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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:blogger='http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010</id><updated>2024-05-01T00:26:38.506-07:00</updated><category term="Barry Zito"/><category term="Jake Peavy"/><category term="Noah Lowry"/><title type='text'>The Giants Baseball Blog</title><subtitle type='html'>News, opinions and analysis on everything San Francisco Giants</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>1071</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-517127550679464789</id><published>2024-03-27T16:40:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2024-03-27T17:28:37.136-07:00</updated><title type='text'>SF Giants&#39; 2024 season preview and predictions</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;We&#39;ve reached the finish line of spring training and it&#39;s time for the games to start mattering. The Giants are a much different team than the one we saw report to camp six weeks ago. Did they add enough over the winter and spring to catapult them into playoff contention? What are some keys to success this season? We&#39;ll get into all that and more in the 2024 season preview.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A winter that started out a little slow and concerning for Giants&#39; fans, really came into form in the spring and was capped beautifully by a Blake Snell signing just over a week before opening day. The Giants are indeed a much improved team from the one we saw in 2023, just how much better they become will rely a lot on three big things.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_673,w_1196,x_2,y_0/c_fill,f_auto,h_900,q_auto,w_1600/v1/m/6/b/6bbbf86db55f62eb92d278d934cd20f2bc018452/mlb-rumors-giants-blake-snell-stance-after-matt-chapman-deal.webp&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_673,w_1196,x_2,y_0/c_fill,f_auto,h_900,q_auto,w_1600/v1/m/6/b/6bbbf86db55f62eb92d278d934cd20f2bc018452/mlb-rumors-giants-blake-snell-stance-after-matt-chapman-deal.webp&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;b&gt;Three Keys to 2024&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;1. Health&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, you can say this about every team in baseball and in any sport. In order for them to reach their end-season goals, they&#39;ll have to have had stayed relatively healthy throughout the summer. But for the Giants I&#39;ve highlighted perhaps the five most important players who would be detrimental if lost for any extended period of time. Not surprisingly, it surrounds pitching and defense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Logan Webb- This is a pretty obvious one. Even with Snell in town, he heads up the rotation and the quality of innings he provides this team really cannot be overlooked or replaced. As long as he avoids missing a handful of starts, you can pretty much pencil him in for around 200 innings and a sub-3.50 ERA.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Blake Snell- The exciting thing about the Snell signing was that it gives the Giants a 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation that can go up against anybody. Snell may not give them as many innings as Webb, but they absolutely need him out there for 28+ starts. As long as he hits that mark, with this improved defense and throwing in this ballpark, he could find himself back in the Cy Young conversation, and the Giants will need that. Plus he&#39;s got plenty of incentive to do it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Patrick Bailey- Not quite the star power as the two names above him, but we saw what kind of impact Bailey has on the pitching staff last year. That should only get better in year two. And although his offense waned down the stretch last season, he showed a knack for clutch situations. Tom Murphy presents a nice offensive option behind him, but there aren&#39;t many in the game that have as much impact behind the plate as Bailey. His presence back their is crucial to this team&#39;s success.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thairo Estrada- Estrada was the Giants&#39; most consistent bat for much of last season. We saw the offense kind of crumble last year when he was shelved in July with his wrist injury. He also provides strong defense up the middle. A lot of people around the club view him as a potential all-star second basemen this year. The Giants also just don&#39;t have much middle infield depth, so if he were lost for significant time, your looking at a huge drop-off with whoever fills in for him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jung Hoo Lee- Much like Estrada, they don&#39;t really have another guy who could fill in at center behind him long term. At least in the field. They have some corner options in both the infield and outfield, but up the middle, there aren&#39;t a whole lot. Also, Lee&#39;s deployment at the top of the order gives the team identity and stability.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;2. Improved outfield production&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants had one of the least productive outfields in baseball last season, in both facets of the game. Their overall defense was well below average, and everyone out there battled injury and/or had really down years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jung Hoo Lee was signed to come in and hopefully provide instant upgrade both in center field and at the top of the lineup. It remains to be seen how quickly the KBO star adjusts fully to MLB level pitching, but his glove should provide an upgrade right off the bat. If we&#39;re judging by spring training, I&#39;d say his bat skills are translating quite well (.414/485/.586 slash line in 33 plate appearances). Not expecting that production level in the regular season, but anything .275+ with a .350+ OBP would be acceptable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The corners are going to have to produce much better than they did last season. They&#39;ll need at least one of Michael Conforto and Mike Yastrzemski to step it up from last year. Big seasons out of them would be great, but all I&#39;m asking for is them to perform closer to their career averages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conforto played in 125 games and had brief stretches where his bat looked good, but ultimately had a rough season at the plate and in the field. There is hope that now that he&#39;s fully recovered from his shoulder issue from 2022, and won&#39;t have the rust of missing a full season, he&#39;ll be primed to return closer to his career standard. What that looks like is a slash of .253/.353/.457 and 20+ home runs. That would be huge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mike Yastrzemski just has to stay healthy. He&#39;s had hamstring and shoulder issues that sidelined him for big chunks of time last season. When he was out there though, he was their best outfielder. He&#39;s a gold glove caliber right fielder which makes up a little for the mediocre offense. If they could get 140 games around his career line of .240/.330/.460, with his glove, that would work. If they got something closer to the &#39;19/&#39;20 version of Yaz, that would be epic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If one of those two corner guys aren&#39;t cutting it, there&#39;s 22 year-old Luis Matos knocking on the door, and he absolutely will get a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;3. The youngsters have to emerge&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Speaking of Matos, he&#39;s one of three 22 year-olds who really could have sway in how this season goes for the Giants. The other two are Kyle Harrison and Marco Luciano.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Harrison looks like he&#39;ll be the only one to start the year on the big league roster, and he&#39;s going to be thrown into the fire quickly, taking the ball in game two in San Diego.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The signing of Snell and hopeful early return of Alex Cobb does take some of the pressure off Harrison, but the Giants strength has to be their starting pitching, and Harrison has to not only stick, but produce like he&#39;s capable of.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Matos, coming off perhaps the most impressive spring of any Giants&#39; hitter, has gotten stronger in the offseason and I have a really good feeling about this upcoming year for him. As I said, he&#39;s just laying in wait for an injury or a prolonged slump until he gets a shot and once that happens, I expect him to be here for good this time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Luciano is the real wild card though. His early spring performance was downright abysmal, but he finished off on a high note. Nick Ahmed may be the the teams shortstop early on, but the plan is for Luciano to take that job eventually. If he does and he can perform at the level he&#39;s capable of and they&#39;re hoping, it would be adding big power to a premium position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/BNG-Giants-Brewers-Baseball_185771722.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;413&quot; data-original-width=&quot;620&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/BNG-Giants-Brewers-Baseball_185771722.