Your 2018 Giants: This Day in Giants History

On this day in Giants history, the Giants were 6 games behind the division leading Padres, and they had the most amazing finish to catch up with the Padres and win the division on the final day of the 2010 season.

Today, the Giants are 6 games behind the division leader, but this time they are the Rockies and D-bancks, and the Dodgers are only a game behind them, giving them three obstacles to get around, which is much much harder to do, as they need all three teams ahead of them to start scuffling while the Giants need to dazzle and show some magic.  Can they do it?

Your 2018 Giants: Offense Greatly Improved

After the Giants early offensive struggles (albeit, against one of the top rotations in the majors in one of the more extreme pitcher's parks in the majors), many were shouting, "The Giants Offense sucks!  The offense sucks!"  I disagree.

Your 2018 Giants: Chances Are

The way I wear my silly grin, I liked the Giants chances before the injuries, but with the injuries to Bumgarner and Samardzija, it is all hands on deck, but still, I like our chances.

Your 2015 Giants: The August Gauntlet

{Note:  I had this written up for publication before Friday's game, but then the Leake trade happened.  Apologies in advance for any numbers not updated to current figures as of publication, I'll update where I can.}

Every year, the Giants have a schedule full of games in August, leaving only two days off the whole month.  That's why I've been suggesting a modified 6-man rotation during this period, to give our SP regular rest.  This season, people are also worried because the Giants are facing teams who are all contenders:  Rangers, Braves, Cubs, Astros, Nationals, Cards, Pirates, Dodgers, during the month of August (only the Braves are too far out of a playoff spot).  That would be 27 out of 30 are contenders.  Plus 18 of 30 (I'm including the Rangers first game of the series) are on the road.

The following was a comment I posted on Raising Matt Cain, and expanded (as I am wont to do) because I tweak.  Plus, then, you know, the Leake trade happened, so this post got delayed to today instead, with some final tweaks.

Your 2014 Giants: Beating the Better Teams

One thing I've been seeing in the media lately is "the Giants got to start beating the winning teams."  Thought I would look into that.

Your 2012 Giants Are In The Playoffs!

With the Giants 8-3 victory today, after the D-gers lost to the Reds (who, FYI, clinched their division title with their victory), they have clinched the NL West Division title!  This is their second title in three years, in fact, the three years of 2010-2012, as the team are well on their way towards my prediction of their being the Team of the Decade for the 2010 decade.  Schulman noted that this is their 5th NL West Division title in 16 years with Sabean as GM, 8th overall for the San Francisco franchise since divisional play started, which, by my math,  means that 62.5% of our NL West Division titles have come during Sabean's reign.

The Giants are now 25-10 after the Melk-Gone, winning 6 in a row to clinch in a flourish.  They are now 74-46 since Cain exhorted his team when they were 15-17, and pitched and hit his way to a victory on May 12th.   They are 34-18 since they traded for Marco Scutaro, 33-16 since they traded for Hunter Pence, and 18-8 since the D-gers traded for A-Gon et al and "assured themselves" of relevancy in the 2012 pennant race.  They are now looking behind the 8-ball for even making the playoffs, let alone not even coming close to the NL West Division title.

The Giants and D-gers were last tied for the NL West Division lead on August 14th, which also happened to be Melky's last game for the Giants.  As noted, the Giants went 25-10 after that huge blow.  The D-gers soon picked up A-Gon et al in their big blockbuster trade, in fact, the lead went back and forth for the week after Melk-Gone, with the D-gers last holding the lead on August 19th, yet went 14-21 during that period, 10-16 after gaining A-Gon, meaning they played even worse after the trade, whereas the Giants played better once Melky was gone.

The media noted that Melky never said good-bye or met with the team to explain himself.  Perhaps that bonded the team together in a way that they had not achieved before then, as, frankly, the Giants were seen as cheats who did not belong where they were.  With their performance since, I think they have put an exclamation point that they did and do deserve it because, in the end, they earned it by running away with the division in the wake of both the Melk-Gone and the A-Gon et al.  They did it in a very decisive way, by nearly being the first team to clinch the division title in the NL this season, and still did it the same day.  Melky was a useful addition, for sure, the Giants showed what they were made up in the wake of his scandal, a scandal that would have sunk lesser teams.

Your 2012 Giants Are 77-60: Beat LA!

The Giants have been up and down lately, but so has the D-gers, unable to lift off the ground, as they had expected, when they made the blockbuster trade with Boston, k.  The Giants are 6-5 since the Boston-LA blockbuster trade, LA has been 5-7.  The key thing, however, is that the Giants are 13-7 since the Melk-down, while LA went 9-12, as they were tied when the Melk hit the fan and now the Giants are 4.5 games ahead of the D-gers.

Your 2012 Giants Are Leading: Dumping the D-backs

The Giants have done a good job showing the majors that it was not Melky responsible for their good showing up to now, that it was their team.  Now they are facing their two closest rivals for the NL West Division Title this week, starting with the D-backs.

