“It’s one thing to follow the team from afar, running a finger down the television schedule, checking the score on the radio, setting timers and recordings, reading newspapers. But here beneath the red marquee, the huge expanse of Wrigley Field beating down on her, she’s reminded of what it is to miss something. She hadn’t realized how much a part of her this was: the bleacher seats and the press boxes, the men selling T-shirts and hot dogs and beer.”–from The Comeback Season by Jennifer E. Smith

 

You know that scene in Fever Pitch where Jimmy Fallon gets his Red Sox season tickets in the mail in March, when he hugs the UPS delivery man and runs inside to open them with his friends? When they breathe in the smell of the tickets and smile wanly at the thought of a new season, a clean slate, a redeemed sense of hope?

Well that’s pretty much how I feel right now. It seems like just last week when I was getting psyched about pitchers and catchers reporting to Scottsdale, and now they’re packing up and heading back to San Francisco for the start of the season.

There’s no way I can eloquently articulate how excited I am about the start of the season. I get this way every year, even if I don’t have high expectations for the Giants; it really is just great to have them back. It feels like a friend who moved away has come back to town for the summer and you get to see them again and reminisce about the old times and create some new memories. As corny as that sounds, that’s how Opening Day feels to me; it’s the return of an old friend whose presence you didn’t realize you took for granted until they were already gone.

But anyway, enough of my attempts to wax poetic. I love baseball, you love baseball. If you’re reading this blog, you may very well love the San Francisco Giants like I do (if not, that’s okay too; you’re welcome into the fold). So the following is going to be as much of an non-bias offseason-in-review/season preview of the Giants as I can muster. I’ll try not to ramble too much, but knowing me I probably will…anyway, let me know whatcha think of my musings!

OFFSEASON IN REVIEW

Key Additions: Mark DeRosa, Aubrey Huff, Bengie Molina, Juan Uribe, Todd Wellemeyer

Key Subtractions: Brad Penny (?) <–I’m really reaching on this one; can’t say there was really a key subtraction unless I’m totally forgetting someone  

Best Move: Resigning Bengie Molina (1 yr, $4.25 million); avoiding arbitration with Tim Lincecum (2 yrs, $23 million)

Worst Move: Giving Freddy Sanchez a 2 yr, $12 million deal (although at this point it’s a little early to say if this was a bad move)

KEYS TO THE SEASON (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

1. Can the starting pitching continue to be this stellar?

I know off the bat this probably sounds like a stupid question. I mean, it’s not like we’re the Los Angeles Dodgers whose best pitcher is, according to Joe Torre, Vicente Padilla. We’ve got two-time reigning Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum leading this staff, and he only makes up half of the one-two punch that is him and Matt Cain. Jonathan Sanchez and Barry Zito are a little iffier, but both left Giants fans feeling somewhat hopeful at the end of last season, and Todd Wellemeyer looked really good in spring training (which doesn’t necessarily count for anything, but it’s still something). But my point is that for the Giants to go anywhere this season, their pitching staff as a whole needs to pretty much do just as well as last year; we can’t afford for them not to uphold their dominance. The starting pitching carried this team last year, and even with some offensive upgrades and the resigning of Bengie Molina it’ll still be up to the five guys in the rotation to carry this team. That would mean Lincecum and Cain would have to have a great season again, Zito and Sanchez would need to step up and we’d need to get as much production as possible out of the fifth spot in the rotation. Do I think they can do it? Yes. But I don’t like having to put it all on them.    

2. How much of a hinderance will the defense be?

A lot has been said this offseason and spring training about the Giants’ defense, or possible lack thereof this year. Let’s face it: Aubrey Huff is no J.T Snow at first base, and no one can live up to Omar Vizquel at shortstop (although Omar Vizquel is pretty much a magician as a shortstop, so it’s hard to compare anyone to him, really). Edgar Renteria doesn’t have much range anymore, Aubrey Huff has never been known for his glove and can’t DH anymore, so he’ll have to get better as a defensive first baseman or risk getting pulled in the middle of a game for Travis Ishikawa. Freddy Sanchez is hurt for the next month, so Uribe will be manning second and can do a decent job defensively there. The Panda’s got third covered pretty well, but then you’ve got Mark DeRosa in the outfield which he’s not used to. Really the best guy in the starting lineup defensively on the Giants is Nate Schierholz, and he might be replaced by John Bowker in right field for Opening Day. The defense could be some cause for concern, as the pitching staff needs to be able to rely on a good infield and outfield around them to turn those double plays quickly and make some tough catches in the San Francisco fog. Otherwise it could end up costing them runs, and with the offense still not entirely proven they can’t afford to give up many runs each game because of simple defensive miscues.