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the Giants want to reach their potential as a team, they&#39;re going to need to rely on production from at least two of these three guys, if not all three.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, obviously if the Giants want to be a playoff team, much more is going to have to go right than the three areas I mentioned above. These are just of the most importance in my view.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The area I didn&#39;t mention, but nevertheless holds incredible importance, is the bullpen. They have their ace closer, and some nice 7th and 8th inning guys, but the one area that&#39;s a little up in the air are those last few arms rounding out the group.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They have some nice intriguing options like Daulton Jefferies, Juan Sanchez, Landen Roupp, Erick Miller and Spencer Howard. Maybe not household names but guys who have thrown well in spring and have earned a shot.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Opening Day Roster Projection&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Catchers:&lt;/i&gt; Patrick Bailey, Tom Murphy&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Infielders:&lt;/i&gt; LaMonte Wade Jr., Wilmer Flores, Thairo Estrada, Nick Ahmed, Matt Chapman&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Outfielders:&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;Jung Hoo Lee, Michael Conforto, Mike Yastrzemski, Jorge Soler (DH), Austin Slater&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Utility: &lt;/i&gt;Tyler Fitzgerald&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Starting Pitchers:&lt;/i&gt; Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, Keaton Winn&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Relief Pitchers:&lt;/i&gt; Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, Taylor Rogers, Luke Jackson, Ryan Walker, Erick Miller, Landen Roupp, Daulton Jefferies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;IL:&lt;/i&gt; SP Alex Cobb (late April ETA), SP Robbie Ray (July ETA), P Tristen Beck (2nd half ETA)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Final Take/Prediction&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;From top to bottom, this roster is much better than the one they put together the last two years. Of course, a lot rides on how this rotation rounds into form with Snell coming aboard and both Cobb and Robbie Ray eventually coming back from their injuries. If in July, we see a rotation of Webb, Snell, Cobb, Harrison, Ray/Hicks and they&#39;re all healthy, this team could be a major problem down the stretch.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last minute additions of Jorge Soler and Matt Chapman really took the offense up a notch or two. This team lacked reliable, everyday bats in the lineup last year and fixed that to some degree by bringing in three this offseason. All of them will occupy key spots in the top half of the batting order. Instead of Joc Pederson and Patrick Bailey hitting fourth and fifth, we&#39;ll see a lot of Soler and Chapman. That should make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The defense has a chance to be strong. Conforto is a bit of a question in left, and if Luciano eventually takes over short, he&#39;s going to have to be more than just a powerful presence at the plate. He&#39;s going to have to defend in order to keep that job. Other than those two, however, they&#39;re solid to above average all across the diamond.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They have depth. They have the starting pitching (once everyone is out there). They have some young pieces coming up and some solid veterans leading the way. Sure, they are in a tough division, maybe the toughest in baseball, but unless things go terribly wrong, they&#39;re going to be in the hunt for a playoff spot. I would consider it a major letdown if this group wasn&#39;t able to reach October.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think their win total ranges from 83 on the low end to 92 on high end. I&#39;ll go with 87-75 and they make it in as the second wild card team. If they do make it in, we all know how dangerous they could be with that rotation (health permitting, of course).&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/517127550679464789/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=517127550679464789' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/517127550679464789'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/517127550679464789'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2024/03/sf-giants-2024-season-preview-and.html' title='SF Giants&#39; 2024 season preview and predictions'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-3792300563339834319</id><published>2024-03-04T18:01:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2024-03-04T19:46:14.337-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Spring Training Notes: Giants add Chapman</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The move that everyone was predicting after the Giants made Bob Melvin their new manager finally went down over the weekend. A little later than anyone would have guessed, but Farhan Zaidi&#39;s patience paid off.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GH2eI66boAAfeut?format=jpg&amp;amp;name=large&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GH2eI66boAAfeut?format=jpg&amp;amp;name=large&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coming off the heels of adding Jorge Soler a couple weeks back, after camp had gotten underway, the Giants made another late addition to their starting lineup, bringing in 4-time gold-glover, Matt Chapman. The former A&#39;s and Blue Jays&#39; third basemen will help solidify the infield defense and give Melvin another bat he can pencil into the middle of the order on a daily basis.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;text-align: center;&quot;&gt;The Giants did have some incumbent options at the position, but simply put, Chapman is better than any of those guys at this point. Plus, when you get a chance to get a projected $100+ million player at half price, it&#39;s a smart move to make.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The knock on him will be that he&#39;s coming off a down year offensively, but some of of that can be attributed to a hand injury that slowed him down after a scorching April. Plus his exit velocity metrics suggest that he&#39;s still the same caliber hitter that hit 36 home runs for the A&#39;s in 2019.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation Questions Remain&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, now that the offense and defense look much more capable than the 2023 version, the main question this team is facing is the uncertainty in their starting rotation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Keaton Winn unsure to be ready for his first start of the regular season and Tristan Beck now looking at a lengthy absence, an already thin starting staff is looking a lot shakier. Not to mention, Jordan Hicks has been hit relatively hard in his first two starts of the spring. There&#39;s a lot of questions as to who will help Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison bridge the gap until Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray get back.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants&#39; pursuit of Blake Snell was said to be ramping up in recent days prior to the Chapman news, and apparently the Giants are still very much in on Snell, according to Susan Slusser.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Zaidi played down the possibility of Snell or any other additions during a conference call over the weekend. He said the same thing after the Soler signing and then got Chapman, so despite that message being sent, I think he&#39;s still very much in the starting pitcher market.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether it&#39;s Snell or Jordan Montgomery, if the Giants can ink one of those two to a shorter term deal like Bellinger and Chapman each just took, it would put a really nice bow on this offseason.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Shortstop Competition&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We still are over three weeks from opening day, but the one lineup spot seemingly up for grabs thus far may not shape up like we thought coming into spring.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Marco Luciano has looked over-matched at the plate, going hit-less in his first nine at bats so far while compiling 5 strike outs. He also committed a costly late-inning throwing error in a game early last week.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Casey Schmitt, who is looking to make the team as a utility option and potential shortstop has also started out the spring 0-9.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Luciano still likely has the slight upper hand, and there&#39;s still plenty of spring left, but Nick Ahmed has looked like their best option at the position so far.. We&#39;re well aware of his gold-glove defense, but it&#39;s his bat that has stuck out early on. He&#39;s 5-8 with two home runs and 5 RBI.