The Giants lead is so much that the only realistic way the D-backs can win the division now is to win (i.e. sweep), the remaining nine games they have left with the Giants, starting with these three in SF.  Gibson's luck last year (12 games over .500 in one-run games) regressed to the mean this season (10 games below .500 in 2012), so they have been swimming upstream for the most part and not succeeding.  Each Giants win means another nail in the coffin that is their division title hopes, and the Giants could really bury them by winning the series.

Your 2012 Giants are 71-57: Houston and Chicago Got Problems

I'm not going to go in-depth on the next two series because both teams have got a lot of problems winning games (Houston is 6-24 in their last 30 games - and 4-16 at home - Chicago 9-21 in last 30 games- though 11-9 at home in their last 20 games there).  Basically, the Giants ideally need to go 4-2 in the six games, because they will be headed into tough series against NL West teams for the rest of the season.

ReCained Confidence Building

Over a week ago, Matt Cain said with his actions, "I ain't taking this anymore" and took things into his own hands.  As I noted in this post, on May 12th, he not only pitched a good game, he drove in 2 runs and set an example for the rest of the team by upending the secondbaseman in breaking up a double-play.  Shades of Ty Cobb!  I suggested that maybe he has redefined what it means to be "Cained" (which many fans use in describing when the Giants don't score enough runs for him - and sometimes others - to win a game).

Bochy dubbed Cain's efforts as "old school" and I wondered in my post whether it fired up the moribund Giants, which, even before Sandoval got injured, was basically playing around .500 all season.  Now, more than a week later, I think it has.

2012 Playoff Odds With New Playoff System

The MLB has recently announced that they will implement the new playoff system for the 2012 system, where there are now two wild card teams, and they will play each other for the right to be in the 4 team playoffs that decides who gets into the World Series, at which point it is like the playoffs before.

The Wall Street Journal today had an outside analyst use player projections to estimate the odds of a team making the playoffs, both in the old system and the new system (simulating 3,000 seasons).   The Giants saw their odds increased slightly from 53% to 57%.  They are the team viewed as most likely to make the playoffs in the NL West (which aligns with what I've been saying for most of this off-season):

NL West - Old - New
Giants - 53% - 57%
D-Backs - 27% - 32%
D-Rox - 12% - 12%
'Dres - 8% - 10%
D-gers - 6% - 7%

Why 2011 Giants Look Good Still for Repeating NL West Division Title

Many Giants fans are worried about the Giants offense.  But, there is no real reason to, it was never our offense that drove the success of the Giants from 2009-2011 (and really since post-ASG 2008 when the team was .500 from July 22 on; they were 40-58 prior to that), it has been our pitching.

Our wonderful, young, homegrown, and ignored pitching.

Homegrown and Young

Oh, yeah, Lincecum would get a lot of attention - Cy Young's have a way of doing that - but really, the vast majority of Giants fans have ignored the pitching.  There were many complaints about the age of the team, but we have had mostly young pitchers on our staff, it was just the lineup that was old, mainly because we had no young hitters to bring up.

Now the Sabean Naysayers would say that this was his fault.  And yeah, I can go for that, as long as they would acknowledge that he had to focus on pitching.  The draft is no way to re-build a team on the quick.  There is no Bill Walsh miracle draft of finding 6-7 starters for the next year team from your latest draft.  Baseball is totally different in that not only does it take years for draftees to graduate to the majors, very few of them do.  And when you are winning, fewer still because the odds of finding a good player when you are winning is roughly one quarter that of when you are one of the worse team in the majors.

So when confronted with scarce resources, he did what one has to, have a strategy to manage that.  Most teams don't, but the Giants focused on pitching, pitching, and more pitching, then once they got that going, been focusing on hitting, hitting, and more hitting, though keeping some pitching in the pipeline as well.  I think that is a sound strategy and one that he has executed well.

Complaints that there were not that many homegrown talents, but as I noted, our main producers in the pitching staff was predominantly homegrown:  Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo.  And really, these people don't even know that most teams don't even have that many homegrown players on their 25-man roster, the Giants are probably one of the teams with the most homegrown players (signed and developed):  last season they had basically 10, including Posey, Sandoval, Schierholtz, Ishikawa, Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo.  And Belt, Crawford, Brown, Neal, and Panik look to be joining sooner or later.

Complaints about the offense, but as I showed in my business plan, when you have a great defense - pitching and fielding combined - you don't need to have even an average offense, even a lousy offense would be able to win with this pitching and fielding.

Offense Just Needs To Be Enough

At 38-29, the Giants just need to go 48-47 over the rest of the season to end up at 86-76.  That would have been enough to win the NL West last season if you took Adrian Gonzalez out of the SD lineup.  And none of the NL West teams have improved, in my estimation, from what they were in 2010, if anything, there are a lot of regression, whether due to trades (Manny, A-Gon) or over-performances (CarGon, Ubaldo; Duke, Owings, Roberts), which will bring down their record in 2011.  Plus, I think the Giants can do even better over the next 95 games.

