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No love lost between Bengie Molina and Brian Sabean

Oct 27, 2010, 12:03 PM EDT

6 Comments
Brian Sabean phone

I missed this last week, but apparently Brian Sabean said that he had planned on trading Bengie Molina all along:

Giants GM Brian Sabean revealed Wednesday that he knew from the moment he signed Molina that the club would trade him later in the summer . . . “That was the plan almost going all the way back to the winter meetings (in December). We were fortuitous that Bengie turned down the Mets and signed with us. But (if not), we would’ve signed another catcher and lined it up the same way, because Buster wasn’t ready.”

This did not sit well with Molina, who had this to say to the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday:

“That tells you what a person he is, I guess. He never tells me anything. I wish he would have told me before they signed me. I would not have signed.”
On the one hand I want to take Molina’s side here. We have ample evidence that Sabean is both not-well-liked among his peers and is not the most considerate boss on the planet, and ample evidence that Molina is a hell of a guy. If it comes down to those two, I’m on Team Bengie seven days a week.
On the other hand, if you’re Bengie Molina — or especially if you’re Bengie Molina’s agent — how can you not assume that, given the presence of a phenom catcher in Posey, that Molina was not going to be trade bait prior to signing last winter? From the moment Molina hit free agency people assumed that he was a short-timer in San Francisco if he came back. People even wondered whether he wasn’t destined to be the backup right out of spring training. Given that he still had defensive value, it seemed inevitable that he would be shopped, barring injury.  He’s a smart guy, so he had to know that too.
So, I feel ya, Bengie. I really do. Sabean is kind of a jerk. But in this case you don’t have a ton of room to be hurt.
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  1. bloodysock - Oct 27, 2010 at 12:58 PM

    Kids in grade school have a better cell phone than Sabean.

    • natedawg321 - Oct 27, 2010 at 1:11 PM

      That picture’s like 5 years old.

  2. hep3 - Oct 27, 2010 at 1:00 PM

    Don’t think for a second that Molina is completely innocent. During the 2005 season Molina let everyone know that when his Angels contract was up that he was going to test the free agent waters. Certainly that is Molina’s right.

    Then Molina and his agent did not pull the trigger fast enough on an offer from the Mets and the Mets traded for Paul Lo Duca. Molina was left scrambling for a one year deal with Toronto.

    First time he came to Anaheim in 2006 with Toronto, Molina whined that he never really wanted to leave the Angels and was disappointed they didn’t make an offer to keep him.

    Boo-hoo, Bengie!

  3. natedawg321 - Oct 27, 2010 at 1:13 PM

    While SF fans enjoyed Bengie for the most part during his time there, everyone knew that his greatest weakness was being hypersensitive and could easily have his feelings hurt.

  4. frankvzappa - Oct 27, 2010 at 2:05 PM

    because a second world series ring is such a disastrous result…

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