San Francisco Giants 2005 Season Preview

[Editor's Note: as players of officially-authorized video games and fantasy games know all too well, certain major league players do not appear by name in those games. Most have been tossed out of the player's revenue-sharing pool for licensed products because they were replacement players in 1995; a handful have voluntarily opted out of the deal so they can license their image separately, for more money. For example, last year if you were playing Yahoo fantasy baseball, you could draft "San Francisco Left Fielder". Now that major league baseball is asserting it owns the very statistics of the game, perhaps even the players' names, the Diamond Angle will be omitting said players' names from our stories.*]

"You're a LIAR, too, Crank!"

Many Giants observers -- myself included -- have wondered aloud about how this team has managed to be so consistently good, year after year, with essentially only one star player and a trailing cast of mediocrities. The team is now on an eight-year streak of finishing first or second in its division, and has finished second or better in ten of the twelve years - since 1993. Not coincidentally, 1993 was the year that superstar player joined the club.

So here's the fearsome rotation that won 103 games in 1993: John Burkett, Bill Swift, Trevor Wilson, and Bud Black. The lineup, other than our star, was Kurt Manwaring, Will Clark, Robby Thompson, Matt Williams, Royce Clayton, Darren Lewis, and Willie McGee. Decent, but not overpowering. The bench on that club, though, had reasonable power from both left and right, contact, and defensive utility; the bullpen, headed by Rod Beck in his prime and Mike Jackson as the set-up man, was among the best in the league.

Fast forward to 2004, when this cast of supporting players took the team to 91 wins: AJ Pierzynski, JT Snow and Pedro Feliz, Ray Durham, Edgardo Alfonzo, Deivi Cruz and Neifi Perez, Marquis Grissom, and Mike Tucker. The rotation was Jason Schmidt, Brett Tomko, Kirk Rueter, Jerome Williams / Noah Lowry / Dustin Hermanson. The bullpen was a mess, headed first by Matt Herges and then Hermanson, with only set-up man Jim Brower really pitching effectively most of the year.

Arguably with a better top of the rotation in Jason Schmidt, who has been the best pitcher in the NL over the last two years, but with a significantly worse bottom and bullpen, the team still managed 91 wins in a weak NL West. One heard only two things all year: how bad the bullpen was, and how much the superstar needed somebody to "protect him". That the bullpen was atrocious was undeniable, but it was significantly a function of the fact the rotation couldn't last more than six innings and the porous defense allowed extra runs and hits all over the place. The best bullpen would breakdown under that kind of constant workload.

There's a lot of evidence that you could draft eight guys out of AAA and team them with the Star Player, and the impact of that Star Player is so big that that team would do just as well. Frankly, it seems dubious that a player who set an all-time record in OPS, who slugged .812, who LEAD HIS TEAM IN GAMES PLAYED WITH 147, needed more "protection" in the lineup. Better hitters will always help a team, of course, but if the team could win 91 games with that lineup, the finger for the team's failure to get one step beyond in the playoffs and beyond surely has to be pointing at the pitching rotation.

Pac Bell is rapidly becoming a reverse-Coors curse. The hitters don't show well in the extreme pitcher's park, and with managers like Dusty Baker and Felipe Alou at the helm, despite the example of the star player, the hitters are encouraged to be "aggressive", and GM Brian Sabean enables this belief by continually going out and getting ".300 hitters" like AJ Pierzynski who never, ever see a pitch they wouldn't like to swing at. Untutored, unselective hitters with bad OBPs. In the meantime, a sad-sack bunch of starting pitchers recycled from other teams seem to have the right stuff, but their ineffectiveness is masked by the positive effects of the park.

The most obvious remedy is to go get some solid starting pitchers. But with budgetary constraints caused in part by the star player's salary load, the Giants instead went out and got a bunch of veteran players at relatively cheap prices (relative to other players, not necessarily relative to their eventual production) to "protect" the star player in the lineup, and a tarnished but top-notch closer to replace the embarrassments of Matt Herges and Dustin Hermanson in the Rod Beck - Robb Nen role. Never mind that when they had Beck and Nen they couldn't get over the top, nor could they when they had the likes of Jeff Kent, Ellis Burks, and Rich Aurilia surrounding the star player in the lineup.