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m going to go out on a limb and predict that it will be Ahmed as the teams opening day shortstop. I hope I&#39;m wrong and both Luciano and Schmitt heat up over the next couple weeks but they&#39;re going to have to earn it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Young Standouts&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You never want to read too much into spring training performances, especially a couple weeks in, but two guys who I&#39;m sure the Giants are thrilled about are right-hander Mason Black and outfielder Luis Matos.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Black very well could be thrust into the starting rotation to begin the year. With Beck down, he would seem to be the next up in line unless the Giants make an addition. The 24 year-old impressed in his start on Saturday, going three innings vs. the Padres, allowing just three total base runners while striking out three.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Matos, who was asked to bulk up a little this offseason in effort to enhance exit velocity and power to go along with his solid bat-to-ball skills, has done just that. The early payoff seems to be there as he leads the team with three big fly&#39;s so far, and all of them have been impressive.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Depending on how many pitchers the Giants start the year with as well as Austin Slater&#39;s health will likely determine whether or not Matos is with the big club out of spring but even if he isn&#39;t, this kid is going to be a big part of the plan for the 2024 season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;J.D. Davis&#39; Future&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Chapman on the roster and Wilmer Flores backing up at DH and first base, Davis has become somewhat redundant. He&#39;s a solid hitter and definitely a usable player but with the guys there are ahead of him, he doesn&#39;t make a lot of sense to keep around for the price he&#39;s being paid. Not to mention, assuming the Giants carry just four bench players to start the year, they don&#39;t have much roster space.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Three rumored landing spots for him that I&#39;ve heard are the Cubs, Marlins and Blue Jays.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Marlins are the most intriguing to me, seeing that they have a few young starters the Giants could use. Of course Davis alone wouldn&#39;t land one of them but could be used as part of a package to make something work. Maybe they could package Davis and Joey Bart with one of their young pitching prospects and get Edward Cabrera or Trevor Rogers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Former Giant, Drew Smyly, seems to be the odd man out in the Cubs rotation this spring, and it&#39;s possible the Giants look into a reunion here. He could help in the rotation early and possibly shift to the pen if/when the rotation gets to full health.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Santiago Espinal has been rumored to be available in Toronto. The 2022 all-star has fallen out of favor a bit after a bad season last year and slow start to spring. Espinal could provide the Giants with a more proven utility player up the middle and give them another option at short should Luciano and Schmitt begin the year in Sacramento.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wherever he ends up, I would be very surprised if Davis is on the Giants&#39; roster when they leave Arizona.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/3792300563339834319/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=3792300563339834319' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3792300563339834319'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3792300563339834319'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2024/03/spring-training-notes-giants-add-chapman.html' title='Spring Training Notes: Giants add Chapman'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-6070223378485894337</id><published>2024-01-22T19:40:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2024-01-22T21:50:52.053-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Are Giants done adding? Who&#39;s still out there?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;We&#39;re less than a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, yet there&#39;s still a lot that needs to settle among this free agent class before that happens. The question is, will the Giants be involved?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MjAwMDEyNTMwMTEyODAwMTIw/usatsi_21162499_168390270_lowres.webp&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;413&quot; data-original-width=&quot;620&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_620/MjAwMDEyNTMwMTEyODAwMTIw/usatsi_21162499_168390270_lowres.webp&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the Jordan Hicks signing became official last week, Farhan Zaidi held a state of the union interview and gave off indications that the team is likely done shopping at the top end of the market, at least for pitching. The Matt Chapman rumor that has surrounded this club all winter long won&#39;t go away until he signs somewhere, but any chance of pairing Logan Webb with Blake Snell atop the rotation seems to have ended.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most important question this late in the winter is simple; are they a better team now than they were at the end of 2023? I don&#39;t think so, and even if they are, it&#39;s only marginally.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if Jung Ho Lee pops off with a quick, seamless transition to Major League baseball and shores up center field and the top of the order. Even if the Jordan Hicks experiment actually works and he can harness his incredible stuff for 90-100 pitches consistently, there are still multiple holes/question marks throughout this roster.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb not able to help much in the first couple months, Ross Stripling, who was unusable for the majority of last season, is lining up to be the number two to start the season. After that, you have a handful of guys in Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck and Hicks, who have a combined 23 major league starts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Don&#39;t get me wrong, I&#39;m stoked on Winn and Harrison getting shots, and think they deserve it. I&#39;m also not totally opposed to the Hicks experiment, knowing that if it doesn&#39;t work, they&#39;ll still have an elite late reliever. It&#39;s just a thin group without much experience and if a couple things don&#39;t pan out here, it could get really ugly very quickly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The lineup has a little more certainty than the rotation, just not a whole lot of upside. They&#39;re returning seven of the nine starters from last year, when they were one of the worst scoring teams in baseball the last two months. I do think inserting Marco Luciano and Lee into the everyday lineup will ultimately help, it may not be right away.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the team sitting about $29 million under the first CBT threshold, they could theoretically fit in another high-end addition. They could add Snell or Bellinger. They could add Chapman and maybe another piece.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adding Chapman intrigues me the least but may make the most sense to them. They want to shore up the infield defense with a rotation full of sinker-ballers, and despite his offense fading after leaving Oakland, he still would bring speed, athleticism and power to the lineup.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would roll the dice on Bellinger, as I&#39;ve said &lt;a href=&quot;https://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/ray-trade-opens-more-avenues-for-giants.html&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; before. You could plug him into any of the outfield spots and get gold glove defense, or use him at first. He&#39;s at the beginning of his physical prime at 28. Most importantly though, the upside is so much higher than Chapman&#39;s.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The potential ceiling is what drives this thought. If Bellinger plays to his full ability, you have an MVP-caliber talent. You have a guy you can build around in the middle of the order. If Chapman hits his full potential, you have a .250 hitter with 25 home runs and great defense at third and still heading towards decline. The risk/reward on Bellinger&#39;s upside makes him worth that gamble in my opinion, especially for a team that needs to start rolling the dice a bit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&#39;s been plenty talk about Bellinger, Chapman, Snell and Montgomery, but those aren&#39;t the only free agents out there that could bring some value to this team. I wanted to take a quick look at nine remaining free agents that could fit into the Giants&#39; plans in some way or another:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;RHP Brandon Woodruff- It would be a move purely with 2025 in mind, but it may not be a bad idea at this point. Assuming he comes back strong, you place him along with Ray and Webb at the top of this rotation and you have one of the best front-three&#39;s in all of baseball.