Cain hurls a pitch. Sandoval after a 10th inning home run. Lincecum anchoring a staff. Bengie congratulating Wilson after a save. Schierholtz watches his double.
10/12/09
If you only take away one thing from this article, know this. The Giants had a good season.
They finished up with an 88-74 record, 14 games over .500 and were wild-card contenders. The Giants were predicted to finish 4th in the N.L. West, but overachieved and gave the Rockies a run for their money. It's disappointing that the Giants weren't the wild-card, that despite being tied for the wild-card lead after a sweep of the Rockies, ended up not even making it close. But the important thing to remember is that the Giants weren't even supposed to sniff the playoffs so Giants fans should be happy with San Francisco's overall effort.
That said, I'm going to go over the players and a few coaches and front office members to break down their individual efforts over the course of the year.
Tim Lincecum (SP): Timmy is the face of the franchise and one of the best pitchers in baseball. He had another stellar year and will probably garner a few Cy Young Award votes, but his lack of wins, which can be attributed to his low run support, is his main knock. He finished with a 15-7 record, 2.48 ERA and an N.L. leading 261 strikeouts. Go here for more of my opinion on Lincecum's 2nd half of the season.
Bengie Molina (C): Bengie hit 20 HRs this year, but he is a free agent after this year, just turned 35 and is wearing down. However, the Giants catcher of the future, Buster Posey, doesn't look like the everyday catcher next year and Eli Whiteside isn't exactly a great option. The catching situation next year is dicey because Bengie will ask for more a raise, but he is not the Giants long term option.
Travis Ishikawa (1B): Ishikawa really struggled at the beginning of the year, and people were clamoring for his job. But he heated up in the second half and ended the year with a respectable .261 average. Ishikawa didn't display much power though with only 9 HRs. In a position known for big hitters, Ishikawa doesn't strike much fear into the hearts of opposing pitchers.
Freddy Sanchez (2B): GM Brian Sabean says that Sanchez is the Giants 2B, and the club will either pick up his $8.1 million option or negotiate him a new deal. We didn't get to see much of Sanchez because the Giants traded for him late in the season and he had nagging injuries, but in Pittsburgh he consistently hit for a high average.
Juan Uribe (3B/SS): Personally, I love Juan Uribe because of his monstrous swing, generous build and cannon of an arm. He always seems to get a hit or a dinger and that walk-off homer he hit off the Dodgers is still in my mind. Uribe, like Molina is a free agent though and with a completely healthy Edgar Renteria at SS and Sandoval at 3B, it might be hard to find Uribe ABs. He proved this year that his bat will force Bochy to find a way to get him into the line-up.
Edgar Renteria (SS): The Giants traded for Renteria in the off-season with high hopes that the ex-Detroit Tiger would plug a gaping offensive hole they had at short. The $9 million salary was not money well spent this past year as Renteria was bothered by a right elbow injury. He was woeful offensively and cut his season short by having arthroscopic surgery. Hopefully Renteria will be healthy for the 2010 season and return to his old form, giving the Giants clubhouse some leadership from a man with postseason experience.
Pablo Sandoval (3B/1B): Pabs was a bright spot this year for the Giants and narrowly missed the last spot for the all-star team. Pablo hit the most home runs, 25, and hit for one of the highest averages in the NL, .330. He slumped a little in the second half, but pitchers weren't able to use his free swinging tendency against him. Pablo was much better defensively than I thought and is pretty nimble for a 245 pounder. That said, he needs to get in better shape and drop a few pounds to better make it through the grind of a 162 game season. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the over marketing of his "panda" nickname.
Aaron Rowand (CF): I'm not a fan of the Giants outfield in general; they don't have much promise and when you look at the players they are not the OFs for a playoff team. This was Rowand's second year for the Giants, and he hasn't seemed like the White Sox player we traded for. He has consistently underachieved hitting, putting up only 61 runs and 64 RBI, but his amazing catch in the 9th inning to preserve Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter was big. Rowand is under contract and probably won't be going anywhere for a while.
Randy Winn: (RF) Over the years I have grown less and less fond of Randy Winn. He especially is the OF I mean when I say I don't think a playoff baseball team would have Randy Winn as a starter. He's aging (35 years old) and hits for absolutely no power. 2 HRs and a .353 slugging percentage. Sure, he stole 16 bases but his OBP is a meager .318. Good thing his payroll expires soon, he's just another overpaid player from the years of the past when the Giants fielded some of the oldest teams in baseball.
