The Giants may have the best pitching rotation in baseball (no offense Philly Fans) and some of the worst bats.
Manager: Bruce Bochy will earn every dollar he makes if the Giants actually compete this year. He knows plenty about pitching; the question is what does he know about runs?
Key Departures: Of course Yankee fans know that the G-men lost Randy Winn, I’m not sure if that’s a loss or not. Ryan Garko left so fans will have to bring their own fans to cool themselves now. Garko had 51 RBI’s and 50SO’s. You can’t make that stuff up.
Key Pick-ups: The best thing they did was bring back Lincecum. The rest of their acquisitions are gambles that may or may not pay off.
Outfield: Aaron Rowand is one of my favorite baseball players because I believe he plays the game the right way. Last year this outfield was one of the best in the league at not allowing extra base hits. Randy Winn is gone and his defensive skills cannot be denied. Rowand’s offense struggled last year and the signing of Mark DeRosa means the defense will be OK if DeRosa recovers well enough from surgery.
Grade: Offense C+; Defense A+
Infield: This is one of the most interesting infields in baseball. Will Sandoval come out of his cleats or will the ball be launched into orbit? He hit .330 and his OPS was .943. That’s cracking it. He did have 83K’s. Travis Ishikawa needs to get his hitting together. Edgar Renteria is a solid defense guy but his hitting numbers lack. The key to this infield scoring runs may end up being Freddy Sanchez.
Grade: Offense D+; Defense B+
Catcher: This position is a mess for the Giants. We’ll leave it at that Grade D (relax Molina fans)
Starting Pitchers: Two Cy Young Awards back to back. Stuff so filthy it looks like kids are getting picked on. Need I say more? I’m on the record that saying Barry Zito is washed up and they should have never signed him but if he can be a serviceable #4 this team could surprise you. The Giants might be able to leverage other teams desperation for pitching to trade Zito for a bat. Grade A++
Bullpen: Brian Wilson had 38 saves last year and over the four seasons has 181 strikeouts. Jeremy Affeldt will help the Giants get to him and their bullpen, which was overlooked last year, will be strong again. Grade A-
Key To Winning in 2010: Score more runs, last year they touched the plate 657 times. That’s just not enough.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Sounds good. I am going to the season opener in Washington with Travis to watch Roy’s first ever start for the Phils. Should be awesome.
I dont disagree one bit with that starting staff. Actually I think a healthy braves squad may be better. The key then is the fact the Phillies offense is so far superior to anyone in the NL in wont matter what pitching is thrown at them. They are going undefeated but they should sure smack the NL around. with Roy Halladay on board i think they now have a top 5 rotation to go with the top offense.good balance imo.
Josh,
I think the Phillies pitching staff could be in the top 5 in the NL this year and for sure the top 10 of both leagues. Last year the Phil’s scored over 800 runs (I think 821), which shows how many more run than the Giants scored (around 200 or so more) so I agree their offense will be fantabulous again. They will be my last NL team to preview.
Maybe I’ll email you a survey/interview.