The defense - pitching and fielding - has been yielding 3.55 runs allowed per game this season. And they should be able to continue at near this rate for the rest of the season, despite Vogelsong's over-performance, as they were at 3.60 RA last season.

Using the Fangraphs rest of season projections for the probable starting lineup, I get that the lineup would average 3.97 runs scored per game.  That works out to a .547 winning percentage, meaning the Giants would end up 52-43, for a final record of 90-72.  Even if the team regressed to 3.60, that still leaves the Giants at 89-90 wins.

And that assumes that Sandoval is only a .297/.350/.478/.838 hitter, as projected.  He is currently hitting .310/.375/.517/.892 and if he continues doing that, it should add one more win, pushing us to 91-71.  And if he hits closer to his .330/.387/.556/.943 of 2009, that would add another win, pushing us to 92-70.

What people forget is that projections just blindly apply stats, and includes what Panda did in 2010 as being representative of his talent level, when he clearly suffered offensively whenever something happened in his life, whether finalizing his divorce or dealing with the fact that his mother almost perished in the San Bruno pipeline blast.  I would bet that he will end the season closer to his current batting line than the projected batting line.

That also assumes we only get putrid offense from the catching and shortstop positions (Whiteside and Crawford).  The catching, well, it is what it is, until the Giants do something about it, whether via a trade or promoting Hector Sanchez, who they suddenly promoted to AAA recently, even though he wasn't doing that particularly well in San Jose, and which I speculate is in preparation for bringing him up to the majors at some point (of course, if he don't hit that well, then experiment over).  Crawford, however, has shown some ability to hit better than forecasted (.224/.290/.341/.631) in his small samples of hitting so far.  If he can keep his average around .700 OPS, that would add another win as well.

Now, with the good, there is the bad, which is what if Ryan Vogelsong suddenly turned back into the pumpkin that he was previously and not the shiny carriage he has been this season for us.  Given his success so far, I have to think that while he won't continue as well, he looks like he'll be a darn good enough #5 starter for us.  But if not, having Zito return to where he was the past two seasons would help towards the #5 spot not cratering for us, like it has for other teams that lost a good starting pitcher.

Giants Look Good for NL West Crown

All in all, I think the Giants are in good shape for repeating as NL West Division champs.  Their pitching is great as usual.  Their defense improved with Schierholtz in RF, Ross in LF, Crawford at SS, and slimmer Sandoval at 3B.  Even if the offense does not turn on, a .500 record for the rest of the season should keep us aloft enough to win the division at 86 wins, as none of the other NL West teams, as I had projected pre-season, are doing it, and the D-backs are doing it with over-performances so far, and I think Collmenter's blow-up yesterday is just the beginning of them sliding back to the rest of the other teams in the division standings.

And once the Giants are in the playoffs, their pitching is going to be good enough to keep us in games long enough to win a good number.  We might not repeat as World Series Champs - as I noted in a post pre-season, most champs don't repeat, not just from history, but from just understanding how the playoff system works via probability - but we should be able to give it a good run again, particularly if Sandoval can return to his 2009 form, as I think our offense will be that much better with him in there, taking the pressure off Huff, Ross, and others.

Go Giants!

Your 2011 Giants are 37-29: Rattling the D-backs

Amazing that the D-backs are the Giants closest competitor right now, but like the 'Dres in 2009, they were actually playing around .500 in the last part of the 2010 season, so I thought that with some prospects doing well this season, they could contend for a while, before falling back.  Of course, SD lasted to the last day of the season, so you never know.

They actually were not doing that well until they added three pitchers to their rotation who have done well for them:  Josh Collmenter, Zach Duke, and Micah Owings.  They have been a collective 7-2 and probably even better team record with them pitching, as they have been doing great.  It is like the D-backs had added three Ryan Vogelsong's to the rotation.  As unlikely it is to get one, it is just as unlikely that the three will continue for the whole season.

Collmenter looks like he could be the real deal.  He has been pretty good in the lower minors, and could just be figuring it out up here, as he has struggle a bit the past couple of seasons down in upper minors.  I can buy that he's just reaching his potential, much like Matt Latos for SD last season.

Now, it could be that Duke and Owings, finally figured it out at age 28, much like Vogelsong figuring it out at age 33.  But that is highly unlikely, just as it was unlikely that Clayton Richards and Wade LeBlanc were top of rotation starters.  And once they start to revert to mean, their record will fall as well, however, both Richards and LeBlanc pitched well to mid-season before reverting, so you never know.

Game 1:  Cain vs. Collmenter

Matt Cain:  Cain had his best start of the year Wednesday, striking out 11 over nine innings, the 13th complete-game effort of his career. Cain had all four pitches working, got the first-pitch strikes he wanted and even aided his own cause with an RBI double.