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;RHP Liam Hendricks- Again, going with the narrative that they&#39;re gearing up for 2025, Hendricks could fit that plan. Should be back at full strength and would be an asset at the back-end of the bullpen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;LHP Hyun-jin Ryu- Had Paxton here before his deal with LA. Ryu would provide some short-term stability to the rotation. Injured most of last season but when he was on the field he was productive. May be more willing to take a one-year deal as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;RHP Michael Lorenzen- Could help in the rotation early in the year and then move into the bullpen if/when they&#39;re able to provide better options. Was an all-star last year but faded so badly down the stretch that it&#39;s essentially dried up his market. If seeking to build his value back up for next year, this could be a perfect spot for him to pitch.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;LHP Matt Moore- Giants need another lefty to compliment Taylor Rogers in their pen with Scott Alexander gone. I liked the idea of Aroldis Chapman but with him signing in Pittsburgh, Moore seems like a logical fit.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;RHP Adam Ottavino- Steady, proven late reliever that could allow the the team to use Tyler Rogers more freely rather than the primary right-handed set-up guy. Still an all-star level reliever in the latter stage of his career.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;IF Adalberto Mondesi- There has been nothing regarding Mondesi or his health status this winter, so he may still not be ready to go. If he is, the 27 year-old could bring a ton of speed and versatility to this middle infield. Definitely worth a minor league deal with escalators if he makes the team and stays healthy.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;DH J.D. Martinez- The Giants have Wilmer Flores penciled into the DH spot right now, and he may be the best hitter on the team. JD would be tough to fit in but he&#39;s such a good hitter and they&#39;re lacking so badly in the middle of their order that they should try and figure something out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1B/DH Rhys Hoskins- He would likely be demanding a nine-figure deal had he not missed all of 2023. He&#39;s a northern California native who could provide 30-home run power to the middle of the lineup. Like Martinez, he kind of fits a role this team already has filled, but his potential ceiling exceeds all of those in-house options.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/6070223378485894337/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=6070223378485894337' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6070223378485894337'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6070223378485894337'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/are-giants-done-adding-whos-still-out.html' title='Are Giants done adding? Who&#39;s still out there?'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-16266613793943062</id><published>2024-01-08T16:14:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2024-01-08T16:28:11.283-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Ray trade opens more avenues for Giants</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Over the last month, the Giants have handed out their largest free agent contract and also swung their biggest trade during the Farhan Zaidi era. Both are nice steps in the right direction but may take a little time to yield fruitful results.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As we stand, a week into the new year, I would say this team is pretty equal to the one that finished below .500 last year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I do think the Jung-Hoo Lee signing will wind up a good one at the end of the day. I know they had to go a little higher than his projected price tag heading into the offseason, but with the way the free agent market is inflating, we may look back in two years and realize the Giants got a bargain with this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Lee will have to pan out here for that to happen but it&#39;s a risk this team needed to take. It&#39;s true that the KBO is equivalent to the talent level of the mid-minor leagues in America, but Lee dominated there. He&#39;s a 25 year-old with high-end contact skills, good speed and good defense. Those should translate. Plus we&#39;re seeing minor league guys like Jackson Chourio land big, multi-year deals as well who&#39;ve never played at the major league level either. It&#39;s simply the direction the league is moving.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We just may need to be patient with him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;People like to compare Lee to Ha-Seong Kim, his friend and teammate in Korea. Kim hit for much more power than Lee in Korea but Kim was never a batting champion like Lee was and doesn&#39;t possess quite the contact skills. That being said, it took Kim about a year to really settle in here, so we cannot panic if we look up in June and Lee isn&#39;t hitting .300. I expect him to contribute in year one for sure, but I don&#39;t think we&#39;ll see his full potential until he gets 500 at-bats at this level.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Robbie Ray is another player who&#39;s impact won&#39;t be seen until at least the latter part of this season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/01/seattle-mariners-starting-pitcher-robbie-15804004.jpg?resize=1024,683&amp;amp;quality=75&amp;amp;strip=all&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;534&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;214&quot; src=&quot;https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/01/seattle-mariners-starting-pitcher-robbie-15804004.jpg?resize=1024,683&amp;amp;quality=75&amp;amp;strip=all&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;I absolutely love this trade. What is there not to like? Anthony Desclafini was dead weight. He couldn&#39;t stay healthy and hasn&#39;t been productive since the first half of 2021. He was a serious candidate to be DFA&#39;d before the year, a la Tommy LaStella.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mitch Haniger maybe wasn&#39;t maybe quite on that DFA bubble like Desclafini, but I think the Giants would have happily dealt him away to any team willing to help eat some of his contract. When he was on the field last year, his defense was sub-par in left and he was extremely underwhelming at the plate. He&#39;s become a guy who&#39;s tough to play vs. right-handed pitching and you just can&#39;t pay a guy $17M a year to be a weak-side platoon bat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants took two players who were basically clogging up spots on the major league roster and turned them into a starting pitcher with Cy Young credentials. Like with their newly signed outfielder though, we have to be patient while waiting for this move to pay off.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Robbie Ray is on the comeback from Tommy John surgery, and probably isn&#39;t being counted to impact the 2024 season a whole lot, at least until July at the earliest. For that reason, some fans were left a little confused about the direction of this deal, but I don&#39;t think anyone can argue the reasoning and logic in it.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I understand that people are yearning for additions that will make immediate impacts and that we can get excited about for the start of the season, but this shouldn&#39;t preclude them from doing that. Their payroll sits exactly where it did before this deal, and with Ray likely going onto the 60-day IL, it opens two spots on that projected opening day roster.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ray will be owed about $50 million over &#39;25-&#39;26, so there is that to account for. He does have an opt-out option after this season, but that would seem like a risky move on his end unless he comes back earlier than expected and returns to his top-form immediately.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;This move doesn&#39;t change the landscape of the 2024 team all that much. If all goes well, it will be like adding a high-end starter around the trade deadline. They can still partake in the top-end of the free agent market before then, however.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;There are increasing &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2024/01/08/all-signs-pointing-to-the-giants-on-shota-imanaga/&quot;&gt;reports&lt;/a&gt; that the Giants are one of two finalists for Japanese left-hander Shota Imanaga. That wouldn&#39;t surprise me. It would also feed into the narrative that the Giants&#39; offseason moves thus far will likely benefit them most starting in 2025. Imanaga, like Lee, will probably take a little bit of time to adjust to his new settings, although it&#39;s historically been easier for pitchers to make a quicker impact.