3. The great catcher debate

Giants fans seemed pretty split when news broke that Bengie Molina would be a Giant this year, after all; either they supported the return of Bengie to give Buster Posey more time to develop or they disliked it because they felt like Posey was ready to go. As I said during the offseason, I supported Bengie’s return because I don’t feel like Posey has really proven himself at the Major League level and could use some more mentoring instead of being given the starting job right away on Opening Day. Bengie has been the most valuable Giant for the past couple years both for his offensive power and the way he handles our pitching staff, and while I think Buster Posey could replace Molina offensively, I think he could use more time to get used to catching the various pitchers on this staff before being thrust into the starting role. That being said, I think Posey should be kept on the 40-man roster upon leaving Scottsdale because he has hit well in spring training and would be a good-back up both as catcher and at first base if need be. He could be catcher when Bengie needs a day off or come in as an in-game replacement or pinch hitter. If they decide to send Posey back to the minors for now, I wouldn’t gripe too much at the coaching staff for that decision; however I would hope that he’d be called back up soon. 

It’ll be interesting to see how this catcher story plays out this season. Bengie Molina knows his replacement is already waiting in the wings and that he’ll be expected to mentor him, and if Posey shows he’s capable of being a starter at the pro level then it’ll definitely put pressure on the coaching staff and management to give him playing time, perhaps over Molina depending on how far we are through the season and how we’re doing.

4. Will the veterans step up to the plate?

One of the main complaints from Giants fans over the past few years is that Brian Sabean has signed too many veterans past their prime. He brought veterans onto the team to build around Barry Bonds, but that didn’t really work out and we were still stuck with some of them after he left. And although the team has definitely brought up some young players who have turned out to be good hitters (a la Pablo Sandoval), the offense is still pretty dependent upon the success of older players like Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Freddy Sanchez and Bengie Molina. Now Aubrey Huff and Mark DeRosa can be added to that list, and the pressure’s especially going to be on them to perform since they were signed this offseason to be offensive upgrades. There are reasons to be hesitant about how well all of these players will do; DeRosa is coming off wrist surgery, Huff is joining the National League for the first time and will be in a winning environment for the first time in his career and Edgar Renteria and Aaron Rowand did not meet expectations with the bat last season. There are some signs of hope, however; for example, Rowand hit well in spring and showed up to Scottsdale a lot slimmer and more fit. It looks like Bochy is going to plug him in at the leadoff spot for now, which is where he had a decent amount of success in ’09. Besides that Aubrey Huff has also been hitting well in spring training, and Renteria and DeRosa both have spring training averages hovering around .280. Again, I know you can’t take spring training into account too heavily, but it’s at least a good sign that some of the veterans look like they’ll be making offensive improvements on last season, as pretty much all of them (excluding Molina) need to have [much] better years in order for the Giants to have a somewhat threatening lineup.

5. Sanchez vs. Sanchez

I’ve heard some local media guys say that thiscoming season really depends on Freddy Sanchez and Jonathan Sanchez, and I think that’s definitely true. We gave up one of our top prospects to get Freddy Sanchez midway through last season, and he didn’t really have an impact last year due to injury. Now he’s banged up again (which the Giants organization kept hush-hush for about a month, possibly to get a better deal with Juan Uribe as Andrew Baggarly with the San Jose Mercury news implied) and will miss the first month of the season. Needless to say, he will need to bounce back and start helping the team with his bat pretty quickly upon coming off the DL.

When it comes to Jonathan Sanchez, he showed promise at several points during 2009, most memorably of course with his no-hitter in July. At the same time, however it still seems like whenever he gets into a difficult situation he can’t dig his way out of it; his first time through the lineup is great, but by the fifth or sixth inning he starts to come undone and then falls apart altogether. It’s time for Sanchez to become a more consistent pitcher and add to this starting rotation’s prowess, and if he can do that this year could be a breakout one for him.  

