San Francisco Giants not the losers in the Pablo Sandoval fiasco

MLB’s featured columnist Joel Reuter posted an article Sunday listing his take on the biggest winners and losers for the first month of the off-season. Predictably the San Francisco Giants made the losers’ list, coming in at number six because of the Pablo Sandoval fiasco, with only the Oakland A’s scoring higher (or lower, depending on your vantage point) with their just-completed trade of Josh Donaldson. Apparently Joel Reuter is under the impression that the Panda vacating AT&T Park for the greener bamboo shoots of Boston is a bad thing.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course Brian Sabean put forth sincere effort to retain the services of one of the most clutch postseason performers of his-or any other-generation, but the bottom line is-and make no mistake about it-the Giants are happy as all get-out to be rid of the sizable problem which had become Pablo Sandoval. Sandoval maintained in his farewell speech, that he was looking for a new challenge.

Imagine Pablo Sandoval looking for a challenge. How about being able to read his own bathroom scale, without help?

The irony of that statement cannot help but stand out to Giants fans, who might roll their eyes in one uniform collective paroxysm  of disbelief, while pondering the immutable question: If you wanted a challenge, Pablo, how about accepting that which is presented to you by your own body every day of the year?

He should start by recognizing the fact that he is his own worst enemy, and that to continue to ignore the inevitable, is to present a brand new challenge: making a living selling tires, and finding out that pandas are of little or no use in the endeavor. Were there no issue with Sandoval’s weight, who knows what kind of difference that might make in his game?

No one knows and neither is anyone likely to find out. That is, of course, because Pablo has not figured it out himself. He has an agent to direct his career, he has a brother who is in charge of his nutrition and his diet, and he has teammates who assume he has the club’s best interests in mind. Yet Pablo remains clueless.

No, Joel Reuter has it wrong; there is a loser involved here but it is not the Giants. Not this time. And unless he figures it out, Pablo Sandoval is going to lose something besides weight; he’s going to lose his job.