The Giants Baseball Blog

Finally, we end up in NL West, where the top 3 teams all believe that they have a shot at winning the division. Manny Ramirez's return to LA likely pits the Dodgers as the favorite, but they have a few teams (Giants and D-Backs) right on their heels that are looking to improve on what they did in 2008. 1st Place, Los Angeles Dodgers Lineup: SS Rafael Furcal 2B Orlando Hudson CF Matt Kemp LF Manny Ramirez C Russel Martin RF Andre Ethier 1B James Looney 3B Casey Blake Pitching: RHP Hiroki Kuroda LHP Randy Wolf RHP Chad Billingsley LHP Clayton Kershaw RHP James McDonald SU: Hong-Chih Kuo CL: Jonathon Broxton DL- RHP Jason Schmidt (May) Position-by-position, the Dodgers are the best team in the division, hands down. The re-signing of Manny Ramirez puts them right back into the drivers seat in the NL West and unless Manny gets hurt, that's where they should stay all season. They have speed, they play good defense and they'll score runs, but the only question surrounds their star...

The NL Central is one of the more evenly matched divisions in baseball. The top three teams in the division have a legit shot at reaching the playoffs, which should make for an exciting regular season. 1st Place, Chicago Cubs Lineup: LF Alfonso Soriano SS Ryan Theriot 1B Derek Lee RF Milton Bradley 3B Aramis Ramirez C Geovany Soto CF Kosuke Fukudome 2B Mike Fontenot Pitching: RHP Carlos Zambrano RHP Rich Harden LHP Ted Lilly RHP Ryan Dempster LHP Sean Marshall SU: Carlos Marmol CL: Kevin Gregg The Cubs are once again loaded with talent, top to bottom. The problem they've had over the last couple of years though is keeping everybody healthy, especially their starting pitching. Zambrano and Harden are a potentially great 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation, but it's really anyones guess as to whether or not these guys will last the whole season. Their bullpen should be a strength as they have two guys who can close in Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg. Pinella has hinted that Gregg ...

The National League East is going to be one of the best divisions in baseball in 2009, much like their American League counterpart. There is a ton of talent in the division, including the reigning world champs, so whoever comes out of the NL East will likely be the team to beat in NL playoffs. It also wouldn't surprise me to see the top 3 teams (Mets, Phills and Marlins) all finish within a few games of each other. 1st Place, New York Mets Lineup: SS Jose Reyes LF Daniel Murphy 3B David Wright CF Carlos Beltran 1B Carlos Delgado RF Ryan Church C Brian Schnieder 2B Luis Castillo Pitching: LHP Johan Santana RHP Mike Pelfrey LHP Oliver Perez RHP John Maine RHP Livan Hernandez SU: J.J. Putz CL: Francisco Rodriguez DL: RHP Tim Redding (late-April/early-May) The Mets are bringing back the exact same lineup that ended the season for them last year and are hoping they all can stay healthy. If they do so, they should have one of the better offenses in the league. I'm still waiting for D...

The AL West seems like one of the easier divisions in baseball to predict this year. There's the class of the division, the LA Angels, then the rest of the bunch could basically finish in any order behind them. Here's how I think it will go: 1st Place, Los Angeles Angels Lineup: 3B Chone Figgins 2B Howie Kendrick RF Vladimir Guerrero LF Bobby Abreu CF Torri Hunter 1B Kendry Morales DH Gary Matthews Jr. C Mike Napoli SS Erick Aybar Pitching: RHP John Lackey RHP Ervin Santana LHP Joe Saunders RHP Jered Weaver RHP Dustin Moseley SU: Scott Shields CL: Brian Fuentes DL: RHP Kelvin Escobar (late-April) The Angels' move to obtain Bob Abreu went way under the radar, but that move really completed their offense if you ask me. Their lineup has everything; speed, power, average and clutch hitters all the way down the order. Their starting rotation has some question marks entering the season, as both Escobar and Santana may not open the year on the 25-man roster, although Santana shou...

I wanted to break away from the divisional previews for a post because there has been a lot going on in Giants camp recently, including a game Monday which included appearances from both Randy Johnson and Tim Lincecum vs. the Mariners. Johnson didn't throw quite the way he wanted to, throwing only 3 innings, giving up 2 earned runs on 3 hits. Lincecum threw a little better as he was the second Giants starter to go 6 innings in an outing this spring, giving up 3 runs on 4 hits while striking out a batter. Bruce Bochy said that from here on out, starters are going to start getting into the 5 th and 6 th innings with more regularity as there is only about a week left on the Cactus League schedule. Another positive to come from Monday's game in Scottsdale was the play of Pablo Sandoval. The Giants 22 year-old third basemen hit his 3rd home run of the spring while going 3-4 Monday, raising his spring average to .442. Again, nobody is going to expect Sandoval to carry this into...

The AL Central, in my mind, is going to be one of the tougher divisions to pick this season. They're really isn't a clear-cut favorite, but here's my take: 1st Place, Minnesota Twins Lineup- CF Denard Span 2B Alexi Casilla C Joe Mauer 1B Justin Morneau RF Michael Cuddyer DH Jason Kubel 3B Joe Crede LF Delmon Young/Carlos Gomez SS Nick Punto Pitching- RHP Scott Baker LHP Francisco Liriano RHP Kevin Slowey LHP Glen Perkins RHP Nick Blackburn SU: Jesse Crain CL: Joe Nathan I think the Twins will stay the most consistent in this division because of their starting pitching. Scott Baker is vastly underrated and Francisco Liriano looks like he's fully healthy and ready to rock after finishing strong in '08. If he stays healthy all year, he should be amongst the AL Cy Young candidates. Their lineup is also young and has the potential to be very good. I think Joe Mauer (if he gets healthy sooner than later) and Justin Morneau are ready to take another step and become even be...

