[…] John wrote a fantastic post today on “…. Offensive?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractDavid Pinto says the Giants are looking pretty horrible this coming season, even without Pedro Feliz:. The lineups rate as follows:. Best: 4.23 runs per game Given: 3.99 runs per game Worst: 3.71 runs per game … […]

Yeah, it’s going to be a dismal season for our San Francisco Giants. Our only hope is if some of our young guys get hot and have great years. We could become the next Diamond Backs if lucky!

There is little indication that any of the so-called young guys (meaning Frandsen, Ortmeir, Rajai, Nate et al have enough talent to crack the 25 man roster on an average MLB team. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

That does not mean the Giants are totally uninteresting. They’ve got some young decent power arms that could provide some interesting matchups and confrontations over the course of the season. Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Correia, and Wilson. Each is capable of blowing good hitters away, and thats always entertaining and something fun to watch. I expect the cyanide that will be the batting order on this team to provide nothing more than an 8 pitch time out to pour a beer or take a piss, between pitching sets for the majority of the season.

The games could pass by pretty fast on those days that those power arms are blowing ched by opposing batters. It could be worse. Not much worse, but at least there exists the potential to seem some dominating pitching performances by some young guys.

I think I’m more optimistic about the young offensive guys, but yeah. The problem is, is that I see about half a good player in all of them. It’s kinda sad to say, but I’d almost rather have a Lance Niekro who strikes out three times a game but then hits the fourth one 500 feet. I think the best bet to make good is Frandsen, but “exciting” certainly doesn’t seem the word for any of them.

The pitching, though, could be crazy great. Lincecum and Cain should be finding their rhythm, maybe Lowry will turn the corner, Zito has to be better (right?), and there’s some great arms in the bullpen.

At least the games will be interesting, all those 3-2 losses.

On the flip side though, there are so many guys coming out of the Giants system that nobody really knows about. Every single prospect that has come up and has been jerked around with no defined role, no plan, and no real time to prove it. Certainly the Giants Farm system is no indicator, having in concert with the buffoons running the AAAA Giants, developed a total of zero impact position players since Matt Williams.

I’ve no reason to expect Kevin Frandsen to be anything more than what he is, a local kid who is a friend of the Righetti family who runs out pop-flies and grounders really hard, manages to get his uniform filthy just sitting on the bench, and by all appearances, is trying almost too hard to be a good organization guy. He has hard hands, lacks quickness, arm strength, speed, power, and hitting ability. Other than that, he is the next Jeff Kent.

On top of that, he said as recently as yesterday’s fan fest at PacBell, that he wasn’t really sure what plans the Giants had for him. That nobody had talked to him about it.

Great expectations for this club are not really sane thoughts. Not only do you have the guy the Giants are trying to promote as the next Robby Thompson/Great White Hope, lack any proven indication that he can play at this level; the jackasses don’t even talk to the kid in the offseason about what his role is going to be or even what goddamned position he is going to play. Things are never going to get better until the Front Office is cleaned out from top to bottom, along with the petrified forest that is the Minor League System.

Sabean and Bochy both are complete fucking jerks. Bochy sounded like some stoner on ludes on the radio. The guy is so fucking verbally retarded, he should be banned from speaking in public.

Look for Sabean to give Mr. Size 12.5 Hat a 2 year extension right after they close out May with a 9-46 record.

I get the feeling that the Giants will come out of the gate with all sorts of flash and grit, winning 2-1 nailbiters with filthy relief pitching and smart little-ball tactics. April could be a lot of fun. The cracks will start to show in May. The cruel reality of regression to the mean will take over in June. Then we will show evryone the power of a team-wide sub-.700 OPS! With all our exciting young pitching, it is a shame we don’t have equally exciting young bats. I hope Matt Cain can take consecutive 7-16 seasons without begging for a trade.

Ah, mia, love your posts.

You may be right, but Jim is also right - the Giants obsessive reliance on veterans means that every rookie has the mummified remains of anybody they can dig up looking over their shoulder. I’m not saying that any of the players you mention would have necessarily turned out any differently, but the problem is who the hell knows? It seems like for years every player under the age of 30 faces the impossible task of fighting their way into the lineup. You can’t possibly say that the Giants would’ve been any worse the last few years playing young guys. No reflection on the guy, he has all my respect, but what in the world is the point of Rich Aurilia? Maybe Linden and Niekro are dorks, but the unspoken policy seems to be “we don’t care if you tear up AAA, you have two months. Otherwise - Shea Hillenbrand, buddy!” Gee, what a vote of confidence, and a conscious decision by the front office to guarantee mediocrity rather than risking mediocrity.

The last four years or whatever the Giants have gotten exactly the results that they caused. I can’t really think of any player that has produced any differently than one would have logically expected in advance. The front office are a bunch of idiots.

And yeah, Mark, good point about Matt Cain - you gotta wonder if he’s counting the days until he can get out of San Francisco, and that’s sad. Or worse, he goes Shawn Estes on us and has a complete meltdown while ESPN calls Righetti “one of the best pitching coaches in the game”. Go ask Estes or Williams or Bonser about that one.

Marc: No man, we agree completely on that. My hyperbole and rhetoric tends to obfuscate my often contradictory thinking and writing. You’re correct. Nobody knows dick whether any of those guys could have been any good. I strongly suspect, that at least a couple of those mentioned could have been good major leaguers if their careers and psyches had not been trashed by the organizational philosophy of Sabaen and his minions.

I inject a couple of things that may be relevant that no one’s mentioned, for whatever they’re worth, and with nothing to back them up but what’s left of my memory.

For all the ragging on the Giants’ farm system - not just from here, but pretty much everywhere - didn’t that system as a whole have the second-best winning percentage last year? I heard that somewhere. I’ve no idea what it means - maybe the Giants just have a lot of really good career minor leaguers.

It’s a good point that no young guys have really gotten much of a chance to prove themselves recently, but on the other hand, nobody’s done much to force the issue.

The other thing I’ve wanted to mention for a while is that not matter how trashed lots of Giants players have been hereabouts, when they leave, most of them end up being signed by other teams - even good teams - including the dread Neifi Perez. Some don’t last long, but it does seem like every year there are ex-Giants on most of the playoff teams.

Again, I won’t venture to say what that means. It may be an indication of the sorry state of MLB in general, or of the Giants’ failure to get the most out of their roster, or maybe nothing at all. It does seem to show at least that there’s more than one side to the story. Maybe from Philly Feliz looks fabulous. It is Philly, after all.

At any rate, it looks like we should finally get to see what happens with a roster full of youth, which I seem to recall hearing anguished pleas for. Personally, I’m gonna miss the Big Guy.

Our ONLY hope at a half decent season is if all of those newspaper hacks were right about Bonds presence in the club house. It’ll have to be one hell of a chemistry difference to make up for his missing OBP, that’s for sure.