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I still would like to see them in on Snell. The Giants&#39; best way to be competitive in this division in the immediate future will be through high-end pitching and defense. Imagine a rotation of Webb-Snell-Ray-Cobb-Harrison if they&#39;re in the playoff hunt come August.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Whether it&#39;s Snell, Imanaga, Marcus Stroman and/or another trade, I&#39;m all for adding as many quality arms to this rotation as possible.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The dealing of Haniger also, hypothetically, frees up an outfield spot. Granted, they still have a bit of a logjam out there with their returning veterans and a couple of their young players they want to find more playing time for, this move makes it at least possible to add a bat out there if they want.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Cody Bellinger is the best hitter on the market, and while he certainly comes with major risk, he kinda fits in that direction that the Giants may need to head in. They need to take some risks in free agency and if they want to be players in the market in future offseasons, they have to start somewhere. Bellinger is a 28 year-old with MVP pedigree. He plays terrific outfield defense as well as first base. Perfectly fits into Farhan&#39;s plan to get younger, more athletic and better defensively. The $200 million question is whether or not he&#39;s completely over his &#39;21-&#39;22 downfall? He certainly looked like it last season.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;I&#39;m kind of in the middle on Bellinger. In a vacuum, I could get on board if they got him. If that means a 10+ years and $250 million, I&#39;d be skeptical. If they can get the price tag below $200M, go for it.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The idea of Matt Chapman doesn&#39;t thrill me too much. Would he help the team in 2024? Yes. However, Bellinger has more upside and the chance to contribute longer with a higher impact and ceiling.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Between the names mentioned above and the handful of trade options, there are still options for this team. Maybe they continue with the thought in mind of beefing up for 2025 and go out and add Brandon Woodruff. There are still a number of ways this offseason could go and we&#39;re entering that stretch run where we&#39;ll have our answers here sooner than later.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/16266613793943062/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=16266613793943062' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/16266613793943062'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/16266613793943062'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/ray-trade-opens-more-avenues-for-giants.html' title='Ray trade opens more avenues for Giants'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-3025054854982994364</id><published>2023-12-10T15:29:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2023-12-10T16:35:12.058-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Ohtani picks Dodgers, what&#39;s next for SF?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The question at the forefront of the baseball world for the last couple months finally came to resolution over the weekend and it was a double gut punch for Giants fans.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shohei Ohtani will not become that superstar the Giants franchise has so desperately been in search of for the better part of the last decade. Instead of the Giants, Blue Jays, Cubs and Angels, Ohtani chose to sign a record breaking, 10-year deal worth $700 million with Dodgers. Which should have been a surprise to absolutely nobody.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, being a Giants fan, I held out a glimmer of hope that Shohei may want to challenge himself. Come up to the Bay Area and try to bring the Giants back to where they were in the early 2010&#39;s. But at the end of the day, we know his number one priority was winning, and the Giants just have not done enough of it over the last couple seasons.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Farhan and the front office is taking the flack for this miss, and rightfully so, but not for underbidding for Shohei. He probably offered as much as ownership let him. Where he really gets the blame though, is not making the Giants a more attractive option for someone like Ohtani.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their best chance at convincing Ohtani and any other big name free agent to come aboard is simply to consistently field a competitive team. They haven&#39;t done that the last couple of years and seem headed in the wrong direction. That&#39;s where their collective failures have handicapped their chances in free agency.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I could go on and on but it&#39;s time to turn the page. Last year the Giants missed out on Aaron Judge and canceled on Carlos Correa, at which time they didn&#39;t have many options to pivot to. They have some better opportunities this winter, and it&#39;s imperative they do a better job with their plan b this time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://elitesportsny.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/USATSI_16508392-1280x927.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;579&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;231&quot; src=&quot;https://elitesportsny.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/USATSI_16508392-1280x927.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Atop that plan b is 25 year-old Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto. It looks like the Giants&#39; best chances at really building up a strength of this roster lays in the starting rotation and Yamamoto paired with Logan Webb would give them a tremendous foundation there.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are questions around Yamamoto, no doubt. Most people think he has the talent to transfer over to Major League Baseball seamlessly, but what if he doesn&#39;t? And I know he&#39;s only 25, but he has thrown a lot of innings early in his career already, there may be some concern about him breaking down over the second half of a potential 9-10 year contract. But that&#39;s the way free agency works and this is a risk the Giants absolutely need to be OK with.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would love to see Yamamoto and another upper rotation guy added to really beef up the front part of their starting rotation. Imagine nabbing Blake Snell as well. A Webb-Snell-Yamamoto-Harrison-Cobb rotation could definitely help offset their below average offense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&#39;s also a couple position players out there that would undoubtedly improve this team.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants have been linked to Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman. Both of those guys come with their strengths but also, come with tremendous risk.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have my concerns about Bellinger hitting in this ballpark. Despite him having a strong rebound season in Chicago, his metrics suggest that he overachieved. I do like the fact that his splits were pretty even away from the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. He&#39;s also just hitting his prime at age 28 and has an MVP award already on his resume. The talent is there, but so is the chance he reverts back to the .215 hitter he was with the Dodgers the two years prior to 2023.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5_17chJ5TYqZMAKfGpoajhMCEzU=/0x0:3227x2152/920x613/filters:focal(1776x704:2292x1220):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72166026/1250868203.0.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;533&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5_17chJ5TYqZMAKfGpoajhMCEzU=/0x0:3227x2152/920x613/filters:focal(1776x704:2292x1220):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72166026/1250868203.0.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He also fits the mold of getting more athletic up the middle, as he&#39;s a gold glove caliber center fielder. Is he worth the supposed $200+ million deal he&#39;s seeking? To the Giants, he might just be.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m less interested in Chapman as he just hasn&#39;t been the same hitter the last couple of years as he was early on in Oakland. Still, his defense is elite and he rated four wins above the Casey Schmitt/JD Davis combo last year. I&#39;m just not sure he&#39;s worth the $150+ million he&#39;s looking for. He&#39;s an upgrade over what they currently have though so he could make some sense under the right terms.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as the trade market, that&#39;s an area where Farhan and company should be exploring in depth. If they can&#39;t land a Snell and/or Yamamoto in free agency, then they&#39;ll have dip into their prospect pool and package a few of those guys for the likes of Tyler Glasnow, Corbin Burnes or Shane Bieber.