OVER OR UNDER? LAST YEAR’S STATS VS. THE YEAR TO COME

1. Bengie Molina home run total in 2009: 20 

This year: Under

Why: Bengie Molina isn’t getting any younger, and with a catcher waiting in the wings in Buster Posey, Molina may get more days off to rest his legs in favor of giving Posey a chance to start, especially if Buster does make the 40-man roster and his great spring training can carry over to San Francisco.

2. Tim Lincecum’s strikeout total in 2009: 261

This year: Under

Why: It’s hard to come up with an argument against Tim Lincecum being just as good as last year. And while I do think he’ll have fewer strikeouts than last season, I don’t think it’ll necessarily be significantly less. My reasoning for why take the under? Just that he has another season of wear on his arm and that his velocity was down in spring training, which may mean his stuff might not be as entirely dominant as 2009. I hope I’m wrong, of course; I didn’t think he could win another Cy Young last year and he did, so I definitely could be mistaken.

3. Fred Lewis’ strikeout total in 2009: 84 (in 295 AB’s) 

This year: Under

Why: I only say under because a. I think he’ll get less playing time this year and b. I don’t think he’ll be a San Francisco Giant much longer, if he even is at all going into the start of the season. Time to bid farewell to the man KNBR’s Damon Bruce appropriately refers to as “K-Fred.”

4. Barry Zito’s win total in 2009: 10

This year: Over

Why: I’m not sure if this is based on a lot of concrete evidence; I think it’s more of a “gotta have faith” situation. But if you want some concrete stats, 2009 backs up my belief that this season could be the best one he’s had in a Giants uniform so far (which I know isn’t saying much, but still). If you compare 2009 to 2008, he cut his ERA down dramatically (from 5.15 to 4.03), his earned runs (103 to 86) and his opponents’ batting average (.270 to .250). So here’s hoping Zito can pitch better and have better run support behind him this year so he can get past the 10-win mark that he’s been stuck at the past two seasons.

5. Jonathan Sanchez’s win total in 2009: 8

This year: Over

Why: We all know that Jonathan Sanchez has good stuff and is capable of being a great pitcher. We’ve seen glimmers of it before with his improbable no-hitter last season as the primary example; his problem has just been a matter of keeping everything under control and not letting the game unravel if someone gets a hit or walk against him. I think this year will be the one where Sanchez really steps up, though. He’s appeared really confident in spring training, according to local media guys who’ve been in Scottsdale; he knows he has a good arm with some power that could wreak havoc on hitters. Now’s his time to put it all together and show that he can be a mainstay for this rotation for years to come, like Cain and Lincecum have proven.

6. Aaron Rowand’s batting average in 2009: .261

This year: Over

Why: I really hope I’m right on this one, because I’m putting a lot of stock into Rowand’s spring training and ignoring the fact that his stats have been trending downward for the past few years. He showed up to Scottsdale in great shape, dropping some pounds to try and become a better hitter and perhaps attempt to steal some bases. And if his spring training stats are any indication–he’s hitting .444 as opposed to .189 last year at this time, with 20 hits and 9 RBI’s in 16 games–he may be able to get back into the groove he was in as the leadoff hitter for a time with us last year, as it looks like that’s where Bochy is going to put him come Opening Day.

7. Giants’ win total in 2009: 88

This year: Over 

Why: Las Vegas has the Giants’ over-under for wins in 2010 at 82.5, which to me shows one thing–numbers can lie. Like I said before, I’m trying to put aside my bias and look at this objectively, and in doing so I really, truly think the Giants will have a better season than last year. Hell, on paper they should; they didn’t have any significant losses in terms of losing players to free agency, and they only improved their offense with the additions of Mark DeRosa and Aubrey Huff. Bengie’s back, Uribe’s back and our starting rotation and bullpen look just as solid if not better than before. Theoretically if we were able to get almost ninety wins out of last year’s team and we went out and made improvements during the winter, then why shouldn’t we be able to win more games than 2009?

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…so there’s my big season preview. I just want to say in closing that I am really excited about what 2010 has in store for my Gigantes. Honestly I don’t want to get my hopes up, but after last year’s surprise push for the playoffs it’s hard not to be anticipating more of the same for this year. I’m not saying it’s time to start printing postseason tickets whatsoever, but I do think the Giants could be playing some interesting baseball come late September. For the sake of myself and all the other diehard Giants fans who haven’t sniffed the playoffs since 2003, let’s hope this is the case.