Joshua Collmenter:  Collmenter continued his string of impressive outings, hurling five-plus innings and throwing 102 pitches as he settled for a no-decision in a 2-0 victory at Pittsburgh on Thursday. Collmenter has allowed just four total runs in his six starts.

Collmenter has never faced the Giants in a start before - 2 shutout innings though in relief - and has a 0.00 ERA at home, a renown hitter's park.  His numbers are good, mind you, in terms of K/BB, but not that good, so at some point he will be giving up some hits and runs there.  In addition, he's not much of a strikeout pitching, so he relies on his defense a lot to handle his BIP.  But he has a lot of infield flies, which contribute to him being a flyball pitcher, but that which results in a lot of runs not being given up.

Matt Cain is having one of his better seasons ever, despite having a higher ERA overall.  He has not done well against AZ in AZ, 4.02 ERA in his career, but his last poor start there was in 2009, with a good start in 2010 and a good start already in 2011.  Have to think he is at the top of his game right now, so this game should be a battle with Collmenter if he continues his home dominance.  But if Collmenter, who has only had two starts at home so far, finally falters, the Giants should win.

Game 2:  Bumgarner vs. Saunders

Madison Bumgarner:  Bumgarner has set new standards for futility. He has absorbed four defeats while allowing one earned run or fewer. The last pitcher to lose that many games despite such stinginess? Teammate Matt Cain in 2007.

Joe Saunders:  Saunders was hurt by the home run in his last outing, a 6-4 loss to the Marlins in Florida. Saunders, who had won his previous three decisions, allowed three homers, accounting for all five of the runs he allowed on 10 hits over six innings.

Joe Saunders has been a great disappointment to the D-backs as a return in the Haren trade.  Good for us, but that could have been seen beforehand, Saunders has never been that good even with the Angels.  He has had a better ERA at home though, amazingly enough, with a 4.03 ERA in AZ.  He has had only one game against SF so far in his career, and the Giants beat him like a rug, 5 R/ER in 6.2 IP in Arizona.

Madison Bumgarner has been great since his early season adjustment period that apparently is a recurring thing for him.  Apparently he cannot get his big body going well until a few weeks into the season.  He has a career 2.28 ERA against AZ, 2.38 ERA for games in AZ, so he has done pretty well against them in his short career.  Should be a win for the Giants unless Saunders figure out the Giants, but that sole game was earlier this season, so it is with this lineup that he was beat (though now Posey and Sanchez are out of the lineup).

Game 3:  Vogelsong vs. Kennedy

Ryan Vogelsong:  Vogelsong's streak of allowing one run or fewer ended at six in a row in his last outing. Vogelsong still owns an ERA of 0.99 in his last seven starts. He's 2-0 with a 3.27 ERA in his road assignments.

Ian Kennedy:  Kennedy battled on a hot, humid South Florida night in his last outing against the Marlins. He picked up the win despite allowing five runs over eight innings. Most of the damage came on back-to-back homers by Gaby Sanchez and Mike Stanton.

Have to give this game to their ace of staff, Kennedy.  As great as Vogelsong has done, got to expect the wheel to fall off at some point.  But until it does, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Still, Kennedy is very formidable.  He has a 3.66 ERA in AZ, pitching at home, which is basically the same as his ERA on the road, so he has figured out his home.  And he has a 1.99 ERA against the Giants at home in 3 starts.

Vogelsong will have to have a great start here for the Giants to have any chance of winning.  He has not pitched against AZ this season, and, of course, what he did here previously don't see to have any meaning given how well he is doing this season, but for completeness, he has done very well there, 0.90 ERA over three games from 2004-2006, one start 7 IP, only 1 R/ER.  And that was when he was pitching very poorly.

So maybe a glimmer of hope, but given how good Kennedy has been against the Giants and at home, have to think that D-backs win this game.

Giants Thoughts

A short road trip of 3 games after a nice homestand of 6-4, which is pretty good considering we didn't have Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, and Freddy Sanchez over that whole homestand.  It would be nice to come out of it with a series win, but it looks like that hinges on whether Matt Cain and the Giants can win the first game, as the second game looks like the Giants can certainly win, while third game I would have to give to D-backs since Kennedy has been so good - not that Vogelsong hasn't been equally if not not better but I think caution is still necessary regarding what we can expect out of him, particularly up against the other team's ace.  A sweep is possible by the Giants, but not likely given how good Kennedy has been against the Giants previously:  Cain and Bumgarner will need to do the job in this series.

It helps immensely that Pablo Sandoval returns from DL (Conor Gillaspie was sent down) and he hit well for power in the minors, suggesting he should be pretty good for us, sooner or later, giving our offense a huge boost.  In addition, it would take the weight of the offense of Huff's shoulders, and perhaps he will stop swinging so poorly, overall, for this season.  His 4 HR outburst gave some hope, but it appeared to just make him more swing-happy, which just led to more outs.

