My Thoughts on Your 2011 Giants

I posted this on ELM's post regarding that Uggla trade, and it basically regards how I think the Giants will do in the 2011 season:

This is the flawed thinking [i.e. Giants barely got into playoffs in 2010] I've been seeing in discussions about the Giants. ajax covers changes that should make 2011 better [full year of FSanchez, Posey, Ross and even Torres]; I would also add two other big changes: Bumgarner full year, no Wellemeyer; and Kung Fu Panda's return.

The end of season is the result of the whole season's mix of talents but extrapolating that to 2011 is incorrect because of all these changes. The team was not static last season, as all the pundits have been saying when discussing the Giants 2010 season. The team at the end of the season is much different from the one we will have in 2011.

What some don't realize is that the Giants played at a roughly 100 win-rate since Posey took over the starting catching duties, and even elevated it in Sept/Oct/Nov to roughly 110 win-rate. If they do that over a season, they will win running away.

Of course, they probably will not play at that rate. The pitching can't possibly be that good over a whole season, can they? But even at a low 90 win rate, the Giants should be contending for a playoff position again.

Here is how I see why things will continue into 2011 from that ending to a playoff contending level. While pitchers probably won't be that great, Lincecum with his new slider will still be there, and should put in another Cy Young level season. Cain took another step in 2010 and I don't see him stepping back in 2011. Sanchez took a giant leap in 2010 and I don't expect him to go back either. And Bumgarner is like Posey's doppelganger: very young, yet very mature and very confident and talented. We'll have a full season of that.

Meanwhile, the bullpen will be greatly improved because we will have Lopez, Ramirez, Casilla, and Ray for a whole season. Plus, Affledt should not have as bad a season, he came around at the end when we needed him. And Romo will have another season under his belt and not be as inconsistent.

Our lineup, though, is probably where fans get off the bandwagon. Poor offense, blah, blah, blah. As I've been writing for years now, when you have a great defense (pitching, fielding) you can get into playoff contention with a crappy offense, even one as crappy as 2008 and 2009. For example, with last year's defense (3.6 RA), the 2008/9 offense would have legitimately won 88 games. And remember, 2011's defense should be better with 1) less Timmy hiccups, 2) more MadBum, less Wellemeyer, 3) better bullpen, 4) better fielding overall (Torres in CF, Ross in RF, Belt 1B).

And yes, I'm going there: I think Belt will be the starting 1B for most if not all of the 2011 season. His hitting in the minors and AFL, plus Sabean comments that they will move him up if he forces his way up, leads me to think that he will force his way up in spring training. He has shown the talent to do it, he seems to have the mentality to handle it, plus I have a bad feeling about Huff coming back, he might be gone. Even if Huff is here, he could move to LF and Belt 1B. I think a season like Pablo's 2009 is not out of the question for Belt.

That leads me to offense. We might lose Huff's great hitting at the end, but that was countered by how poorly Uribe hit at the end [Throw in Renteria too]. If we get them back great, but it won't be like replacing the two of their end of season production should be as hard, particularly if Belt comes up and hits like I think he can. Burrell was very good, but I think Ross can put up similar power numbers while providing much better defense [better than what Guillen did at the end of the season too]. Torres was actually pretty bad in September, either horrible or on the DL. He should be able to hit basically what he did in 2009-10 in a full season as a starter in 2011. Franchez should hit about the same while playing full season. Posey should hit about the same while playing a full season [remember, he "only" hit .283/.340/.472/.812 in the second half].

All that is about the same offense, and with that we still won a lot of games down the stretch. But, as I noted, the pitching definitely won't be at that high a level for a whole season (else, it'll be like we went back to the dead-ball era). I think the other big factor in the offense being good enough for us to win the division again is Pablo.

I think Pablo's 2010 season is misunderstood. First, yes, it was not like his 2009 season. But despite all his problems, his OPS was around that of the average 3B in the NL in 2010. So it wasn't like he fell into the abyss. Second, it wasn't like he stunk the whole season, despite what a lot of people have been writing. He was Panda in April. Then the divorce papers hit and he was crap until the All-Star Break, then he hit like the Panda again. Until he had to fly down to Venezuela to sign the papers, and then he had another downturn. Once he recovered from that, he was Panda again, until he nearly lost his mom in the San Bruno pipeline explosion and fire. Then he was Panda again, in the last two weeks of the season. Then he froze in the limelight of the playoffs and World Series.