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just like the free agent class, however, the trade market for impact bats is light on any real needle pushers. I mentioned on twitter the idea of prying away Mike Trout now in response to the Dodgers getting Ohtani, but the Angels have made it clear that they won&#39;t move him yet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pete Alonso has been rumored to possibly be available, as his contract extension talks with the Mets have not been fruitful, but I doubt the Mets are actively trying to move him. Would he be worth trading away a package of prospects for? Again, for this Giants team at this point in time, he probably would be.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The guy I would really be interested in though is Luis Robert Jr. He&#39;s the epitome of what the Giants need. There were &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nbcsportschicago.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/white-sox-news/mlb-insider-can-see-white-sox-trading-luis-robert-jr/523212/&quot;&gt;rumblings&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;that the White Sox could move him as they rebuild, but looking at his palatable contract and how he&#39;s the cornerstone of that team at age 26, I have a hard time seeing that happen. If it could, he&#39;d be worth a package headed by Marco Luciano.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whatever way they have to do it, this offseason they have to make some noise. Again, it seems like the best way to do that right now is to make this rotation as stout as possible. Yes, they have to grab a couple of position players to bring in and help the lineup, but even if that wound up being both Bellinger and Chapman, it won&#39;t be enough to make this offense a catalyst.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One way or another, things are going to start sorting themselves out pretty quickly though. With Ohtani done and Yamamoto meeting with suitors this week, I expect a lot to happen over the next 10 days. Farhan has to be ready to move quickly. The need to bring in both quantity and quality to this roster outweighs the potential risk of picking the wrong player. It&#39;s time for this front office to be brave and take some chances. Until they do, they&#39;ll just keep treading in mediocrity and fading in attendance and fan interest.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/3025054854982994364/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=3025054854982994364' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3025054854982994364'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3025054854982994364'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/ohtani-picks-dodger-whats-next-for-sf.html' title='Ohtani picks Dodgers, what&#39;s next for SF?'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-7294473048254805916</id><published>2023-07-17T17:04:00.002-07:00</published><updated>2023-07-17T17:13:31.371-07:00</updated><title type='text'>What makes sense for Giants at the deadline?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;We&#39;re officially two weeks away from the MLB trade deadline and Farhan Zaidi and company will have some tough decisions between now and then.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants have gotten back to their winning ways lately, sweeping the Pirates over the weekend after they won their last two heading into the all-star break. They&#39;re back over 10 games above .500 and at the moment definitely look like legit playoff contender.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now the only question surrounds how aggressive they plan to be during these next couple of weeks.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the areas that needs the most help right now is the middle infield. They&#39;re hoping Thairo Estrada returns in a couple weeks, but even if he does return and bounces back to his early first half form, this team could still use some depth up the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Brandon Crawford has bounced back modestly after a horrendous first couple of months, but he&#39;s still barely hitting over .200 and is entering the second half of his age-36 season. Having someone who can help shoulder some of the load with him could be ideal down the stretch. The hope was that Casey Schmidt would become that guy but his struggles at the plate are making him harder to put in the starting lineup.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now the issue with getting some infield help is their simply doesn&#39;t seem to be many options out there.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tim Anderson is probably the biggest rumored name available, but his season thus far has actually been worse than Crawford&#39;s. The 30 year-old former batting champ is slashing just .227/.264/.266 with zero home runs. His bWAR is sitting at -1.6 and his OPS+ is at 47. Maybe a change of scenery would do him wonders and he&#39;s not far removed from some big time numbers, I just don&#39;t see the Giants being in on him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The one guy who hasn&#39;t been mentioned much but may be made available after the Cardinals have essentially waived the white flag on their 2023 season is Tommy Edman.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-1241229045-4x3-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;amp;strip=info&amp;amp;w=1024&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;598&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;239&quot; src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-1241229045-4x3-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;amp;strip=info&amp;amp;w=1024&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;He himself is having a bit of a down year, but his versatility, age and team control beyond this season make him intriguing. He hits from both sides, plays both middle infield spots as well as the outfield and he&#39;s solid at each of them. He perfectly fits Farhan&#39;s desire to upgrade the team speed and athleticism. The Giants have no lock for the shortstop position in 2024 and Edman could step into that role adequately. As long as his wrist injury isn&#39;t anything serious (currently on IL and hasn&#39;t resumed baseball activity yet), he&#39;d be the guy at the top of my list if I&#39;m Farhan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Things do seem to be getting a little better in the rotation.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ross Stripling is back and has looked like a different pitcher since returning from his extended IL stint. Anthony DeSclafani, who looked so good that first month of the season but so bad ever since, is supposedly healthy, rested and ready for the second half. Alex Wood is healthy. Sean Manaea, although looking much better out of the bullpen than as a starter this year, is always an option to start games if needed.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are rookies Keaton Winn and Triston Beck who are capable of eating up chunk innings either out of the pen or as a starter. And last but not least, they still expect Kyle Harrison to arrive at some point this season.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to grab someone like Marcus Stroman or Lucas Giolito to come in and help at the front of this rotation, but those guys will be tough to get. And if they aren&#39;t getting a front-rotation starter, what&#39;s the point of getting another back-end guy when they have five or six guys who can already fit in there?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bullpen has been a huge strength for the team, and they themselves haven&#39;t had the healthiest run. With Luke Jackson and John Brebbia on their way back however, that will be like adding two much needed fresh arms to the mix. The only thing I worry about with this group is them breaking down a little down the stretch do to them being used so much thus far.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&#39;s also the philosophy of making your strength stronger and going out and getting another late-inning guy to help Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval, but I don&#39;t think it&#39;s a necessity.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Much like the rotation, the outfield has dealt with plenty of injuries over the first half, but I think they have enough depth there to ride it out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Michael Conforto, Mike Yastrzemski and Austin Slater are all healthy at the moment. Mitch Haniger is expected back in September and should give them a nice jolt of offense down the stretch. In the meantime, Luis Matos maybe hasn&#39;t lit it up quite like we were hoping but he looks like he belongs and I think the run production will come with time.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside from the guys on the big league roster, they have Heliot Ramos hitting well in AAA and Luis Gonzalez starting his rehab assignment. Of course, Joc Pederson and LaMonte Wade can always slide out to one of the corners in a pinch. I just don&#39;t see any room for another outfielder.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With how their needs stack up, and looking at what&#39;s available, it wouldn&#39;t surprise me if the Giants fly under-the-radar this trade season. If they do make a move, my guess would be for that middle infield help I talked about earlier. It may be tough to lure Edman away but two guys, for example, who could fit that mold are Boston&#39;s Christian Arroyo and Kike Hernandez.