ESPN’s Buster Olney conducted a poll that indicated that San Francisco Giants’ GM Brian Sabean was the “toughest” GM to deal with.  One unnamed GM said, “I can’t get him to return a call. I’ve had two baseball conversations with him in the past five years.”

Andrew Baggarly of The San Jose Mercury asked Sabean about it and he clearly did not appreciate the article.

“I’ve never talked to Buster,” Sabean said. “I tried to reach him today to have a productive conversation. I was told he polled 12 GMs and 7 responded.”

“Lets not be naïve,” Sabean said. “There are 30 teams. Some you don’t have anything in common with. Some are young guys cutting their teeth, chatterboxes throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, or gathering intelligence.”

“I’m a cut-to-the-chase guy.”

Sabean says that he communicates with “well over 20 GMs” on a regular basis. If he doesn’t get back to them, he delegates.

“We do return phone calls. I return phone calls. But if I don’t, it’s for a specific reason,” Sabean said. “Or the call gets returned by talented people like Bobby Evans, Tony Siegle or Dick Tidrow.”

“The article is what it is, but it’s backhanded,” Sabean said. “There should be further explanation and there is not. It comes down to management style, and when it comes down to it, he didn’t poll 30 teams.”