Add new comment

But without League earning losses in 4 straight appearances (3 straight BS and a blown tie) we're at 13-5 for the month and a couple games into first place.
I agree with home-growing a core...but we ARE.  Pitchers are a core too and 4 of the 5 starters are either home-grown or still under club control and found their success here.
The Giants have a home-grown rotation and a couple of home bats, the most key of which is Posey.
If we put Felix, Pineda, Fister and Vargas out there as essentially home-grown rotation arms, and Smoak, Ackley and Guti (not home-grown but not a mercenary, as you say) as #2, #3 and #6 bats, AND we're looking to add the #2 pick for either an arm or a bat ALSO homegrown for the 2013 season...
How much more home-growing do you expect before we're allowed to start buying assistance?  Ackley, Smoak and even Guti are worlds better than the home-grown hitters of the 2006 team.  I would love to have the hitting prospects reaching the big club that the Royals do, but we haven't sucked as consistently as they have sucked, had terrible talent assessors, and we have only had 3 drafts and offseasons to try to make up the lack.
I'm as big a proponent of using the farm system as you're likely to find, but we can't spin straw into gold - or at least not just by promoting the straw.  Jack has traded a lot of straw to try to get gold, and has nailed it on a couple of occasions.
If the players in your minors have value now that you do not believe is sustainable, then you HAVE to trade them while they still have that value.  I would have bailed on Clement ages before we did, traded him to some team that didn't know him as well. 
If Tyson Gillies is never gonna make your big-league team as anything other than a reserve, and Aumont is several fixes and several years away at best, and you think JCR is a headcase with a fastball he'll never take advantage of, don't you WANT to package them for the best pitcher in the league (that you then flip for the biggest bat in your lineup)?
If you don't, and Gillies gets broken and Aumont gets demoted and JCR has a decent-but-not great year, you sure aren't getting that value next year.
Saving the best of our system for ourselves is terrific.  Home-growing the lineup is the gold standard for how to compete (though it still hasn't helped the Brewers).
But if the system has a lot of 4th outfielders and mediocre 1B/DH guys, and someone will give you something you NEED for them, then I don't care if I haven't grown enough bats for myself from my own system, I'll buy my need with my minor league extras.