps him get a job somewhere else.
06:44Well, you know what example is coming to mind as you're sitting here saying this is Steve
06:47Kerr.
06:48Like, what credit does Steve Kerr get?
06:50Do you ever hear of Steve Kerr getting any credit?
06:52Does he want anything around here?
06:54Yeah, he's done all right.
06:55I'm pretty sure the great players that Steve Kerr has worked with, he was not coaching
07:01when the team drafted them.
07:03He was not coaching when they first started to move up even in the organization, when
07:08they became starters, when they became 20-point-per-game players, when they became playoff players,
07:16when they made the playoffs and started moving through series.
07:20He was not the coach, and then he came in and he elevated him to another level.
07:25So I would look at it that way.
07:27And I'm not someone who's going to sit here today and validate all of the stuff you've
07:34said for the last six years and say that Farhan Zaidi was just a big bag of coal.
07:41You can do that if you want.
07:43Plenty of people are, and you're allowed your feeling.
07:46But of course I can make a list of all bad.
07:50I can do that with Farhan Zaidi.
07:52You're leaving some things out.
07:55So if you want to do that, do that.
07:57Yeah, you can do whatever you want.
07:58And be emotional about it and be so excited that Buster's here.
08:02And that is all completely fair.
08:05But if you want to act like Farhan Zaidi never did anything right, I don't agree with you.
08:11Yeah, you're wrong.
08:12I think that this is the right move.
08:14I think we got to a spot where the organization was not functioning at a high level anymore.
08:20I think morale was killed.
08:21I think there are too many non-baseball things happening in a baseball organization.
08:27All those things are true.
08:29But if you just want to sit here and be like this idiot, that's not how it happened.
08:34No, it's wrong.
08:35That's not how it happened.
08:36And a bunch of the players that you're sitting here now saying are the foundation for the
08:40future.
08:42And even if you love Matt Chapman, that's a great example.
08:45Does Buster get credit for Matt Chapman?
08:47Sign him to extension.
08:48He didn't sign him the first time he came here.
08:51Exactly.
08:52So, look, I, you know, I don't know.
08:53There's always nuance and context and it often gets lost.
08:57Of course it does.
08:58Especially on a day like this.
08:59And when you get replaced by one of the more beloved members of the organization and its
09:03history, it's going to cast a certain shadow on Farhan Zaidi.
09:08And Farhan inherited a team that was desperate for a lot of change.
09:13The farm was barren and the major league club was old and underperforming.
09:18And I liken the Farhan Zaidi era to a football team taking over first and 10 in its own 20
09:25yard line.
09:26And he took them on a 16 play 60 yard drive and they had to settle for a field goal.
09:31And you know, you got down.
09:32It might've doinked the field goal off the bar, but I get what you're saying.
09:36It was a lot of like two yards, three yards, three yards, fourth and one.
09:40He picked it up.
09:41Then there was a hold.
09:42Then they got eight.
09:43Then they got seven, third and six.
09:45He got seven yards.
09:46It was a lot of incremental wins.
09:49It was a lot of two steps forward and one step back.
09:52And at the end of it, you possess the ball for six years and you wound up with a field
09:57goal on your right.
09:58They might've doinked it.
09:59He didn't connect with the fan base and the job was probably a little bit of a misfit
10:05in ways because I don't think he fully connected with his baseball people either.
10:10I think he was a little bit too smart.
10:13I think that he, you know what I mean?
10:15And felt that way.
10:16He really, really wanted to do it his way, damn it, his way.
10:20Even when others were telling him they needed to do it a different way.
10:23So there was some stubbornness there.
10:25I think all of those things are absolutely true.
10:28But Stiney said something on the air today that I would argue 70% of you don't want to
10:34believe and it's a fact.
10:36And that is, is that the organization is in better shape today than it was when he took
10:39over.
10:40Agreed.
10:41And if you remember that, if you think that it was just playoffs and balloons every year,
10:47because we all love Boach and we all love the regime that brought us all of those memories.
10:52But if you want to go back to 2017 and reverse history, go right ahead.
10:57That like, I think that this was absolute necessity.
11:04I think this is a great move.
11:05I think yesterday was a great day.
11:07All of that said, I would choose to look back on history that way.
11:13And that the organization is stronger right now than it was six years ago.
11:18And can you at least, can you at least give him that?
11:21Absolutely.
11:22Can you at least give him that?
11:25You can.
11:26And I'm just looking at a comp in terms of results.
11:30And I'm looking at 2004 to 2009, where you didn't win the division, you were 20 games
11:36above in 2004, which was, as you know, two years removed from the world series and one
11:41year removed from a playoff berth, oh four to oh nine zero playoff berths.
11:47And you had two winning records and they stuck with Brian Sabian through those years where
11:53it was really the tail end of bonds.
11:55And you were trying to figure out a way to go from Barry to Barry, Barry Zito, that is.
12:00And so it was a little bit of an odd time for the organization, but they stuck with
12:04Sabian and the fruits of his labor in the minors were born in 2010 when Buster came
12:12up and mad bum was up and he ended up winning the world series.
12:15Absolutely.