Nate Schierholtz (OF): Schierholtz may not be a star, but he at least has more promise than Randy Winn. He's young, has a level swing and a cannon of an arm. And he's also got some fire, remember that awesome bulldozing of the catcher he did during the 2008 Olympics?
Eugenio Velez (OF): Eugenio, god I love saying that name. EUGENIO got called up to the bigs last year, excited with his speed, but was too raw and inexperienced. This year he looked much more patient at the plate and improved his hitting greatly. While Velez is not a great fielder, it's good that the Giants moved him to left field from second base, his fielding was pretty horrendous at second. Eugenio showed brief flashes of his hitting potential with lashed doubles and triples into the gap when he saw more playing time with LF up for grabs.
Matt Cain (SP): Cainer had a career year for the Giants. He made his first ever all-star team and finished up the season 14-8, only 1 less win than Lincecum, with a 2.89 ERA and 4 CG. He has come along nicely for the Giants and the 1-2 punch of Lincecum and Cain is emerging as one of the best starting duos in baseball. He could have been even better, but had a 4-6 record after the all-star break.
Barry Zito (SP): Zito improved tremendously from his awful year last year. While he won the same amount of games both years, 10, Zito improved his ERA from 5.15 to 4.03 and was one of the Giants best pitchers in the 2nd half with a 5-4 record and an ERA under 3.00.
Jonathan Sanchez (SP): Sanchez was 8-14 with a 4.24 ERA, but everyone will remember his no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. Sanchez had been awful before that game, and he had spent some time in the bullpen. What made the near perfect game extra special was the fact that his father attended and it was the first game had seen Jonathan pitch as a Giant.
Randy Johnson (SP): The buzz was that Randy Johnson was coming to the Giants and would win his 300th game for them. He did, but we all know that Randy was just passing through town, his glory days were long behind him and he likely will not be back for the Giants next year, if he continues to play at all. My bet is that he will play next year, he's in great shape and has a burning desire to play. Randy was decent for the Giants, but he lacked the life in his fastball that used to strike fear into the hearts of left-handed hitters and was injured for most of the year, pitching only 96 innings. It was fun while it lasted Big Unit.
Brad Penny (SP): The Brad Penny signing was a great move for the Giants. Penny played for the Red Sox to start the year and was awful and the Giants picked him up and the Sox basically paid his entire salary for him to play for the Giants. For the Giants he won 4 games in 6 starts while pitching mostly to contact. The problem is that Penny probably pitched so well that he might be too expensive for the Giants to re-sign next year.
Brian Wilson (RP): B Dubs had another good year and saved 38 games with a 2.74 ERA and 83 Ks in only 72 1/3 innings. He may not be the greatest of closers, but he wins me, and I'm certain many fans, over with characteristics other than his talent. I love his post-save tribute to his father and his faith where he cross his arms and points his 2 index fingers. He's also ripped and has tons of tats (makes him look intimidating). And he also rocked a sweet mohawk mullet look that few have the cojones to pull off. A tip of the cap to you, Papa Dubs.
Jeremy Affeldt (RP): Affeldt came to the Giants from the Cincinnati Reds last year and was a great situational lefty, if not the best Giants relief pitcher besides Wilson. He had that trademark lefty 3/4 delivery slider that dives away from left handed hitters and had a 1.73 ERA.
On other notes, the Giants bullpen was surprisingly good and was one of the reasons why the Giants were in the thick of the wild-card race for most of the season. At one point the bullpen's ERA was the 2nd best in the N.L.
The acquisition of 1B Ryan Garko, Stanford alum, from the Cleveland Indians proved fruitless. Management dealed for him hoping to secure an extra bat to make the postseason push, but he made no impact whatsoever.
Fred Lewis was the original starting LF for the Giants, put his terrible fielding and strikeout total proved too much despite his sweet look with his orange sunglasses. He was useful, however, coming off the bench and hit over .300 as a pinch hitter.
Bruce Bochy and Brian Sabean's contracts both expire on Oct. 31st, but it appears as if both will be back next year. They have talked to the media about their plans for next season and there have been no signs of a major shake up. I'm not sure, but I think that Brian Sabean is the longest tenured GM in the majors.
That concludes my wrap-up, I'm looking forward to the League Championship Series in both the AL and NL and to a great Giants season next year.
Photos are from mlb.com photo galleries from the sfgiants.com website. The stats are also from the Giants official website and I got info about contracts from a San Jose Mercury News article.
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