EVIL~! alkeiper 0 Report post Posted March 30, 2005 Following a 91 win season, the Giants made a slew of bad moves and then watched their hopes crumble when Barry Bonds experienced difficulty recovering from knee surgery. Before I get to Bonds, let me take a look at the rest of the team. The Giants signed Mike Matheny to a three year contract. Yes, Matheny is a legitimately good defensive catcher. He also holds a .239 career batting average, and he is 39 years old. And his peripheral statistics do not exactly suggest Gene Tenace. What is frustrating is that Yorvit Torrealba is already a superior catcher. The Giants also signed SS Omar Vizquel to a three year contract. Vizquel is barely an average hitter, his fielding is no longer great, and he turns 38 next month. The Giants also signed Moises Alou, coming off a 39 home run season. The problem is that season was almost certainly a fluke. Alou hit 27, 15 and 22 home runs the previous three seasons, and he is also 38 years old. Check out Alou's home/road splits for 2004... Home: .339/.405/.714, 29 home runs. Away: .247/.316/.400, 10 home runs. I cannot help but think that maybe Alou benefitted from a friendly hitting environment at Wrigley Field. The problem is that old players tend to suffer nagging injuries. This is a team with SERIOUS collapse potential. Barry Bonds is the key to the team's offense. According to the runs created metric, Bonds created 183 runs last season. That is the difference between finishing second in runs scored as the Giants did last season, and finishing 13th. If Bonds misses all or most of the season, this team could easily lose 100 games. He is that important. The Giants do have a good, young pitching staff. Jason Schmidt anchors the rotation. Behind him are 23 year old Jerome Williams, and 24 year old Noah Lowry. Brad Hennessey, Jesse Foppert, and Kevin Correia provide depth beyond. Matt Cain and Merkin Valdez also wait in the wings. If the Giants embark on a rebuilding project in the near future, those pitchers should provide a base on which the Giants can develop an offense. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sass 0 Report post Posted March 30, 2005 If Barry is done for the season, then I could see this team sinking to '03 Tigers levels of ineptness. The pitching is the only thing that looks strong enough to hold up for a season. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iggymcfly 0 Report post Posted March 30, 2005 They're nowhere near the level of that Tigers team. I think a better comparison would be last year's Mariners, who had a tremendous pitching staff, but could never score any runs because they were too old. I don't even think they'll be that bad though. The pitching shoud keep them at least alive through the first couple months of the season, and then Barry will probably come back around June. I bet the Giants will be above .500 with an outside shot at the NL West by the end of the year. I could certainly see a collapse on the horizon for 2006 though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The Czech Republic 0 Report post Posted March 31, 2005 04 Mariners had a tremendous pitching staff? I know they had Jamie Moyer, and Freddy Garcia was there for a while before they shipped him to the South Side, but who else was there Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Precious Roy 0 Report post Posted March 31, 2005 Joel Pinero, who was pretty bad, and Moyer was HORRIBLE last year. I liked this team on paper with a healthy Bonds, but they're sunk if he misses half the year. I'm not as down on the Alou and Matheny signings as Al (Matheny is more trustworthy than Torealba calling a game with their young staff) because the team is dealing with such a small window of opportunity. Alou won't hit 39 again, but he's still a damn good hitter, and should benefit from his dad managing and having Bonds (when he's healthy) hitting next to him. Omar Vizquel makes no sense to me, but signing Benitez was a great move IMO. Neither San Diego or Los Angeles blows me away, so if things break right I see San Fran right in the hunt. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iggymcfly 0 Report post Posted March 31, 2005 Freddy Garcia was awesome with the Mariners last year, (3.20 ERA), but he only went 4-7 because the run support was so bad. Piniero and Franklin both had ERAs under 5.00, but went a combined 10-27, again because of the run support. The Mariners' pitching staff wasn't great or anything last year, but the difference between the ERAs and W-L record was about as huge as I've ever seen. And by the way, has anyone been watching SportsCenter. They said they were having a five-part series on how Barry Bonds' injury will affect the Giants, and I remember laughing, thinking it was great they could be self-referential with their humor like that. No such luck. They actually showed a five minute piece on McCovey Cove, and gave interviews with the douchebags who swim out there about how it will be empty because Bonds is the only one who can hit it that far. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
