I really don’t know where to begin, except to say what I end up saying at the end of every baseball season:

“When does spring training start?”

I think many Giants fans feel the same way, especially with how they capped off a surprisingly good season this year with a win on Sunday thanks to Pablo Sandoval’s tenth-inning blast at Petco Park.

While I definitely got frustrated with the Giants several times during the season (mainly for their lack of an established hitting lineup), in the end I am still pretty content with how the year went. No one (myself included) expected them to finish the year 88-74, fourteen games above .500 and third in the National League West with a chance for the Wild Card up until the last week of September. Could management have done things differently last offseason in terms of getting us a bat so maybe we could’ve made the playoffs this year? Sure. But I don’t think they anticipated how successful the Giants would be this year, either. Brian Sabean realized around June and July that this team could be going places now, and I have to give him credit for finally doing something at the trade deadline, even though our acquisitions of Ryan Garko and Freddy Sanchez aren’t looking too good at this point in time.

The bottom line I’m trying to express is this: Before the season even started it seemed like everyone was already scratching this year out and saying, “Wait til 2010 when Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner come up to the Majors,” and while people had good reason to say that, the Giants ended up proving all of us pessemists wrong. So while I may be disappointed about them not making the playoffs, it’s great that we could even talk about that as a legitimate possibility this year.

That being said, this offseason is absolutely critical for the Giants. GM Brian Sabean will still be working the phones for at least another year, and it’s essentially ‘put up or shut up’ time for him, to put it bluntly. The Giants’ weaknesses around their lineup are glaring, and they can’t just sit by idly about it again this offseason and put all the pressure on the pitching staff once again in 2010. After the team’s unexpected success this year, fans won’t accept anything less than a 90+ win season and a postseason appearance, and to have that we need to pick up a couple pieces (specifically an outfielder and a first baseman who can hit, the latter if Pablo will be moved back to third). For the first time in five years we tasted success, and now we’re all hungry for more. If Sabean wants to keep his job beyond 2010, he’ll have to prove that this team is serious about making the postseason with the moves he makes in the offseason.

So some possibilities for a bat…how about Nick Johnson or Adam Dunn for a first baseman? Dunn is definitely a power hitter, although I think he once said he hated hitting in AT&T Park (or did he rescind that statement?). Johnson definitely isn’t a home run guy; he had eight all year but did hit .291 with 62 RBI’s, which would be an improvement over Travis Ishikawa (although no offense to him, but what wouldn’t be an offensive upgrade with him at first?). In regards to left fielders, a lot of people are throwing around Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, but I don’t think those are realistic possibilities; Holliday won’t want to leave St. Louis and same goes for Bay in Boston. They’ll try to renegotiate with those teams first and foremost, I would think. Besides them it doesn’t look like there are a whole lot of sexy names who are free agent left fielders…there’s Carl Crawford, but he has a ten million dollar club option. But maybe the Giants will decide to plug Pablo in at first and look for a third baseman. If they do that, Adrian Beltre is available, but he didn’t have a good year (and he was injured, if I’m not mistaken). Or you can always bring back Pedro Feliz (kidding, but he is a free agent; has a club option with the Phillies, though).

Besides the quest for a bat I would say the other big question going into the offseason is whether or not Bengie Molina will be back next year. To me it’s a tough call and one can make a legitimate argument either way, but in the end I think the Giants should bring him back for one more year if they can work out a reasonably-priced deal. I know people didn’t like his attitude towards Buster Posey being brought up and how he recently took somewhat of a swipe at fans for not giving him a very warm reception during the last home games of the year, but putting all that aside I still think we need him back in 2010. For the past few years Molina has been the Giants’ rock, the MVP of the team for being our most dependable hitter and for the way he works with the pitching staff. Although Pablo Sandoval stepped up this year and became the team’s best hitter, Bengie was still one our best offensive players and hit 20 home runs for the first time in his career. The most significant factor to me in why Bengie should be resigned, however is that Buster Posey doesn’t look ready to be the 2010 starting catcher. I know that Posey wasn’t given a ton of opportunities to play this year, but when he did get a chance he didn’t prove himself offensively or defensively. I’m not ripping on Posey for that because he is still young and he didn’t get a significant amount of playing time, but I’m just not comfortable with plugging Posey into the starting catcher position off the bat. I think it would be logical to bring Bengie back on a one-year deal (with possibly a club option for a second) and have him around to be the primary catcher and mentor Posey until he’s ready to take Molina’s place.

