This entry will attempt to capture the Giants journey from the end of 2010 through the first 1/3 of the 2012 season. Some people may not have been following the G-men on a daily basis (I'm looking at you Dad) and need to be caught up on some of the major story lines since the misfits and castoffs won it all. For the other two people who read this feel free to skip the 2011 section... no sense in risking injury by throwing things.
2010 Offseason
Ok... take a deep breath and we will flash back to November 2010 and the end of the Parade. Images of the ralley thong, Brian Wilson running wild and the palpable fear/hope that Lincecum would drop the F-Bomb on the steps of city-hall still make me tingle. We knew that Renteria would not be back following an injury riddled year (despite his WS heroics.) Our pitchers were guaranteed to come back. Cody Ross, Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Pat Burrell were the big question marks heading into the offseason. We decided that the magic had run out and didn't resign any of them. Wait... we resigned ALL of them except Uribe? Oh my. We'll at least we signed them to 1 year deals at a very reasonable price. What? You mean to tell me that we resigned Aubrey Huff for 2 years 22 million dollars and a 5 million buyout clause? Oh well, he was a hero and was grossly underpaid for how clutch he was. There is no way that he could be completely washed up! Oh shit... ok we're gonna leave those signings alone, I just broke a blood vessel in my forehead.
The good news was we were getting back a slimmed down Sandoval, Freddy Sanchez was still going to be clutch, and with all that pitching there was NO way we'd miss the playoffs! And then the season started...
2011 SEASON
Things were looking pretty good through the first 1/3 of the season and then the Giants ran into trouble. Sorry, I mean trouble ran into the Giants. What I mean by that is Scott Cousins ran into Buster Posey. Things sort of started to spiral from there. Freddy was lost for the year in June. Orlando Cabrera, Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Eli Whiteside, Chris Stewart, Brandon Crawford, Miguel Tejada and Aaron Rowand combined for 41% of the giants at-bats for the season. They hit a collective .201! OUCH! To sum it up: the Giants offense was putrid.
Yes, but what were the highlights? Well, I'm glad you asked. A slimmed down Pablo Sandoval was magnificent. The trio of Lincecum, Bumgarner and Cain were fantastic. But two Giants had seasons that should be remembered for all time and they were Sergio Romo and Ryan Vogelsong. Romo is easy to summarize: 48 innings pitched, 70 strikeouts, 5 walks, 8 earned runs. Throw in a beard that reminded us all of the greatness of Chester A. Arthur and we've got a winner! As for Vogelsong, its simplist to explain it as such: If his story was made into a Disney movie it would be panned as implausible and too sappy. Drafted by the Giants in 1998 and traded to the Purgatory Pirates (whoops, that's Pittsburg Pirates) in 2001. Out of MLB in 2006 and spends time in Japan, and decided to give it one more shot. Called up in April and goes on a magical ride that includes an All-Star appearance and a stat line of 13-7 and a 2.71 ERA.
Wow... this is getting long, but I'll push through. Zito was Zito, Jonathan Sanchez couldn't find the strike zone, we traded our best pitching prospect for Carlos Beltran to provide offense down the stretch and we missed the playoffs due to the AWFUL offense.
2012 OFFSEASON
A great world series helped ease the pain of the August/September slide of 2011 that will henceforth never be spoken of again. And thus began the 2012 Hot-stove league is always an exciting time for Geeks. This is what is more commonly known as "the off-season." My list for Giants need included: a middle infielder that could hit, an outfielder with power and securing Matt Cain for the long term. Players I had highlighted as potential great Giant signings were: Michael Cuddyer, Marco Scutaro and Carlos Beltran. Scutaro and Cuddyer both signed with the Rockies. Damn! Both guys that I thought could help were signed within the NL west. Beltran waited awhile and signed for a bargain basement price with the Cardinals. Blast! The "big" moves we made were trading Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera and swapping Andres Torres to the Mets for Andres Torres. Well, at least, that's what I thought at the time. The player we actually got was Angel Pagan who had very similar stats to Torres and similar career projections. He hit for better average, slightly less power and significantly worse defense... or so I thought. I'll return to the analysis of Pagan in a later blog. All in all it seemed to be a decent haul. I still feel like we failed at upgrading the middle infield, but I was okay with it provided Crawford was able to scrape together a few hits and finish the season between .220-.240. Right now he's batting a healthy .223 so we're almost there!
Ok, that's it for the run-up to the season... Next post: A review of the season at the 1/3 mark!
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