Thus far this month, only Cody Ross has been our most consistent offensive contributor.  Nobody has really been doing it for the offense, though Miguel Tejada's bat might be finally awakening, and not a moment too soon, now with Freddy Sanchez out.  He has had hits in 8 of 9 games now, plus two consecutive games of 2 doubles, showing power he has not really been showing, so it could be a fluke too.  However, as I've been noting, he has not been fooled that greatly batting, his strikeout rate is still pretty good, and the hope is that the BABIP gods smile on him now as much as it was angry at him earlier in the season.

The question now is that with Sandoval at 3B and Crawford holding SS for now, where would he even start at, unless he can learn how to play 2B relatively quickly.  Bill Hall, who the Giants signed quickly after Sanchez's shoulder injury, looks to get starts at 2B, in any case.  Some speculation I've seen is that given Huff's struggles, he might sit against LHP, with Tejada at 3B and Sandoval at 1B (he started there in one of his rehab starts in the minors).  But seeing that his bat appears to be awakening, I would rather find out how Tejada can handle 2B, I mean, he was a SS before, after all, so he should be able to handle 2B too.

Aubrey Huff has also been on a nice hit streak too, 6 games of 7, after that poor 3 game stretch after his 3-homer game.  The BABIP gods had not been good for him either until recently, but his stretch of good hitting actually extends back to his May 27th game:  only 3 strikeouts in 63 AB, and two of them happened in the oh-fer-streak after the 3-homer game.  If he can continue that nice bit of hitting, things should start to balance out for him, BABIP-wise, and would be a nice combination with Sandoval in the middle of the lineup.

And while Nate Schierholtz has not been hitting that well in June, his strikeout rate is actually about his norm for season and OK, so he's also been beat up by the BABIP gods as well.  I think if Bochy continues to put him in the starting lineup, he will produce, as long as he's not banged up in any way.  I think Bochy is trusting him more, he's been starting him in the 3-spot in a number of lineups.

The key is having Sandoval back in the middle, I think.  Andres Torres has been OK leading off, though it would be nice to get a bit more power, and Tejada has been OK batting 2nd.  Placing Schierholtz 3rd is actually good because you want your low OBP, high SLG guys batting there.  Then Sandoval clean-up and Huff 5th, plus Cody Ross 6th.  That leaves the second baseman 7th and the catcher 8th.  Should be a much better offense once Sandoval is in there, hitting for power and consistently good.

After AZ, get three against A's in Oakland, so like home games, plus they have been struggling mightily, so it would be nice to perhaps sweep them, though a series win is good enough.  Then got the Twins, who have been struggling with injury bug as much as the Giants, and the Indians, who had been great early in the season, but as been terrible lately.  Then Cubs before facing good club again in Tigers.  That's 13 games against clubs that have been hurting lately, Giants need to make some hay against them, especially with Sandoval back, starting with D-backs, since the rotation matchups favor us a little.

Giants Still Look Good to Win NL West Division Title

I still like the Giants chances to win the division and make the playoffs, even with all the injuries.  What some people don't realize is the beauty of the team roster that Sabean has put together for the Giants.  When you have a great starting rotation like the Giants have, and pair it with a great bullpen, you don't need much of a lineup to win with it.  They won a lot of games in 2009 with a poor offense, and a lot more games in 2010 with an average one.  Just mix and match pieces, bring in people until you find the right one, and you can win easily with that great pitching.

It also helps that I don't think much of the other teams in the NL West.  I stated this before the season and I think it still holds now, that the other NL West teams are not that good, even Colorado.  I thought that they might be doing more, but I'm not surprised either, their 2010 season was boosted by a number of outlier performances, particularly Ubaldo Jimenez's sizzling first half, which would need to be replicated somehow this season, either offensively or pitching, before they can hope to beat last season's win total.

And LA has stunk as I had forecasted, as they stunk without Manny even though they had Lilly, and especially with the injuries this season.   They didn't add anyone remotely likely to match Manny's production, so I was laughing when they signed Uribe and took him off our hands.  They really needed Huff's 2010 production, not Uribe's.

And SD was just fooling themselves thinking that they could compete after trading Adrian Gonzalez.  They just brought up one of the guys they traded him for, Anthony Rizzo, who I like and has done well so far, but he's striking out a lot, so I expect the league to catch up with him at some point and cool him off.

But even with that, if the Giants play .500 the rest of the way, which would put the Giants at 85-77, they still need to make up the 8.5 games and go 56-39 to catch up, that's a .589 winning percentage, or 95-96 win season: they weren't good enough to win 95 games with Adrian Gonzalez last season, they aren't going to be good enough to win at a 95 game pace without him this season.  It would be hoping too much for Rizzo to duplicate A-Gon's production, especially at 21.

