Brian Sabean Can't Stand Success, Trades for Jose Guillen

Before the season started most analysts would have predicted that Lyndsey Lohan would have won an Oscar, before the NL West race would come down to the Giants and the Padres, but here it is August, and San Francisco and San Diego were all set to square off in an NL West showdown.

The Giants have been playing terrific baseball, winning more games in the month of July—20—than anyone else in baseball. What’s more is that veteran players who have seen their roles diminished, such as Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria have accepted backup roles with grace, leading to what some insiders believe to be the best clubhouse in baseball.

Brian Sabean, the Giants’ General Manager, obviously has an issue with all this winning and must have a vacation planned for the week after the season ends because he went and traded for Jose Guillen.

Guillen is such as great player that he was recently DFA’d by that perennial powerhouse the Kansas City Royals. The Royals DFA’d Guillen partly due to production, but also due to his clubhouse demeanor as  one GM recently told ESPN’s Buster Olney that, “no contender” should take Guillen because his personality and clubhouse reputation may be the second worst to Milton Bradley.”

What’s more is that Guillen is terrible defensively, holding a lifetime UZR average of 18.1 runs worse than a replacement player (fangraphs.com) in RF, which is why he has predominately been used as a DH in Kansas City.

Given his complete lack of prowess in the field and charming personality in the clubhouse, one would expect that he can flat out hit, but they would be wrong. Guillen has a respectable wOBA of .325 this year, and has posted a wOBA as high as .391 in the past, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to make up for his lack of defense and more importantly carcogenic laced personality.

Basically, Guillen is an older version of Pat Burrell, with the same effect on clubhouses that Elizabeth Taylor has on marriages.  So why would anyone trade for the guy, because, it’s Brian Sabean and after failing to land David Dejesus, Adam Dunn or Prince Fielder before the non-waiver trade deadline he had to do something.

I was hoping that he got it out his system with the deal for Mike Fontenot (a good deal by the way), but as they say wish in one hand and er, you get the point.

Hopefully, the Giants didn't give up too much to get Pierzynski, I mean Guillen, and hopefully, this won’t all end very badly with Pat Burrell body slamming Guillen in the dugout while Rowand-2 kicks him in the head, on second thought….

Update

Jeff Fletcher of AOL Fanhouse is reporting that Bochy plans to insert Guillen as the starting RF and move Huff to 1B. Which means that this trade went from making sense if not for Guillen's personality, to just traded for a .250 hitter to play RF who also happens to be a clubhouse cancer. Giants baseball....torture, Giants Front Office...torturing their fans. 

Guillen’s numbers

Year           Tm    G   PA   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB   SO   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+

1997          PIT  143  526  498  58  133  20  5  14  70  1  2  17   88 .267 .300 .412  .712   82

1998          PIT  153  605  573  60  153  38  2  14  84  3  5  21  100 .267 .298 .414  .712   84

1999          TOT   87  318  288  42   73  16  0   3  31  1  0  20   57 .253 .315 .340  .656   67

1999          PIT   40  132  120  18   32   6  0   1  18  1  0  10   21 .267 .321 .342  .662   68

1999          TBD   47  186  168  24   41  10  0   2  13  0  0  10   36 .244 .312 .339  .651   67

2000          TBD  105  349  316  40   80  16  5  10  41  3  1  18   65 .253 .320 .430  .750   89

2001          TBD   41  145  135  14   37   5  0   3  11  2  3   6   26 .274 .317 .378  .695   85

2002          TOT   85  259  240  25   57   7  0   8  31  4  5  14   43 .238 .287 .367  .653   66

2002          ARI   54  141  131  13   30   4  0   4  15  3  4   7   25 .229 .277 .351  .628   57

2002          CIN   31  118  109  12   27   3  0   4  16  1  1   7   18 .248 .299 .385  .684   76

2003          TOT  136  534  485  77  151  28  2  31  86  1  3  24   95 .311 .359 .569  .928  142

2003          CIN   91  349  315  52  106  21  1  23  63  1  3  17   63 .337 .385 .629 1.013  165

2003          OAK   45  185  170  25   45   7  1   8  23  0  0   7   32 .265 .311 .459  .770  101

2004          ANA  148  620  565  88  166  28  3  27 104  5  4  37   92 .294 .352 .497  .849  121

2005          WSN  148  611  551  81  156  32  2  24  76  1  1  31  102 .283 .338 .479  .817  116

2006          WSN   69  268  241  28   52  15  1   9  40  1  0  15   48 .216 .276 .398  .674   75

2007          SEA  153  658  593  84  172  28  2  23  99  5  1  41  118 .290 .353 .460  .813  116

2008          KCR  153  633  598  66  158  42  1  20  97  2  1  23  106 .264 .300 .438  .738   95

2009          KCR   81  312  281  30   68   8  0   9  40  1  0  22   50 .242 .314 .367  .681   80

2010          KCR  106  437  396  46  101  17  2  16  62  1  0  27   84 .255 .314 .429  .743  101

14 Seasons        1608 6275 5760 739 1557 300 25 211 872 31 26 316 1074 .270 .322 .441  .762   99

162 Game Avg.      162  632  580  74  157  30  3  21  88  3  3  32  108 .270 .322 .441  .762   99

                     G   PA   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB   SO   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+

KCR (3 yrs)        340 1382 1275 142  327  67  3  45 199  4  1  72  240 .256 .308 .420  .727   94

TBD (3 yrs)        193  680  619  78  158  31  5  15  65  5  4  34  127 .255 .317 .394  .711   82

PIT (3 yrs)        336 1263 1191 136  318  64  7  29 172  5  7  48  209 .267 .301 .406  .707   82

WSN (2 yrs)        217  879  792 109  208  47  3  33 116  2  1  46  150 .263 .319 .455  .773  104

CIN (2 yrs)        122  467  424  64  133  24  1  27  79  2  4  24   81 .314 .363 .566  .929  141

ARI (1 yr)          54  141  131  13   30   4  0   4  15  3  4   7   25 .229 .277 .351  .628   57

OAK (1 yr)          45  185  170  25   45   7  1   8  23  0  0   7   32 .265 .311 .459  .770  101

ANA (1 yr)         148  620  565  88  166  28  3  27 104  5  4  37   92 .294 .352 .497  .849  121

SEA (1 yr)         153  658  593  84  172  28  2  23  99  5  1  41  118 .290 .353 .460  .813  116

AL (9 yrs)         879 3525 3222 417  868 161 14 118 490 19 10 191  609 .269 .326 .438  .764  101

NL (7 yrs)         729 2750 2538 322  689 139 11  93 382 12 16 125  465 .271 .316 .445  .761   97

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/13/2010.