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For those of you holding out hope for a huge Shohei Ohtani trade, I highly doubt the Giants would do that. The cost for Shohei will be steep, even if it is for just two months of his services. It would likely cost at least two of Kyle Harrison, Marco Luciano, Carson Whisenhunt and probably more. If the Giants are serious about getting Ohtani, they have to make their push in a few months when he hits the open market. I could be wrong, but I sincerely hope they don&#39;t gut the top end of their farm system just to get him here for a couple months.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/7294473048254805916/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=7294473048254805916' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7294473048254805916'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7294473048254805916'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/07/what-makes-sense-for-giants-at-deadline.html' title='What makes sense for Giants at the deadline?'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-7991664490527291737</id><published>2023-06-19T14:48:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2023-06-19T14:48:41.227-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Injuries not slowing down the Giants</title><content type='html'>We&#39;re mid-way through June and we&#39;ve already seen about a season&#39;s worth of injuries run through the Giants&#39; clubhouse. However, as the injuries keep popping up, the Giants keep on persevering.&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Just to give you an idea of how bad it&#39;s been healthy wise, the only positional guys who have not hit the injured list or have missed games in bulk this season have been LaMonte Wade Jr. and J.D. Davis. The latter, however, has now missed most of the last week with an ankle sprain.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;You never like to see players hit the IL, but the reality is, it&#39;s part of the game. You have to find a silver lining. That silver lining in the Giants&#39; case this year is that it has prompted the rookies onto the roster, and they have been a driving force in the team&#39;s success since mid-May.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/33/24/03/23937263/3/1100x0.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;533&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/33/24/03/23937263/3/1100x0.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;Luis Matos is the latest top prospect to make his way onto the big league roster, and while he&#39;s only appeared in a handful of games thus far, he looks like he could wind up being the most impacting of the team&#39;s rookie trio.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;His patience has been perhaps the most impressive part of his game. Constantly spitting on close pitches just off the outside corner during the LA series, something you don&#39;t see a 21 year-old do too often when they first arrive. He&#39;s walked 5 times in his 17 plate appearances thus far, and when he is swinging the bat, that swing looks smooth, compact and powerful. You can definitely see shades of Ronald Acuna in his game.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Not to take anything away from Casey Schmitt and Patrick Bailey, of course.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Schmitt was the one that got this whole thing going with his explosive first couple weeks. He&#39;s really tailed off of late though, and needs to make that adjustment to his chase rate. Still, he brings a tremendous, versatile glove, and is still driving balls that are being left in the hitting zone.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Bailey still hasn&#39;t regressed on either side of the ball since he&#39;s arrived.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Now with the injury bug hitting the starting rotation, could the Giants look to roll the dice on that rookie magic helping out that group in the coming weeks?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The Giants will be without Alex Cobb for at least 15 days, as the teams&#39; number two starter hit the shelf this weekend with an oblique issue. Obviously with the way he&#39;s thrown this season, that loss, however brief it hopefully ends up being, will be a tough one.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We&#39;ve seen rookies come up and supplant holes in the lineup, but we&#39;ve yet to see a rookie make a big league start for this team in 2023. That could change with them now needing to cover a few of Cobb&#39;s starts.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Keaton Winn and Tristan Beck both look like quality options to slip into the rotation should the Giants choose to go that route. They&#39;ve been using an opener in their fifth spot since Ross Stripling went down but asking them to do that for two rotation spots could be a little taxing on the bullpen.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Sean Manaea could also get another look in the rotation, although Gabe Kapler recently said he really likes Manaea in his current role as a bulk innings guy out of the pen.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;They also could give Jacob Junis a little run as a starter, a role he mostly flourished in during the 2022 season when asked.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The real anticipation lies with Kyle Harrison though. With the success the Giants have had with their call-ups over these last 6 weeks, why not throw Harrison into the mix? Well, it&#39;s not as simple as that.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;The Giants have been slowly building Harrison&#39;s pitch count and workload up in Sacramento, where he has reached just five innings in a start one time so far. Unlike with positional talent, the need to really nurture a top prospect arm like Harrison&#39;s makes his arrival more determined by when he&#39;s ready rather than when the Giants have a hole to fill.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;My guess is the Giants go with Beck in Cobb&#39;s next spot, with the Winn waiting as a possible piggy back should he only last a few innings. I don&#39;t think they&#39;ll mess with Manaea or Junis&#39; roles right now. Not with how well things have been going for the bullpen lately, and I don&#39;t blame them.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Stripling has begun a rehab assignment, but he is probably still a couple weeks away, as the Giants will take it slow with his return. Strip has had a rough go of it so far in San Francisco, but maybe he hasn&#39;t been right physically. If he can come back and perform closer to his 2022 form, imagine what kind of shot in the arm that would give this rotation?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We&#39;ll see how the Giants play it this week. They have been one of the best teams in baseball the last month-plus. They&#39;re as fun to watch right now as they have been in years. Whatever buttons they&#39;re pushing appear to be working. They&#39;re getting contributions out of essentially all 26 roster spots and to think that things may only get better as they get a little healthier is an intriguing scenario for this club.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/7991664490527291737/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=7991664490527291737' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7991664490527291737'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7991664490527291737'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/injuries-not-slowing-down-giants.html' title='Injuries not slowing down the Giants'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-8613984091342514864</id><published>2023-05-28T19:50:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2023-05-28T19:50:02.877-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Bright spots emerge on road trip</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Giants&#39; quick trip to the mid-west didn&#39;t quite end the way they would have liked on Sunday in Milwaukee, but there are a few things they can feel good about as they head back home.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside Alex Cobb&#39;s rough two innings to begin Sunday&#39;s finale vs. the Brewers and the defensive meltdown they had in Minnesota, pretty much every aspect of this road trip went well for the Giants.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;San Francisco rode some impressive pitching and some timely clutch hitting to a solid 5-2 trip. They went up against the first place team in each the NL and AL Central, and they looked much better than both of them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The two things that really stood out to me and I&#39;m sure all Giants fans, and two things that we have really seen prosper in the month of May have been the performance of this pitching staff and the emergence of some young guys who are impacting the way the team is playing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ever since the arrival of Casey Schmitt on May 9th, this team has looked completely different. Then add on the arrival of Patrick Bailey 10 days later and it&#39;s added even more fuel to this ball club. It hasn&#39;t been the same arrival we saw with Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos and other young guys the Giants have given shots to in recent seasons. These guys look like they can play in this league right now and I have a feeling that they&#39;re here to stay.