And I don't think the Giants will play at a .500 rate the rest of the season.  I think they are capable of playing higher than that. With boosts to the offense, due to Sandoval etc, I think the Giants should be able to reach 90 wins again, which should be more than enough to win the division.  Even if they played .500 and ended up 85-77, they should still be in the mix for the title, I just don't think much of the other teams unless one of their young guys come up and suddenly dominate.

Your 2011 Giants Offense: Together, They Are Giants

The Giants offense is often maligned, and rightfully so in recent years.  That is one of the biggest complaints of the offseason, that the Giants did "nothing" to improve, particularly in the offense.  That is just not true, just because you kept the same players as you ended the season does not mean that you did "nothing" to upgrade the offense.  Particularly if they would have examined the projections and the actual 2010 Giants stats, one would clearly see that the Giants did not stand pat, they didn't stand pat mid-2010 and those changes reverberate in the 2011 team roster and lineup.

These are the Giants overall offensive production by position from 2010:

Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+	sOPS+
as C	.274	.333	.430	.764	.293	109	117
as 1B	.291	.357	.457	.815	.322	123	103
as 2B	.283	.338	.396	.734	.320	102	104
as 3B	.262	.321	.401	.722	.289	98	95
as SS	.260	.318	.419	.736	.282	102	112
as LF	.264	.365	.485	.850	.292	133	121
as CF	.250	.304	.434	.738	.294	101	100
as RF	.246	.314	.393	.708	.282	94	81
as DH	.091	.167	.227	.394	.059	8	4
as P	.122	.144	.135	.278	.210	-22	60
as PH	.262	.343	.401	.744	.305	105	133
as Infield	.274	.334	.421	.754	.301	107	106
as Outfield	.253	.328	.437	.764	.289	109	100
at Def. Pos.	.267	.323	.420	.743	.298	104	108
at Off. Pos.	.266	.340	.434	.773	.296	112	100

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/1/2011.

What people are missing is that there was a lot of non-productive PA in 2010 that went to people no longer with the team or who won't be playing there much in 2011.  The infield has plenty of upside.  Bengie Molina spent a lot of time at C, 212 PA, bringing down the stats with his .264/.321/.342/.663 batting line.  Buster Posey should hit much better than .274/.333/.430/.764.  Both Travis Ishikawa and Pablo Sandoval stunk up 1B offensively in 2010, 161 PA, but neither should do as much in 2011.  Juan Uribe hurt 3B with his 88 PA and .215/.295/.329/.625 batting line.  In addition, Pablo Sandoval should do much better than his .268/.323/.414/.737 at 3B in 2010.  He is in Kung Fu Fighting form this spring and I hope the Giants can sign him to an extension this spring. 

The outfield also has upside.  Aaron Rowand had 332 PA in CF, batting .230/.278/.369/.647; Andres Torres would have to fall a lot from his overall .268/.343/.479/.823 batting line and .264/.321/.489/.810 in CF to not improve on the .250/.304/.434/.738 we got from CF in 2010.  And as down a season Cody Ross the Boss had in 2010 before joining the Giants, it still wasn't as bad as the overall .246/.314/.393/.708 we got in RF in 2010, and that includes Ross' .353/.353/.529/.882 he added to the RF mix.  Even in a down year he hit .269/.322/.413/.735 and his strikeout and walk rates were right in line with his prior good seasons.  What was missing, for some reason, was his power, his ISO, XBH%, X/H% were all down, same for his HR/FB until he joined the Giants, but even with that boost, his XBH% was not that great with the Giants.

The only spot that is looking like a pretty sure regression to the mean is LF with .264/.365/.485/.850, only because it is so high and Pat Burrell was just so bad before joining the Giants.  However, I would note that Burrell's .266/.364/.509/.872 for the Giants in 2010 is basically that which he delivered in Philly's offensive homepark prior to his Tampa Bay crash and burn:

Year	Tm	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2005	PHI	.281	.389	.504	.892	128
2006	PHI	.258	.388	.502	.890	122
2007	PHI	.256	.400	.502	.902	128
2008	PHI	.250	.367	.507	.875	125
2009	TBR	.221	.315	.367	.682	81
2010	TOT	.252	.348	.469	.817	119
2010	TBR	.202	.292	.333	.625	74
2010	SFG	.266	.364	.509	.872	132

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/1/2011.

The Giants Did Not Stand Pat

The Giants are not standing still, or worse yet, regressing.  Sure, there are some regressions, but for the most part, they are mild.  Few project Huff to beat that 1B batting line, but most have him right around .800 OPS, so I would call that a push.  Same for Freddy Sanchez at 2B, most have his just under the .734 OPS 2B delivered in 2010.  Same goes for SS and Miguel Tejada, again, just under the .736 OPS SS delivered in 2010.