This year's crop of non-dietary lineup supplements acquired by Sabean is topped by Moises Alou in an unfamiliar right field, Omar Vizquel at short, Mike Matheny at catcher, and Armando Benitez in at closer. The pitching rotation is virtually unchanged, allowing for injuries, as is the rest of the bullpen. The bench is still dominated by slow, heavy-swinging four-A products from the Giants' weak farm system.

Comparing the 2005 Giants to the 1993 Giants is, on one level, absurd, since the sole hold-over from the 1993 club is the star player. But...

The "kid" in the Giants' lineup is 31-year-old, Edgardo Alfonzo, now a ten-year veteran. Ray Durham is the next youngest, a spring chicken of 33 who also debuted in 1995. Mike Matheny is 35 and made his MLB debut a year earlier, in 1994. After Fonzie, Durham, and Matheny, every one of the Giants' starting lineup was playing in the majors in 1993: Marquis Grissom is 38 (debuted 1989); Alou will turn 39 (a late bloomer, debuting in 1990 but not sticking in the bigs until 1992); Vizquel is 38 (debuted 1989); JT Snow is 37 (debut, 1992); the star player turns 41 in July, and debuted in 1986.

That makes a whopping mean age of 36.5 years for the starting eight -- I believe this is the oldest in major league history. No matter how impressive that looks, especially when one considers the awesome powers of the star player last year at 40, it does not appear to be a recipe for consistency or success. While the 2001 Diamondbacks proved that an old lineup can win, but I wouldn't be wildly optimistic. Jason Schmidt may be a sort of latter-day Curt Schilling, at least in terms of battling heroically through injury, but there's no Randy Johnson on the 2005 Giants to come in and pitch the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series. Not even to mention 36 regular-season games.

However, with the possible exception of the star player, the lineup appears to be professional in the more technical sense of the word. It's full of straight shooters who don't talk trash about their teammates, who don't Alibi Ike it, and who show up ready to play every day (that they're not hurt, at least). It is a lineup not unlike manager Felipe Alou in grizzled makeup and contact-hitting philosophy. They're players' players.

Durham will lead off and play second. Durham's got some speed and pop and decent plate selectivity, and his .365ish OBP is decent if hardly classic for a leadoff man. Vizquel still has a certain amount of speed, and is still an above-average defender at short, although a few steps shy of his great peak. (The most puzzling part of the signing of Vizquel was the three-year contract.) So the middle of the infield will have better defense, but those first two spots of the lineup won't necessarily be any more laden with baserunners for the star player to knock in.

Next comes the star player, who, beset by rumors of 'roids, a media assault surrounding his assault on Aaron's record, and tales of his primadonnish clubhouse behavior, set an all-time OPS single-season OPS record in 2004. Nothing's changed about 2005 but the turn of the calendar.

Behind the star, we have Moises Alou, Edgardo Alfonzo, and JT Snow (platooning with Pedro Feliz, who will also spell Alfonzo at third occasionally). Alou, Fonzie, and JT all are line-drive hitters with sweet swings and occasional extended periods of funkitude, especially Alfonzo. Alou somewhat unexpectedly hit a career-high of 39 homers last year, and also set a career high for at-bats and plate appearances. He's beginning to resemble Ellis Burks as a late-career bloomer, haven shaken off the injury-prone skinny-legs label to a degree. Alfonzo started out terribly in '04, and then really picked it up the last two months of the season, showing a disturbingly JT-Snow-like pattern. Snow, who started 2004 as the worst-hitting regular first baseman in the league, struggled through injuries but had a rather shocking OBP of .429 and a batting average of .327 thanks to an incredible second-half. One rather thinks that he will fade in '05. Feliz has shown he has good enough power -- 22 HR in 503 at-bats last year -- but still has almost no selectivity at the plate, walking only 23 times. He may supplant the slick-fielding Snow if Snow struggles, of course, but seems better suited to role playing despite his age (he is a tender 30 years old, a spring blossom on this club of vibrantly colored but drying autumnal leaves).