So, was he bad? Yes, but not all the time, and except for the divorce papers being served (which we have no timeline for), his ups and downs in the 2010 season matches up with key emotionally charged events happening in his life, things that get regular people very depressed or upset, and they don't do their job so well [and tend to eat a lot].

He should be back to his Kung Fu Panda-ness in 2011, assuming he doesn't have other bad personal events happening during the season. His talent never went away in 2010, it clearly came up for air when his personal life wasn't spinning out of control. People carp on his weight, but many people eat and get fat when they are depressed and angry. And even at that, his UZR wasn't that bad in 2010, in fact, if I recall right, it was better than his 2009.

So he'll be back in 2011. He might not lose all the weight the Giants want, but his bat will be there and that will put him back in the lineup, the Giants don't really have a choice. They had their tough love speech to get his butt moving on working to lose weight, but if he's hitting like he did in 2009, there is no way they are sending him down to the minors. [At worse] He'll be like Miguel Cabrera, play 3B in short-term before shifting to 1B because of his size.  [But if he works at losing his weight - and his willingness to spend the offseason in San Diego, away from home in Venezuela and his baby girl, suggests that he will work diligently at it - he could be our 3B for the rest of the decade.]

And if his bat is back, that is something that will mitigate any drop in the pitching relative to the end of 2010. And the Giants should win the NL West division easily if he is back and everyone else performs around where they are expected to.

Additional Giants Thoughts

As I've been saying, the 2010's will be known as the Giant's decade.  They will make frequent runs at the championship, and should win more with the pitching that they have led by Buster Posey.  Young players like him, Sandoval, Belt, and Brown (Killer B's offense?) will make our offense better than what they were in the 2000's, the Oughts.

Will they do it again in 2011?  I don't think one can ever predict a World Series championship.  You need things to go your way to do that (like Burrell and Ross, then Brooks Conrad).

However, you can't win it if you don't make it into the playoffs.  The Giants have a team that should be competing for the NL West title again in 2011, if not win it, so I'm hopeful for 2011.  Like 2010, it will depend on young players (Belt, Sandoval, Posey, Bumgarner) to perform well, and you can't always rely on that from young players.  But I think that they will, as Nike advocates, just do it.

It is good timing too.  The D-gers, who looked like they might have a perennial pennant winner just a couple of years ago (and thus is a cautionary tale for our Giants today), have some key underperforming players (Loney, Martin; but really, based on what they did in the minors, they overperformed in their first MLB season then fell back to their talent level) and a pending D-vorce that should derail their ability to compete (see what happened to the 'Dres when their owner Moore got a divorce) once that is settled.

The D-backs are back-tracking and cutting salary (ironically dropping Adam LaRoche, who passed on a 3 year, $21M contract with the Giants, losing a lot of guaranteed money and potentially a World Series ring).  And the rumor is that they are shopping Justin Upton.  You don't do that if you are planning on trying to win the division title, that is the behavior of a team re-trenching and re-building.  They have a nice group of young pitchers, much like the 'Dres did in 2010, which to me is good news because while they pitched well in 2010, their minor league stats suggest that they are no where near the ace status that most of the Giants starters are at.  And you need that to compete consistently in the regular season, let alone playoffs.

Speaking of the 'Dres, with the rumors of A-Gon being a-gone during the off-season, I don't see how they are going to compete in 2011 if they trade him.  That might set them up for 2012, but, again, only Latos look ace worthy, the other pitchers will get exposed at some point or another.  And they don't really have many top prospects (overall) that look to boost them up soon.

That leaves the D-Rox.  Jimenez is not going to have another half season like 2010, but he will be very good. And Tulowitski will have a healthy season in 2011 (won't he?  He seems to get injured all the time, but appears to alternate, making 2011 a non-injury year).  Car-Gon looks to be the real deal (thanks for that idiotic trade, A's!), and unlike the other teams, they have a couple of nice young pitchers in Jimenez and Chacin.  Thus I see them as the Giant main competitor for the NL West title.

But the Giants have more pitchers and of greater quality, and the D-Rox's offense doesn't look that great beyond Tulo and Car-Gon.  And, after all, they only won 83 games last season, and it wasn't like they played great when Tulo was in the lineup or that poorly when he wasn't (around .500, so it was not like they fell off the cliff, and they had chances down the stretch).

So the Giants look pretty good for repeating in winning the NL West division title.  Not only do they look like they could be even better in 2011, but all the other teams look vulnerable and/or weak.

And once you get into the playoffs, our pitching will get a chance to dominate again.