On a side note, there’s another question that baseball fans in general have, and that is whether or not Tim Lincecum will repeat as the National League Cy Young. Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. I think voters will be enticed by Chris Carpenter’s win total (17), especially considering he missed the first month of the season. He also has a better ERA (2.24 versus Lincecum’s 2.48). I thought one of the biggest arguments you could make in support of Lincecum is that he had a lot less run support than Carpenter did, but in reality that’s not true. According to Jayson Stark’s year-end review for ESPN.com here’s a link, Lincecum and Carpenter had nearly identical run support at around 5.80. And hey, I could be wrong about this; Brandon Webb had 22 wins to Lincecum’s 18 last year and didn’t come close to winning the Cy Young Award. But unfortunately I think the only hope for Lincecum to repeat will be if the voters split between Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, which would take away from their first place votes and give Tim a better shot. As a Giants fan, I hope I’m wrong. But after comparing their stats, I wouldn’t blame the baseball writers for giving the award to Carpenter.

Speaking of Jayson Stark, his MLB year-end column inspired me to do something similar with the Giants. So here are some of my thoughts about my favorite team’s 2009 season, broken down into a list:

Most Valuable Pitcher: Jeremy Affeldt. As one of the best acquisitions of the 2008-09 offseason, Affeldt helped to shore up our bullpen and turn it into one of the best in all of Major League Baseball after being so poor the previous year. He quickly became the most dependable pitcher out of the bullpen and at one point had a scoreless inning streak that lasted 28 innings. For the year Affeldt’s ERA was 1.73 with 55 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.17. 

Honorable Mentions: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Brian Wilson 

Most Valuable Player (Non-Pitcher): Juan Uribe. I know it’s hard to argue against Pablo Sandoval as the team MVP, but at the same time you certainly can’t argue against Uribe. He made the team on a one million dollar minor-league contract after spring training and became an essential player for the Giants with his ability to play several infield positions and be a timely hitter. He went from a .247 average with the Chicago White Sox last year to hitting .289 with 16 home runs and 55 RBI’s (not anything too eye-popping, but for a 30-year-old who barely made the team it was pretty good). Uribe became a favorite of fans and teammates with his infectious, humorous personality and reignited the “Uuuuu-ribe!” chant from when his cousin Jose was a Giant in the eighties, and on a personal level he capped off one of the best Giants games I’ve ever been to when he hit a walk-off home run against the Dodgers on August 12.

Honorable Mentions: Pablo Sandoval, Bengie Molina 

Least Valuable Pitcher: Bob Howry. Thank God Sabean only signed him to a one-year contract. Howry gave me flashbacks to Tyler Walker this year by giving up crucial hits, often game-winning home runs for the opposition. I don’t think I need to provide statistical evidence here.

Dishonorable Mentions: Can’t think of too many for a pitcher…Merkin Valdez, maybe?

Least Valuable Player (Non-Pitcher): Aaron Rowand. He definitely didn’t live up to Giants fans’ expectations of him, with or without his contract factored in (but especially when you bring in the $12 million). He seemed to strike out as often as Fred Lewis in key situations (actually for the year he struck out a lot more than Fred: 125 vs. Lewis’ 84) and hit only .261 in 144 games.

Dishonorable Mentions: Edgar Renteria, Freddy Sanchez, Fred Lewis, Randy Winn

Best Game of the Year (That I Attended): Two words: Uuuuu-ribe! This Giants-Dodgers game on a warm weekday afternoon was the game that had it all–a great pitching performance (Tim Lincecum was one out away from a complete game shutout when Andre Eithier hit a game-tying RBI single), two managerial ejections after two botched calls by the first-base umpire (Giants third base coach Tim Flannery had to step in as manager from the ninth inning on), a bench-clearing semi-brawl after Pablo Sandoval threatened to charge a Dodgers reliever in the fifth after he came close to hitting him, and a walk-off home run by Juan Uribe in the tenth after he missed a pop-up in the same inning to cap it all off. It instantly vaulted up my list as one of the best games I’ve ever attended and left me with memories that will stay with me for a long time, like that of jumping up and down on the bleachers with my brother after Uribe’s walk-off and chanting “Beat LA!” out the Marina Gate.

 

Best Game of the Year (In General): August 30, 2009, less than a week after the Giants lost the most heartbreaking game since Steve Finley’s grand slam to end the 2004 season, Edgar Renteria comes up and hits a grand slam of his own, propelling the Giants to an unlikely come-from-behind victory and a series sweep of the Colorado Rockies that got us back in a tie for the Wild Card. This moment also produced one of the best calls I’ve ever heard when Duane Kuiper said, “Folks, do you believe?” It literally sent chills down my spine and convinced me that this team a. had nine lives and b. really could go somewhere this year. Unfortunately I was wrong on both counts, in the end.