Grissom will bat eighth and play center. He had a very good first half in '04, and tailed off after the all-star break, but managed a .279 BA and 22 homers on the year, leading off and batting second a good part of the year. His OBP was a below-average .323, very poor for an outfielder, and the man who twice stole more than seventy sacks in a year only bagged three last year. His range is down and one expects him to lose some at-bats to Mike Tucker and rookie Todd Linden. Matheny is the workmanlike backstop of the Cardinals, an excellent pitch-caller and game-handler who has almost no offensive value. He replaces Pierzynski, a loudmouth who made many clubhouse enemies early and alienated his pitchers, but who provided contact at the plate and pretty decent defense. Pierzynski was shipped back to the AL and Matheny signed in the name of that incalculable god, clubhouse chemistry.

The outfield defense is rather precarious, with the star, Grissom, and Alou showing poor overall range and weak arms. Expect a lot of extra gappers and a record year for triples by the visitors. In the infield, Vizquel and Matheny are modest improvements, Durham's OK, and the team is solid at the corners with Alfonzo and Snow -- as long as they both play.

The bench will be Tucker and Feliz, who will both get more than 400 AB, with rookies Todd Linden and Lance Niekro putting in time in the outfield and at third, Tony Torcato in the outfield, and Deivi Cruz as the utility infielder/pinch hitter. Another scrubby infielder of some sort will likely make the team for defensive substitutions. Linden was once considered to be the cream of the Giants' farm system, and is a decent but not spectacular line-drive hitter with no appreciable star potential. Of course, the sad thing is he probably still is the offensive star of the Giants' system. Niekro was once a top-10 prospect (he's the son of pitching great Phil Niekro and nephew of Joe Niekro), and he showed great contact and high average, high-OBP in the minors, but never developed power. He backslid the last few years, but he's out of options, so the Giants will likely give him a roster spot rather than releasing him. Torcato is a 25-year old lefty, who bounced around positions a bit in the minors and has settled in as an outfielder. With a little more upside, the Giants might be advised to give him a chance to play, but it seems likely he'll either sit or go back to Fresno. Cruz was a minor offensive star towards the end of the year last year, but his career tendencies towards low average with a little bit of pop will probably not translate into continued success in Pac Bell. With all his success for Alou last year, though, he'll get plenty of late inning opportunities and the odd spot start.

I am reminded, in looking back on this lineup, of the rather thin offensive lineup that nevertheless pushed the 2002 Giants into a seventh game in the World Series. The problem was that in an AL park, when they had to produce a DH, the lineup was so thin that Dusty Baker ran Tsuyoshi Shinjo out as his ninth hitter (Kenny Lofton not being willing to DH, even though Shinjo was a better defensive center fielder). With one more good hitter, that team may have gone over the top. This 2005 team is a little better, on paper, but still seems very thin and prone to breakdown. Without better bench depth, it's going to get into trouble.

The rotation is set as Schmidt, Rueter, Tomko, last year's rookie junkball sensation Noah Lowry, and Jerome Williams, who suffered through elbow and triceps injuries that limited him to 129 IP in 2004. Schmidt is a superb pitcher, and the only question with him will be durability. He gutted out injuries to finish out both 2003 and 2004, but managed a career-high 225 IP and a club-record-tying 251 strikeouts. I mentioned earlier there was a certain parallel to Schilling, who also struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness early before hitting his stride in his 30s. The similarity index suggest Rick Sutcliffe as the closest age 31 analog. Schmidt does not have enough extended success to provide a good roadmap forward, but a repeat of 2004 in 2005 is a pretty reasonable prospect. Without one, the Giants are dead in the waters of McCovey cove.