Like we've done here at The Giants Baseball Blog over the last few springs, it's time to take a closer look at baseball in general as I will be spending most of the final 2 weeks in March breaking down each team and division in baseball and predicting how I see things turning out this season. So here we go, as always, starting with the AL East and eventually finishing in our very own NL West: 1st Place, Tampa Bay Rays Lineup- 2B Akinori Iwamura CF B.J. Upton LF Carl Crawford 3B Evan Longoria 1B Carlos Pena DH Pat Burrell C Dioner Navarro RF Matt Joyce/Gabe Kaplar SS Jason Bartlett Pitching- RHP James Shields LHP Scott Kazmir RHP Matt Garza RHP Andy Sonnanstine LHP David Price SU: Grant Balfour CL: Troy Percival The "wonder team" from last year was no joke and they should be even better equipped to take on the tough AL East this season. They made all that noise last season despite getting full years out of arguably their two best players, Evan Longoria(122 games) and C...

Matt Cain has been somewhat of an enigma the last couple of seasons and Saturday was no different. Cain has looked both dominant and horrible at times this spring, but I think that when the Opening Day comes around, the kid is going to be ready to thrive. Cain's most recent outing was Saturday vs. the Padres in a split squad match-up. In that outing, Cain went 3 innings, allowing a walk and a hit along with 5 punch-outs on 40 pitches and was cruising until hitting slipping a bit in the fourth and fifth innings. The pitch count is going to be key this season for the 24 year-old. If he can limit his innings to an average of 15 pitches or less, he's going to be a lot more effective and be able to get into the 8 th and 9 th innings more often. He's a horse already, and is used to throwing 100+ pitches a start, but he has to start using those pitches more economically if he's going to shake the "above average" sticker and start becoming a really good starting pit...

I wanted to break away from the spring training jargon for a bit and I wanted to go ahead and do more of an in-depth preview of what the Giants will look like come opening day. I also am going to predict some of the key stats for the players. With our annual MLB team/divisional preview just around the corner, and opening day less than a month away, now is as good a time as any to take a closer look at the San Francisco Giants. Some of the final roster moves aren't set yet (as there still is 3 weeks of Cactus league to go still) but I'm going to go with my best guess. Lineup: 1. RF- Randy Winn ( .288 avg, 11 hr's, 57 RBI, 89 runs, 21 sb's, .776 OPS) 2. SS- Edgar Renteria (.282, 12 hr, 64 RBI, 79 runs, 9 sb's, .759 OPS) 3. LF- Fred Lewis (.301, 17 hr, 76 RBI, 84 runs, 26 sb's, .817 OPS) 4. C- Bengie Molina (.280, 15 hr, 77 RBI, 43 runs, 0 sb, .756 OPS) 5. 3B- Pablo Sandoval (.277, 15 hr, 70 RBI, 62 runs, 5 sb, .786 OPS) 6. CF- Aaron Rowand (.281, 16 hr, 74 ...

The Giants had their first split-squad games of the spring on Sunday, and Bruce Bochy kind of divided the teams into A and B teams, or what I call the Varsity and JV squads. The Varsity, or the A team, shut down the Oakland Athletics as they were led by another Randy Johnson gem. The 6'10" lefty went 3 1/3 innings, allowing no runs on 2 hits and striking out 3, leading the Giants to a 10-1 victory of the A's. In that game, the Giants played most of the players who will be in the opening day line-up. Offensively, the Giants got solid outputs from Fred Lewis (2/3, 2b, 2 RBI and a run), Bengie Molina (1/2, hr, RBI) and Pablo Sandoval (1/3, RBI). They also got a nice game from Matt Downs, who started in right field while Randy Winn got the day off from the field and started at DH. Downs is another guy who has the versatility to play both the infield and outfield and should start the season in Fresno after hitting a combined .294 with 20 home runs and 82 RBI in 523 at-bats spli...

We're only a week into March, but a few Giants' youngsters (and a few guys who have been getting a lot of pub at this particular blog) that are really making some noise so far are infielder Jesus Guzman and reliever Luis Perdomo. Heading into Saturday's game, Guzman is tied for the team lead in both home runs (2) and RBI (5) and leads the team in extra-base hits as well. The amazing thing about this, is that he's had only 12 at-bats compared to most of the other big leaguers who are at or around 20+ at-bats. Not only is he roping the baseball, Guzman has also played better defense at third than people thought he would coming in. He's still not flawless there, and has one error this spring to show, but he's definitely improving. I don't think there is any question that his bat is ready to be tested in the bigs, the only problem will be finding him a roster spot. With Dave Roberts' recent release (more at the bottom of the post), it does open up another ...

The Giants battled back for their first comeback win of the exhibition season on Tuesday, as they were led by a couple of guys who the team is expecting big things out of in '09. Randy Johnson struck out 7 batters in 3 innings as he faced his former employer (D-Backs) for the very first time. The lefty has now gone 5 innings this spring, allowing 1 run on 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 10 batters. Johnson made it very clear coming into spring training that he was feeling better than he had in years at that point and he was extremely excited to see how things were going to go because of it. I know it's only spring training, but the Unit has looked like the Unit of 5-10 years ago early on in spring. He had the place buzzing when he threw BP and bullpen sessions during spring practices, and apparently he isn't lying. Now I'm not expecting a full fountain of youth for Johnson here, and it's still kind of unclear how his back is going to take to pitching those cold...