However, Buster Posey is projected to easily beat .800 OPS in 2011 and despite Pablo Sandoval's poor 2010, most projections still have him producing easily over .800 OPS in 2011.  Both would be huge jumps over 2010.  Same for Andres Torres in CF, most projections are for high 700 or around 800 OPS in 2011, also a huge jump on 2010's CF.  Cody Ross is projected for mid-700 OPS in 2011, a big boost over 2010's RF totals.  Any one of these improvements would make up for the projected loss in LF and the slight drops in the infield positions.  Plus then there is Brandon Belt coming up something mid-season if he's an improvement.  People are missing these huge improvements over 2010's overall offense while focusing on the older players plus not realizing that there is not much regression versus what the Giants produced at those positions in 2010.

Run Score Per Game Improvement
I plugged in the OBP and SLG, projected by a number of different well known sources of such information, into the lineup calculator and the majority of them have the team much improved over their 4.30 RS/game in 2010:

Bill James = 4.74 (been known to be high)
Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler) = 4.56 (I like their system because it takes age and minors into account)
ZIPS = 4.52
Marcel = 4.46
Baseball Prospectus = 4.28 (no wonder they don't like Giants every year, it seems, and demanded that Brian Sabean be fired in their 2010 annual; I wonder what they will put in their 2011 annual)

With the Giants 3.77 RA that they had in 2009 (assuming some sort of regression from 2010's 3.60 RA), the Giants would win 90 games with BP's low 4.28 RS/game and 96-7 games with Bill James calculated RS.  With Shandler/ZIPS mid forecast:  93-94 wins in 2011.  And if the Giants pitching hold up the way I think they will, and repeat their 3.60 RA from 2010 (remember, there is potential for improvement because of the loss of Wellemeyer and the poor relievers), that works out to 93 wins, 99-100 wins, and 96-97 wins. 

Projections Are Naturally Conservative
I would note that these projections' assumptions include areas for upside because projections are naturally conservative in nature.  An average Pablo Sandoval, for example, is projected.  If he returns to Pandoval of 2009, that is another boost to RS and wins (2 addition wins with ZIPS projections plus another win with move to #3 position, pushing to 99 wins).  Same for Burrell and Huff.  If either or both return to 2010's form, those are boosts to the RS and wins as well and probably adds about 1-2 wins as well.  Same for Posey, if he hits more like his mid-season form than second half form, that would add 1-2 wins as well.

Then there is the wildcard in the lineup:  Brandon Belt.  He is not even in the lineup and most projections have him over 800 OPS.  If he comes up and delivers that, he could take over 1B, shove Huff to the OF, and either Burrell or Ross out of the starting lineup (Torres or Huff as well if either isn't producing).  It could become like last year's "every day is a new lineup" situation.  That would also add 1-2 win, particularly considering how well he fields 1B.

And remember, these projections include the projected drops for the older players, so if the players do not drop in performance as the projections assumes older players will, those will be improvements as well.  Plus, if Belt crushes AAA, that could even force Cody Ross out of the starting lineup, as someone (between Huff and Belt) would move into LF, pushing out Burrell,

However:  Not For 162 Games
Of course, the caveat here is that this will not be our lineup for 162 games.  Posey is not going to start every game, they will need to give him some rest during the season where Whiteside will start, and will of course bring the RS down.  He might not even meet his projections, he only hit .283/.340/.472/.812 in the second half (which could have been because of the stamina problem he had in 2010, as the Giants had said he might, and which he talked about in a recent interview, but what if it was not, that it was his true level?).  The older guys like Huff, Sanchez, Burrell, Tejada, and Torres could suddenly become injury prone, like we saw with Durham and Renteria.  Sandoval could hit more potholes that sets him back to 2010's form.  That would reduce the number of wins by 1-2, maybe more if a lot of hitters are under-performing.

Offense Looks Ready to Produce 90-100 Wins and More Importantly Win NL West
Still, given how high the projections are on the Giants offense, which, combined with the pitching of 2008 or 2009, still leads to 90-100 wins, the team looks capable of withstanding some injuries and poor performances and still win enough games to easily win the division.  90 wins looks like a gimme for this Giants team, even with injuries, and yet the teams below them did not do much to improve themselves and only SD had 90 wins out of them in 2010 and while they added nice pieces, really, they got rid of A-Gon and I think that is all you have to say about their chances, but then on top of that they lost Garland and didn't get anyone who should replace that great performance, they are hoping Harang rebounds, but the odds don't look good there.

The other two pretenders - LA and COL - are flawed in ways that many miss.  The way people are blind to the Giants offensive improvements over 2010, they are similarly blind to the D-gers lack of offensive improvements now that they are Manny-less.  Colorado stood pat as well, but because many of their players are young, the assumption is onward and upward, but can they make up so many games behind (8 wins, according to Pythagorean) based on that?

