Giants Banking on 2010 Recipe for 2012

When I look up and down the Giants roster, as is right now, it really reminds me a lot of the bunch they had entering the 2010 season. But instead of Buster Posey pushing for Bengie Molina's job, this year it will be Brandon Belt in the hunt for Aubrey Huff's first base job.

Now, being that the Giants failed to add any real legitimate power to their lineup, and haven't added a bunch of new personnel to their 25-man roster at all, in order for their offense to turn around in 2012, they need guys like Aubrey Huff, who were miserable in 2011, to get back on track. If he doesn't, and either Brandon Belt or Brett Pill outperform him throughout the spring and the early part of the season, I hope the Giants won't hesitate to make the switch to the younger, more valuable player, much like they did when they shipped Bengie Molina out of town to make room for Buster Posey in 2010. That move was one that helped catapult them into the playoffs and eventually to the top of the baseball world. Like the 2010 team, this team coming in may still be a player or two away from being legit World Series contenders, depending on how guys like Freddy Sanchez (coming off brutal injury), Posey and Huff all perform. If all of them are at the 2010 levels, than this team should have enough offense as is to be factor in the National League. The Giants' brass must have entered this offseason with that strategy all along, because not only did they fail to re-sign Cody Ross and Carlos Beltran who each got very reasonable deals, they ruled out those two players almost immediately after free agency began, and it appeared like they just never really wanted either of them back. All the while, we sit here in February and the team has just 3 true outfielders under contract.

Replacing the trio of Beltran, Ross and Torres enters the two newest additions to the starting outfield, Angel Pagan and Melky Cabrera. Neither are bad players by any stretch, but both possess pretty similar skill-sets and neither is considered a middle-of-the-order power bat that the Giants really needed. Both are more top of the order type hitters that don't get on base at very high levels, so neither player is a perfect fit in the leadoff spot, though I'm assuming that Pagan will get that assignment come opening day. Pagan is another guy, like Posey, like Sanchez, like Huff, who the Giants are really hoping reverts back to 2010 form. Pagan had a very up-and-down season in 2011, which saw him start out miserably, then have spurts of good play, but not enough of them to overcome the bad start and ended up with a pedestrian .262 average and .322 on-base percentage, neither of which would be adequate for a leadoff hitter. The one area which he'll undoubtedly help out though is on the base paths, where he's got the ability to steal 40-50 bags a season if he stays healthy and gets on base. That's an element at the leadoff spot that this team hasn't really had since the days of Darren Lewis and Darrell Hamilton. Torres was as fast as they come, but his speed didn't really translate into great base-stealing ability like Pagan's does, and that should be an asset to a team that will need to manufacture a lot of their runs the hard way.

So in some ways this team differs form the 2010 squad with the young shortstop being handed the starting job and new and improved team speed, but some parallels are uncanny. They have Huff coming off a bad season like he was after 2009. They have the young guy pushing the veteran at first base instead of catcher this time around, and they have an outfield that's still very much up in the air in terms of where guys will play and who ends up in center. That outfield could also get another addition or two before opening day or early on in the year, much like the 2010 team went after Pat Burrell then later, Cody Ross.