Rueter walked a tightrope all year, and shows every sign of dropping off it in '05. His game has always been contact and control -- he walks few batters, and strikes out even fewer. In '04 he faced an incredible 840 batters, an average of nearly four and a half per inning. He was getting hit more frequently, striking out batters at historically low rates, but benefiting from the pitcher's best friend, the DP. The ERA of 4.73 was the second highest of his career for a full season. His seven-year streak of a winning record with the Giants was broken, and he managed only nine wins. Far worse for the Giants, he was only good for five innings in most outings before getting into trouble. "Woody" would do more for his team riding the pine, and every time he goes out in '05, Giants fans will cringe.

Tomko seemed to have a bounce-back year, posting a 4.04 ERA for the Giants after averaging an ERA over 5.00 the previous three years with Seattle, San Diego, and Saint Louis. Making the rounds of major league cities named after saints, he benefited from the capacious Pac Bell and managed a full-season ERA better than league average for the first time in his career. At 32, the promise of Tomko has to be considered expired, and that's the best the Giants should expect -- 200 innings a bit below league average, and maybe a 10-10 record.

Lowry's success at the major league level was not presaged by success in AAA. He's a junkballer and a control artist, and these guys tend not to prosper as starters, Rueter notwithstanding. Even so, every now and then one of these guys actually steps up at the major league level, especially if they can find a little giddyup on the fast balls -- Mike Boddicker comes to mind, and even a young Greg Maddux, although Maddux always had decent velocity as well. I have low expectations for his 2005 success.

Williams, on the other hand, is a quality youngster, still 22, who is coming off injury. He'll have some rough edges as he gets seasoning, but should be good for 200 innings of up and down work. If this is the year he finds his groove, the Giants will do better than I'm predicting herein.

Also possibly seeing some time in the majors is the Giants' great pitching prospect Merkin Valdez. The Giants are not in bad shakes for pitching in the minors, so Sabean might be tempted to trade one of them at the deadline for an extra veteran arm if the Giants appear poised to win again.

Benitez comes to the closer's spot with plenty of credentials. He's got an incredible strikeout rate, and did a fantastic job for the Marlins last year, finishing 59 games and saving 47. The knock on Armando has been that he's supposedly a choker in big games, thanks to a spotty playoff record for the Mets. In fact, his overall post-season record is a decent 3.56 ERA in 30 IP, but in the post-season it's the failures that are remembered more than the routine save. He may have a somewhat fragile make-up for a closer, but a 99-mile-an-hour fastball sure has a way of restoring your confidence if you're given a little support. In the somewhat less inflammatory Bay Area media environment, he should do fine.

After Benitez, Brower returns as the primary righty set-up man, with Scott Eyre coming from the left side, and Matt Herges and Jason Christiansen doing the same honors in the seventh. The swing spot is up for grabs. Eyre and Christiansen had injuries in '04, while Herges had a celebrated attack of nerves when thrust into the closer role last year. It's a very veteran group, strong on paper but somehow looking weak as a whole. There are no dominators there, and no obvious innings-eaters. The swing man is TBD at this point, and the Giants would do well to shop for some help during spring training rather than accept mediocrities like Wayne Franklin or Kevin Correia. Top prospect and alphabetical leader David Aardsma was once thought of as a future closer, but the Giants may try to work him back into the starting rotation now that Benitez has a short-term contract. Jesse Foppert, a fixture in the rotation a couple of years ago, has a shorter ceiling as a prospect and is coming off missing over a year due to injury. Both of them are likely to make the roster as slop pitchers and spot relievers.

Does this look like a team that will take the star player the extra step and into World Series glory? No. Then again, few of the Giants teams of the last dozen years has been terribly impressive after the star player. His quest to top Aaron will provide distraction should the Giants falter, as seems likely, but in a still-weak NL West I wouldn't count them out too early. But my hunch is a record around .500 and an exit from the pennant race in early September.

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* in case this wasn't obvious, this sentence is a joke; the rest of the intro is, regrettably, true.