LA's Offense Suspect, Not Giants

Many are touting the D-gers because of all the pitching they added (though they just lost one in Vicente Padilla), and yes, they did improve their pitching signing Ted Lilly and Jon Garland, but just because they now have a pretty good rotation (still not up there with the Giants, in my opinion) does not absolve them of not improving their offense, which nobody picks up on and yet harangues the 2011 Giants over and over again when that is not even true.  It is like people's impression of offense is based on how the team was in early 2010.  Adding Juan Uribe is an improvement at 2B for the D-gers, but the Giants have equal if not better chances to improve with Huff, Burrell, Sandoval, and Posey. And he is certainly no replacement for Manny Ramirez, and neither is Jay Gibbons or Marcus Thames.

And nobody is looking at the post-Manny D-ger offense:  in the second half of 2010, they averaged 3.30 runs scored per game!  Even the Giants pitching can't win with that putrid an offense.  And as I noted, the D-gers didn't really add anyone really good to their lineup, Uribe is a nice cog, but nothing more, they needed someone like Huff or Burrell in the lineup, not Uribe.  Right now James Loney is their projected #5 hitter, and he would be pushed down to 7th or 8th in the Giants lineup.

Colorado Has A Lot of Games to Make Up, Yet Also Stands Pat

I don't see anyone saying that Colorado is standing pat, but they basically are like the Giants, doing that.  I understand that because they have a young lineup, there is upside, plus they have Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez.  Same for the rotation and pitching staff in whole.  However, they are depending on both Tulo and CarGon to hit like that again, plus lost Miguel Olivo, who hit much better than Iannetta, so the rest of the lineup will have to make up for that, though perhaps Jose Lopez might do that at 2B.  Still, Todd Helton isn't getting younger either, if people are going to blast the Giants older vets.  And Brad Hawpe is now 32, if he even still have a role. 

And the pitching is relying on starters who either need to rebound or prove that 2010 wasn't a fluke.  Jason Hammel and Aaron Cook had pretty bad years, yet to match the Giants rotation (probably Zito and Bumgarner), both would have to do much better PLUS Ubaldo Jimenez would have to repeat his year, which he couldn't even do in the second half:  2.20 ERA first half, 3.80 ERA second half. 

And as well as Jhoulys Chacin did, his K/BB isn't as superlative as his 3.28 ERA, suggesting some regression in 2011.  Looking at his splits, he had a 4.09 ERA with .299 BABIP in the first half, 2.24 ERA with .278 BABIP in the second half, but virtually identical K/BB of 2.29 and 2.23, respectively.  In other words, his great season was largely the result of a lowered BABIP, and he will have to prove that he's one of the rare pitchers who can do that consistently.  Obviously, the odds are against him. 

On top of that, only Jimenez pitched a full season in 2010, though Hammel was close with 30 starts.  The rest will be stretched in 2011 to pitch a full 32 game season.  And their #3 starter, Jorge de la Rosa, is roughly equal to Barry Zito, arguably the worse starter in the Giants rotation.  And he has only pitched a full season in 2009 plus 2010 was his best season ever in six seasons, career 5.02 ERA, so he would be hard pressed just to match Zito in 2011 most probably.

On top of that, they need to make up 8 wins in performance when you look at Pythagorean.  The Giants were at 94 while the Rox were at 86.  As good a crop of young players they got, they stood pat needing to make up 8 wins, while assuming repeat peak performances and that the older players don't decline drastically.

Giants Have Risk Mitigation Backup Plans
The Giants look very capable of beating out the main NL West contenders.  Their conservative projections for the lineup already adds up to 90+ wins, get a few probable plus production from Sandoval, Posey, Huff, Burrell, and that puts him ahead of last year's win total.  Meanwhile, the other teams have not addressed the weaknesses that they had and/or are hoping for good performances in order to compete, and that is a house of cards that falls down if their hoped for good performance don't come, there is no backup plan for them.

The Giants, on the other hand, has a number of backup plans.  Their rotation is so good overall that they could lose anyone and not be set back as badly as, say, St. Louis or Phillies would.  With a poor #5 overall - Randy Johnson, Ryan Sadowski, Joe Martinez, and Brad Penny - in 2009, they still had a 3.77 RA/game.  They can easily pick up a #5 type starter for peanuts and try to upgrade with a mid-season trade.  Relievers, they got Mota, Dan Runzler, Marc Kroon, Waldis Joaquin, and others waiting in AAA.

The only position where the Giants would be stuck is at catcher and cleanup should Posey ever be out.  1B could field Huff, Belt, Sandoval, DeRosa, in that order.  2B, Franchez, DeRosa, then probably Culberson or Crawford.  3B, Sandoval, DeRosa.  SS would probably field Crawford after Tejada, but really not expecting much out of SS offensively right now, so shouldn't be big drop, Tejeda looks like #8 hitter if Sandoval gets bumped to #3 with his hitting returning.  And obviously, we have a lot of candidates in the outfield, Torres, Burrell, Ross, Huff, Belt, DeRosa, Schierholtz, Rowand, Ishikawa, Thomas Neal.

The Giants are covered in a lot of different situations.  This is the risk mitigation strategy that they have been using the past couple of seasons