Giants Bite the Bullet, Hires Siegle To Replace Colletti

The Giants posted on their website the other day that their 9 free agent signings actually have not signed their contracts yet, but rather they have only signed letters of agreement with most of them, except for Barry Bonds. In the article, it noted that Bobby Evans was handling all those details and, obviously was new to the job, since Colletti used to handle all those details. The next day, the Giants announced the hiring of Tony Siegle to be senior advisor to Sabean on contract negotiations and roster rules. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Sabean says explicitly in the press release article:

Sabean said Siegle isn't replacing former assistant GM Ned Colletti, now with the Dodgers, noting director of player personnel Bobby Evans and baseball operations director Jeremy Shelley have assumed those duties.

"I want to underscore that these guys have stepped up," said Sabean. "Baseball is a game like life -- you learn from your elders. It's how you learn the trade. Everybody's got a niche."

But really, clearly, the two moves are connected. Obviously Evans (and Shelley) are having growing pains with their learning on the job, based on the first article I linked. So they hired the perfect mentor for them, someone who knew the organization before, someone who has worked here and with Sabean, someone the organization is comfortable with.

In addition, when Colletti left to join the D-gers last off-season, Siegle's name came up as a possible replacement for Colletti, but he was still working for the Washington Nationals - which is the job he jumped to from the Giants after 2001, when the MLB beckoned after taking over the Expos - and apparently happy. However, he was fired soon fater the season ended, so I had thought at that time that maybe finally they would get him, but no.

I guess that was a good sign, that Sabean saw the light that it doesn't pay, eventually, to have all the duties being handled by just the one person and see him walk away, leaving your organization vulnerable. So that probably lessened the Giants interest in Siegle and resulted in the assignment of those duties to Evans and Shelley (two people being trained) when Siegle was mentioned earlier. But really, what did he think would happen once Colletti left, after he would boost up Colletti in the press after he missed out on another opening?

So now instead Siegle gets a promotion to senior advisor and, while not handling all of Colletti's old duties, since they made the point that Evans and Shelley are the employees who are now handling them, Tony is like the cleaner and Yoda, all wrapped into one: he will be there for Evans and Shelley to go to, a resource, a guru, when they have questions and minor problems, but he is here now specifically to clean up the mess that has been created with the "minor" changes that Evans had made to the contracts that has caused the free agents to stop from taking the final step of actually signing their contracts with the Giants. With his experience and relationships, I would bet that these contracts are signed way before spring training starts, perhaps within the next week or two.