On the Giants, Again

The football season is headed into the home stretch. Sounds like a good time to write more about baseball.

With the signing of Barry Bonds, the Giants have their starting line-up pretty much set. Let's compare it to last year's:

This year
Dave Roberts, CF
Omar Vizquel, SS
Ray Durham, 2B
Barry Bonds, LF
Pedro Feliz, 3B
Rich Aurilia, 1B
Randy Winn, RF
Bengie Molina, C

Last Year
Randy Winn, CF
Omar Vizquel, SS
Ray Durham, 2B
Barry Bonds, LF
Moises Alou, RF
Pedro Feliz, 3B
Shae Hillendbrand, 1B
Eliezar Alfonzo, C

I'm not sure if that's the exact right order for either one, but its close. Lead off spot is clearly improved. Catcher probably too. RF suffers, but Alou was hurt all the time last year, so I didnt mind seeing him go. If Feliz would finally live up to his supposed potential, and Vizquel, Durham, and Aurilia have the same year as they did last year, it's not so bad.
Giants GM Brian Sabean has taken a lot of heat lately. And there is merit to it. A lot of people are saying that much of the success of the Giants from '97 to '04 was due to Asst. GM Ned Colletti. My excellent friend Sam brought up the point that before Colletti left 2 years ago, the Giants always put together a team that was better than the Dodgers. The past 2 years (and it kills me to say this) the Dodgers have had a better team than the Giants. It also just so happens that 2 years ago the Dodgers hired Ned Colletti to be their GM. But I'm still willing to give Sabean the benefit of the doubt. His strategy of getting mediocre veterans to fill holes has not worked the past 2 years, but before that it did work ok. It was bound to happen. Plus, I can admit that Barry Bonds has tied things up a bit. But consider this: if Bonds is not injured for almost the entire 2005 season, the Giants would have gone to the playoffs (the Padres won the division by winning 82 out of 162 games). That's almost no question. I would argue that if he played the whole 2005 season, he would have been better than he was in 2006. Because when he came back in 2006, he was 2 years older than he was when he last played a season, rather than the 1 year of age most people pass between seasons. And with Barry producing more in 2006, they very well may have gone to the postseason that year as well. Furthermore, if Barry is healthy in 2005, Hank Aaron's record is already broken by now. All the hype and controversy has already passed. That's one major thing that Sabean would not have to deal with this offseason. There was immense pressure from fans to bring Barry back. But if the record was already broken, there would not be as much, and Barry probably would have retired anyway. Basically my point here, is that that if Bonds wasn't hurt in 2005, Sabean would be looking a lot better.
Now, The lineup listed above will be competitive. I think it will produce more runs than last year. But, as is usually the case for almost every team every season, the season will hinge on the pitching. The Giants have 3 young starters in Matt Cain, Noah Lowry, and Johnathan Sanchez who have potential to be sweet. There's also Matt Morris, who I don't trust at all, but who could be decent. Now, say the Giants uncharacteristically spend a bunch of money on Barry Zito to replace Jason Schmidt. It looks like a pretty sweet rotation, giving the Giants a good looking squad. But if you haven't noticed, in this post I have brought up a lot of "ifs." Knowing the Giants, they never all pan out. Plus, they say Barry Zito has never missed a start, which to me, only means he's due to get hurt. But the Giants lost Jason Schmidt, one of the top arms in the game (to the Dodgers, no less). There's no way around the fact that they need to replace him.


RIP Jose Uribe.