Buster Olney: Brian Sabean Will Not Return Your Call
Buster Olney discusses a recent poll of baseball GMs about deal-making. One local executive doesn’t come off well.
Without a doubt, however, the GM who got hammered in a way I never expected was the Giants’ Brian Sabean, for one simple reason — rival executives say they cannot get him on the phone. They cannot get him to return messages. In a couple of cases, some GMs say they don’t even bother calling Sabean, they just go straight to assistant Bobby Evans.
The feeling of the other GMs is that beyond the issue of simple etiquette — “It’s just flat-out disrespectful to not return a call,” said one GM — Sabean isn’t putting himself in position to hear trade ideas that could benefit the Giants.”What happens if somebody calls to offer Brock for Broglio?” said one GM. “That’s what I get nervous about — what if the other team is shopping a really good player and he gets traded without me getting involved? That’s why I return all calls.”
In other words, the Giants just might have gotten something more than Chris Ray and an old rosin bag in exchange for Bengie Molina, Fred Lewis, and Kevin Frandsen (hitting .340/.390/.443 for the Angels), if only Brian Sabean had a cell phone.
