When the Superbowl ended, I was away from my computer, and my portable-computing-device-that-also-makes-phone-calls was out of batteries, so I couldn't post to the facebook. But my mental status update was "Baseball baseball baseball now we get to talk about baseball. Also, baseball." Unfortunately, selfish jerks* like Peyton Manning and Jeremy Lin had to hog the spotlight for the next couple weeks. But now it is definitely time to bust out your Big League Chew, because pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training today! Hooray!
As compared to the gloriously short offseason in 2010-2011, this last one seemed entirely too long. And it was made worse by the Giants' "addition by subtracting Beltran but adding Cabrera and Pagan" strategy. But enough negativity. It's the first day of Spring (training). Flowers are blooming, love is in the air, all that good stuff. The SFG's are back in our lives, and I believe they still will be in our lives after the regular season ends. Here's why:
The easiest way to do this is to compare this year's team to last year's. Actually, that doesn't help. In terms of personel, the teams are not very different, and they finished 8 games out of first place last year. So rather than compare teams, let's compare the 2011 season against the if-things-go-right season of 2012. The 2011 Giants were borderline horrendous (or more accurately, horrendous) at catcher (Whiteside and Steward), short stop (Tejada, Crawford), first base (Huff), centerfield (Torres, Rowand), and left field (Ross, Belt, post-Beltran-trade Shierholtz). That's A LOT of room to improve. And except for short stop, there's every reason to believe there will be significant improvements. Competition at first base between Huff, Belt, and Pill will drive the 1B numbers up. The two new outfielders will make the offense more dynamic, and if Melky Cabrera can approach his numbers from last year, he'll be adored. Moreover, if any of the three outfielders aren't performing, Belt can get shuffled in there (he might even win a spot outright if he has a good enough Spring). Finally, and most importantly, Posey Posey Posey.
I'm predicting Huff to split the difference of this numbers from 2010 and 2011. Anything less than that, and the Brandon Belt Era should be ushered in without hesitation. I'm imagining Cabrera spraying doubles all over the field, and maybe Shierholtz can figure it out for a full season. And who knows, maybe Crawford can hit a consitent .230 while keeping up his stellar defense. Plus there's the platoon option with the addition of Ryan Theriot. I hesitate to mention a full season of Freddy Sanchez as one path to improvement because he's made of glass, but hey, I mentioned it. And lets not forget that Pablo Sandoval and Brian Wilson missed significant time last year.
The point is this: the 2011 season was mired by injury and boring Bruce Bochy press conferences. We're definitely stuck with the latter, but it's perfectly reasonable to expect more luck in regards to the former. Posey will be the key, though. They need him to repeat his 2010 rookie of the year campaign, not just for production but for moral as well. Another thing that should help moral: last year, the Giants hit horribly with runners in scoring position, and even worse when there were 2 outs. It's no guarantee, but they should score a lot more runs in those situations just by the law of averages.
As for the pitching, there's likely going to be some regression towards the mean, at least from Ryan Voglesong and the historically good bullpen. But this will still be one of the top staffs in the league, and with an improved offense, they won't have to shoulder as much of the load. And how's this for a bold prediction: Madison Bumgarner will be your 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner.
Will all this be enough to dethrone the Arizona D-bags? Even in winning 94 games last year, they left room for improvement, and I'm sure there's arguments to be made they have an even better team this year. But, my counterpoint to that is they are stupid and I don't like them, so I say it was a fluke. Book it.
Giants fans, start saving your money for playoff tickets.
*as far as I know, they're not actually selfish jerks, but it did fit in with the sentence.
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