Other High Points: Jonathan Sanchez’s unlikely no-hitter on July 10 with his father in the stands; Randy Johnson’s 300^th victory in Washington (albeit it would’ve been nice if it had been at home in front of an actual crowd); the home sweep of the Texas Rangers in June; Lincecum’s 15-strikeout game at the end of July; Zito’s curtain call game.

Worst Game of the Year (That I Attended): I took home the Brian Wilson bobblehead as a bittersweet souvenir on July 12 after Zito had his worst game of the year against the San Diego Padres to close out the first half of the season…enough said.

Worst Game of the Year (In General): The Giants had plenty of frustrating, throw-the-remote-at-the-TV losses this season, like their two poor homestands in a row against Cincinnati and Los Angeles in August or their horrible San Diego-Seattle road trip in May. But nothing could compare to the 14-inning loss on a walk-off grand slam in Denver on August 24, a game which became the poster child for a heartbreaker to Giants fans. It left fans of the orange and black stunned and speechless, and all the Wild Cark talk became feeble mumblings that began to turn into, “Well, there’s always next year.” And you couldn’t blame us for saying that, for being hopeless. After the Giants came back and swept the Rockies at the end of that same week, Mike Krukow implicitly said KNBR host Damon Bruce was a “clown” for having said the season was over. Although I usually agree with Krukow’s commentary, I thought that was pretty tactless for him to say since Damon definitely wasn’t the only one saying the Giants’ playoff chances were slim to none now. But anyway, it ended up not being the end of the road for the Giants (although that unfortunately was still to come).

Other Low Points: The first road trip of the year where the Giants went 0-6; the road trip to San Diego and Seattle in May where the Giants did so horribly offensively; losing two out of three two the Padres and Dodgers back to back in September; the Cubs’ home run off Brian Wilson in the ninth on September 24 that essentially sealed the Giants’ fate.

…and finally, my playoff predictions:

NLDS:

Rockies vs. Phillies: Rockies. I know I’m going against the grain with this pick. I’m still not completely secure about it, but I’m going with the Rockies for a few reasons: a. They’re the hottest NL team going into the postseason, whereas the Phillies have been struggling lately. Momentum can play a big part–just ask the Rockies of ’07. b. Both teams have very good lineups, but Colorado has better pitching overall; all of their regular starters had at least ten wins this year. Plus Houston Street verus Brad Lidge this year is no contest. Look for Colorado to stun the defending world champions and ride their hot streak into the NLCS.  

Dodgers vs. Cardinals: Cardinals. To me this is the easiest one to call, all anti-LA bias aside. St. Louis has a great lineup with Matt Holliday protecting Albert Pujols in the three-hole and a one-two punch of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. What does LA have? Randy Wolf and a slumping Manny Ramirez. I know the Dodgers beat the Cubs in the NLDS last year when no one thought they would, but that was against the cursed Cubbies. The same fate will not await them this year, as they won’t be able to survive against a very good St. Louis team.

ALDS:

Angels vs. Red Sox: Red Sox. Again, no anti-LA bias here. In fact, a small part of me is rooting for the Angels because of Nick Adenhart. But their recent history against Boston in the postseason hasn’t been good; after their 2002 World Series victory, the Angels have been eliminated by Boston three out of three series’ and won only one out of ten games. Between the two teams it seems like, “Anything you can do I can do better.” The Angels have a better offense this year, but the Red Sox have Jason Bay and Victor Martinez. Anaheim has a decent pitching staff, but Boston has Jon Lester, Clay Bucholz and Josh Beckett. I don’t see the Angels having enough to beat the mighty Red Sox, as much as I’d like to not see another Yankees-Red Sox ALCS.  

Twins vs. Yankees: Yankees. On a side note, I feel pretty sorry for the Detroit Tigers and their fans. Tonight they became the first team in MLB history to lose three out of their last four games and lose the division, and it couldn’t have happened to a worse town what with all their economic hardships. But the Twins did deserve it, as they went 17-4 down the stretch to claim the AL Central crown. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough against the Yankees because they’re…well, the Yankees. Yes, the Yankees’ starting pitching isn’t all that strong, but they compensate for that with their offense, bullpen and closer. Plus the Twins haven’t won a game in New York since July 2007. Although I want to see the Yankees go down, it won’t happen, at least not in the NLDS. 

NLCS:

Rockies vs. Cardinals: Cardinals.

ALCS:

Red Sox vs. Yankees: Yankees.

World Series:

Cardinals vs. Yankees: Yankees (as much as I hate to say it, I believe it’ll happen, which means I’ll have to tune out ESPN for about a week).

~

That’s all for now from this Giants fan. I’ll try to continue blogging throughout the postseason even though my team isn’t in it, and I’ll write throughout the offseason from time to time. But I will close out this entry and the 2009 Giants season the same way they do for a home victory: I Left My Heart in San Francisco