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With spring training quickly approaching, we were approached by Razzball.com to do a short Giants interview with questions about the upcoming season. The full interview will be posted in the next day or two, but I figured I'd go ahead and give a sneak peek here: "Q1: For Tim Lincecum , last year the percentage of pitches a batter hit outside the strike zone was 56%, compared to 48.8% the year before. He also lost a mile on his fastball, threw his slider a lot more and his curveball a lot less. Are these causes for concern? Blips on the radar? A: I would be lying if I said it wasn't a little bit alarming. Lincecum went through a real rough stretch in August last season, before really turning it on for the stretch run and the playoffs, and the big reason for that was because he was learning how to pitch without the 95 mph fastball for the first time in his career. The reason for the drop in velocity, in my opinion, has to do with his large workload over th...

The Giants avoided going to arbitration with their two most important arbitration eligible players by signing both Cody Ross and Jonathan Sanchez to one-year deals on Tuesday, but they still have a couple of important pieces still unsettled. Leadoff man Andres Torres and key left-handed specialist Javier Lopez are still awaiting deals, but Brian Sabean is confident they'll get something done with both players before a potential court hearing to decide their salary. The Giants can't afford to lose either player, so I don't think this will drag out too much longer. As far as the guys they did sign, I think both Sanchez and Ross got right around what they deserved. Ross will reel in $6.3 million in 2011 while Sanchez takes in $3.7. Both are getting hefty raises from their '10 salary, when Sanchez made just $2.1M, and Ross made $4.5M. I was actually expecting both to receive a little bit more than that in light of the championship season and after seeing what the Giants gav...

The Giants haven't been overly active this offseason and appear to feel pretty confident with the guys they currently have on the roster. Two of those guys, Pablo Sandoval and Mark DeRosa, will have some pretty big expectations after both failed to make the impact they wanted to in 2010. Each player had a different issue, but both of them had one thing in common, they didn't do nearly as much for the Giants during their World Series run than they would have hoped. Sandoval was healthy all year, so he was actually on the active roster, something DeRosa hasn't been part of since June. However, Pablo was basically obsolete in the latter part of the year, and especially in the playoffs, where he lost time to Mike Fontenot, Edgar Renteria and Juan Uribe. It was a big surprise too, after the year Sandoval had in 2009, but his conditioning finally caught up with him and it effected his whole game, even the mental part of it. Now, this offseason, Sandoval has been a man on a missio...

Like we do at the start of the calender year here at the Giants Baseball Blog, it's time for our version of the Giants top-20 prospects heading into 2011. So without further ado, we'll get right into it: #1 Brandon Belt, 1B: The guy barely got a mention in our top-20 last January, but did he ever earn his spot as the Giants top prospect in 2010! Belt was the big bright spot in an otherwise very quiet year on the farm for the Giants, hitting .352 with 23 HR, 112 RBI and a 1.075 OPS in his first year as a pro. Belt succeeded on all levels he played at in 2010, but will likely find himself in Fresno to start the year, and I'd expect the Giants to use the Buster Posey approach from last season meaning there's a good chance we'll see Belt up in SF before mid-season as long as he keeps doing his part. For a team traditionally rich in pitching prospects, the Giants have developed a few offensive players (Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey and now Belt) over the last 3 years th...

I knew the Giants got most of their big moves out of the way early in the offseason this year, but I'm still surprised Sabean has stayed so quiet over the last 5 weeks. The World Series trophy tour is currently taking place, so that will be getting the headlines over the next few weeks, but I still think the Giants should be focused on improving their roster anyway they can. Sab ean made it no secret that he was pursuing a few different "depth" options for the Giants, in the infield, outfield and even looking at starting pitching. At the very least, I was expecting another infielder to be added to the mix, preferably someone adept at playing defense up the middle, but after Edgar Renteria's deal with the Reds, it appears as though the Giants have decided to stand pat. I was keeping tabs on Cesar Izturis, as I thought he could be a viable late-inning defensive replacement for Tejada, as well as a solid pinch-runner, but he just finalized a deal to return to Baltimore. ...