Did I miss the clamoring for the Giants to put a bunch of rookies on the field in '05?
No I didn't. You're dramatically misrepresenting the position of most of the people you cite above. Giants fans don't want a Beane-run, on-the-cheap team. We want a good team.
Pardon me for thinking that a young good player offers a better chance of that than an old, might be good player.
Kyle, you've had a good team, and at times a great team, for YEARS now. Go look at the Giants W-L under Sabean. You can't just point to Bonds, because the Giants have had a few stinky teams with Bonds playing well.
Does not Sabean have a proven track record of identifying old guys who are still good, and stay good? How many times have you heard Giants fans go "wow, I didn't expect (Marquis Grissom/J.T. Snow/Andres Galarraga/Benito Santiago/etc./etc./etc.) to be that good?"
If you're not happy with the way they've done it, then I'm sorry. But don't whine that you "want a good team" when that's what you've gotten year-in, year-out.
Fine. Team that can win the WS. As I've said on another thread, the Giants philosophy has changed over the last couple years. They are no longer built around impact players. It used to be Bonds/Kent/Snow. Now it's Bonds and a bunch of guys that are his same age. And it's getting worse. Grissom/Snow were signed in their mid-thirties. Now he's signing guys in their late thirties. Not everyone has the anti-aging ability of Barry Bonds.
And just to be clear, Bonds 2001-2004 is totally different than Bonds 1996-2000.
Fine. Team that can win the WS.
So you admit that the Giants have been good. That's a start. 
If you want to talk about Sabean teams that could have won the WS, I would put the '97, '00, '02 and '03 squads in that category. You could make an argument for the '01 team, too, but I'm not convinced.
Feel free to disagree with me on that list. The fun part is that we'll never really know, but my argument remains: Sabean's been doing a very good job. Trust in The Sabean. He knows more about this stuff than you or I.
I would remove the '97 team (allowed more runs than they scored). Other than that, your list looks good. As I said, the strategy seems to have changed. I wouldn't put the '04 or prospective '05 teams in that category either.
Sabes seems to have started well and gone downhill from there. Over the past 3-4 years, the new level that Bonds has found has masked the decline somewhat. For example, I can't think of a Neifi-like mistake in the early Sabean years, but now it seems to happen every year (Matheny, Mohr).
I appreciate that the Giants have been a good and fun team to watch in the Sabean era. I just fail to understand what is keeping him from signing the best available players.
Good column. I am also a bit tired of and surprised by the unanimous deriding of the Giants offseason on the internet. The Giants look like a much better team than last year. Hard to complain, yet everyone has. I might have not gone about remaking the team the exact same way as Sabean, but I am a Biologist not a major league GM.
Kyle, good point about that '97 team. That had to have been one of the more amazing seasons ever, or luckiest. When I look back on '97, I mainly remember the lousy wild card format and Livan Hernandez making us look silly. I've always assumed that if we'd gotten by Florida that year, we could easily have gone all the way. I might be on crack on that one, though.
Funny how no one mentions Shawon Dunston's last tour of duty with the Giants. He was just terrible in '01 and '02, but was held to limited duty at least....
BleacherEd, thanks for the kind words.
Actually, the worthless old timers have been a mainstay of all the Sabean years. Does no-one remember the Eric Davis experiment? The final year of Charlie Hayes and Stan Javier, and even Willie McGee. Benito surely looked like he'd add to the list as well when first signed. And remember that Jeff Kent turning into an impact player surprised everyone (including, I'm sure Sabean). But still, those teams did compete and had success. Having grown up on the nearly unwatchable Giants of the 70s, I do prefer this way, no matter how infuriating it can be. Still in the current marketplace there are two kinds of unvalued products, young players and old players. Other than pitchers, the Giants have been incapable of developing a young player -- a trend that far predates Sabean's term. Other than the 2 mini-spurts of Clark/Thompson/Williams in 86-87, and Jack Clark/Larry Herndon in 76, this is a franchise that hasn't been able to develope every day talent since the 1960s.
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