The Giants Baseball Blog

The World Series is now over with the Phillies being crowned baseball's champion of the 2008 season, so the off-season is officially underway. With the Giants in full rebuilding mode and with Bengie Molina and Randy Winn both entering the final year of their contracts, they could be amongst the players the Giants have on the trading block as the off-season gets going. The team also has two young players in Pablo Sandoval and Nate Schierholtz who have proven all they can at the minor league level and could provide adequate replacements for the two veterans. According to Rotowire , the New York Mets have had internal discussions about pursuing Bengie Molina. The Mets showed some interest in Molina before the trade deadline over the summer, but talks never got too serious, but at that time, the Giants didn't know quite what they had in Sandoval. They also have 2008 top pick Buster Posey a year or 2 away from being in the mix, so Molina doesn't have much of a future with...

With the World Series in full swing, and the baseball world outside of Tampa and Philadelphia extremely quiet, one Giant made news over the last week. Tim Lincecum is still waiting for the big announcement coming November 8 th regarding the NL CY Young, but he already has the endorsement of his peers. Lincecum was named NL Pitcher of the Year last week, an award that is voted on by the players and coaches. He also garnered The Sporting News' honors for the same award. Arizona's Brandon Webb did finish the year with 22 wins for a team that finished 2 games over .500 while Lincecum won 18 with a team that finished 18 games below the .500 mark. Not trying to take anything away from Webb, he's one of the top 5 pitchers in the NL and had a great season, but Lincecum outpitched Webb in every single category this season besides in the win department. I've made my claim for Lincecum deserving this award many times over the last month or so and I won't keep beatin...

We've already taken an in depth look at what went on this season that lead the Giants to their 72-90 record, so I wanted to use this post to discuss some of the things that happened in the Giants' minor league system. This year, Giants fans got to know some of the young offensive talent ( Travis Ishikawa , Pablo Sandoval , Nate Schierholtz , Connor Gillaspie ) which hasn't really been the case over the last decade or so so. We also got a glimpse of some of the young relievers (Sergio Romo, Alex Hinshaw) who could be a part of the bullpen for the next decade. What we didn't get to see was some of the young arms that could allow the Giants to make Matt Cain or Jonathan Sanchez expendable. The talk of the Giants 2008 minor league season surrounded the organization's pitching depth. Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson were picked up early in the 2007 draft and both could be pitching for the Giants by early 2010, and in Alderson's case, maybe sooner. Bumgarner was ...

Over the last 2 weeks, we've discussed what went right and what went wrong with the Giants in 2008. So, now that the off-season is right around the corner, we will take a look at what the Giants can (realistically) do to get better this winter. Of course we all want Mark Texiera and C.C. Sabathia, even an Adam Dunn would bring some excitement to one of the lowliest offenses in the game, but after spending 126 million in January 2007 for Barry Zito, and another 60 million over 5 years for Aaron Rowand in December of last year, the Giants won't have a whole bunch of money to throw around at free agents. Heck, with the way it has gone with Zito and after a sub par first year from Rowand, I wouldn't bet on the Giants being very active in free agency at all. Therefore, in order to make changes with this team, the most logical way to do so would be the good old fashion way, making trades, and the Giants will actually have some pieces to move. With the playoffs in full swing, it...

Last week we kicked things off in the Season Review by going over the things that went well, or things the Giants figured out in 2008, albeit there wasn't much. Today we will get into why the Giants lost 92 games as we examine the things that didn't go so well. WHAT WENT WRONG First and foremost, the Giants 126 million dollar man, Barry Zito, pitched even worse than he did a season ago. The teams so called "ace" went 10-17 with a 5.15 era that was in the 6's or 7's for most of the year. He set career lows in strikeouts (120) and innings pitched (180) while setting new career highs in the categories you want to keep down: era (5.15), whip (1.6), walks (102), and baa (.270). I will be the first one to tell you that while the Giants overpaid, I was actually on bored with the Zito signing at first. I thought he was built more in the mold of Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and would be able to learn how to pitch as his stuff deteriorated. However, his stuff has deteri...

I know this is a Giants blog, but October baseball is still something that should be mentioned on all baseball websites, so I wanted to talk a little playoff baseball in this post. The NLCS is already cleared up and ready to get going with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies getting ready to take part in what should be one helluva series. Things aren't quite as clear yet in the AL, although if I had to bet, I would say the Rays' will hold of the White Sox and host the Boston Red Sox to start the ALCS at the end of the week. As I type this, the Rays are up 5-2 on the Sox in the seventh inning, so unless they or the Red Sox suffer a major meltdown, we should have your final four for the 2008 MLB season within 24-48 hours. Here's my take on how the "projected" league championship series' will break down: NLCS Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies Yes, the Phills do have home field advantage which is always big in the playoffs. T...

There is way too much to cover in one post the whole season in review, so I'm going to break it into 3 parts; what went right, what went wrong, and what needs to be realistically changed. We'll get things started on a light note and talk about what went right this season. The starting pitching, minus Barry Zito, was pretty darn good for the most part this year. Tim Lincecum very well could win the NL Cy Young Award in November and as highly touted as he was, I don't think anybody, including myself, expected this kind of dominance, this quick. The Giants won 72 games this season and Lincecum got 18 of those, that in itself shows how well he threw this year. Then there was the 2.62 era, 265 strikeouts and .221 baa in 227 innings. The Giants other young righty wasn't bad himself, though he could have been better. Matt Cain was a little inconsistent at times, but overall, pitched pretty well, again, without much run support. He once again lost more than he won, but sported...