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m not sure who I&#39;m more impressed with right now. We all are aware of Schmitty&#39;s defensive reputation, he&#39;s looked good wherever the Giants have stuck him in the infield. But the fact that he&#39;s hitting over .300 with an OPS over .800 now 70 at-bats into his big league career has shown me that he&#39;s not just all glove. He&#39;s got power, can drive the ball to the opposite field and even has plus speed. If and when he hones in on the strike zone and stops chasing so many pitches off the plate, he&#39;ll get even more pitches to hit and we should see those power numbers go up further.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bailey came up without quite the attention that Schmitt garnered, but he has been just as impressive, maybe more so in a couple of facets. His hit tool doesn&#39;t project out as well as Schmitt&#39;s but he knows how to take a big league at-bat. He had a rough night on Saturday vs. Corbin Burnes, but he still boasts a nice .308 average, .833 OPS with a home run and 7 RBI in his 26 at-bats.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;His real value though has come behind the plate. He looks like a 10-year vet back there, framing pitches and receiving. Pitchers are already locked in with him and have given him extremely high praise. In fact Logan Webb said after his start on Saturday that he entrusted Bailey to call pitches at points during the outing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s small sample sizes for both, for sure, but the fact that they&#39;ve shown promise is more than we&#39;ve seen from any Giants&#39; minor league call-ups in quite some time and that&#39;s causing a lot of excitement. Not just in the fan base but it&#39;s rubbing off in the clubhouse as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The other area I did want to discuss today was the pitching staff. I can&#39;t go up and down and talk about every singe one of these guys, but two who really stood out this road trip were another pair of rookies.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tristan Beck and Ryan Walker played big in the Giants bullpen game win vs the Twins early in the week. Then they combined to go 4 perfect innings in relief of Alex Cobb on Sunday, which kept the Giants breathing in a game that looked ugly early on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both of these guy&#39;s stuff looks good. I like Wilson&#39;s cross-body delivery and when he&#39;s throwing 97 MPH from that angle and controlling it, that&#39;s a tough at-bat. Wilson has struck out 5 while allowing only 3 base runners in his 4 innings since his call-up. Again, I know it&#39;s a small sample but just like with Bailey and Schmitt, he&#39;s just looked comfortable up here and looks like he belongs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Beck, who&#39;s had a couple of rough outings this year which have inflated his ERA a bit, was absolute nails on this trip. The 26 year-old pitched 9 innings over the week, during which he&#39;s allowed only 2 hits, no walks and struck out 10 batters. He&#39;s made a case to be in consideration to earn a start the next time the Giants need it. They&#39;ve been running with an opener for the last couple weeks in their fifth spot and they&#39;ve had success doing it. If Beck keeps throwing like he has, however, he may just force himself into that rotation spot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pretty much every Giant aged 26 or younger has been contributing big during this recent hot streak. We&#39;ve talked about of few of the rookies, but the big guns, Logan Webb and Camilo Doval have been as good as you can ask for throughout May.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rule 5 draft pick Blake Sabol has hit himself into a regular role. He had a couple rough games during this road trip but had a huge 3-run home run in Sunday&#39;s game which put the Giants back in the game late.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even Brent Wisely&#39;s at bats seem to have gotten a lot better over the last 10 days or so.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The recent success mixed with the way these young guys are performing have Giants fans excited again. They&#39;re not going to continue over the course of the year winning 12 of every 15 games like they&#39;ve just done, but this team has shown that they have enough talent to genuinely compete this season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Things can still get better too, at least offensively. If Mitch Haniger picks it up like Michael Conforto has and Joc Pederson comes back and plays the way he&#39;s capable of, this lineup becomes one of the deepest in the league.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/8613984091342514864/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=8613984091342514864' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/8613984091342514864'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/8613984091342514864'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/bright-spots-emerge-on-road-trip.html' title='Bright spots emerge on road trip'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-1449119883156254969</id><published>2023-04-30T17:18:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2023-04-30T17:30:22.824-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants have rough time in Mexico City</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;After finally getting it going here in late April and winning five of their last six ballgames heading into the weekend, the Giants had a largely forgettable 2-game set with the Padres in Mexico City.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They were out-slugged by San Diego in an offensive juggernaut on Saturday, then lost a game they&#39;ll tell you they probably should have held on to on Sunday. They had the late-inning lead but their two best relievers to date couldn&#39;t shut the door in the eighth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not only did they lose the series, but they may have lost their starting center fielder for a little while.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just when it looks like the full lineup is back and healthy, Mike Yastrzemski came up limping after making a diving attempt on a shallow fly ball in the eighth inning. It didn&#39;t look good either as Yaz limped off the field and it looks like an IL stint is almost certain. You see something like that and you immediately think hamstring but I don&#39;t want to speculate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the Giants&#39; sake, let&#39;s hope it was just a minor strain. Yaz has really been one of the more consistent guys at the plate thus far. He had a two-hit day before leaving on Sunday and his average is up to .292 with a strong .854 OPS. He&#39;s also played a really strong center field so far and both his glove and bat will be missed if he&#39;s shelved for any extended period of time. He didn&#39;t sound or look too concerned in his post game interview, however, which should be a good sign. I mean the fact he even was available to do that makes me optimistic that it maybe looked worse than it was.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was a game that kind of described their whole month all in one afternoon. There were some bright spots. They got a pretty good start from Cobb, especially when you consider the conditions he was pitching in. They hit three home runs and they really had control of this one most of the day. But the bullpen, which has been very inconsistent over the first month, gave up three crucial runs late which ultimately put them away. Luckily for them, April is now over and they can clean the slate on their 11-16 start.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/ar_16:9,g_auto,q_auto:good,w_1024,c_fill,f_jpg/mlb/ppnprzj0rxdsze6h57m2&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/ar_16:9,g_auto,q_auto:good,w_1024,c_fill,f_jpg/mlb/ppnprzj0rxdsze6h57m2&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Despite the tough outcome in this series, they do have a couple of things moving in a positive direction for them.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m excited to see what Mitch Haniger can start doing now that he looks like he&#39;s fully over the oblique issue. That&#39;s a huge presence in the middle of the order that this team was without for the first four weeks of the year, and he&#39;s already made a big impact since his return.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&#39;s what would make this potential Yaz injury really hurt. This lineup looks like it&#39;s rounding into form. They have a few different guys really swinging well and we&#39;ve started to see the depth they can have when they&#39;re all healthy. J.D. Davis and Thairo Estrada look like all-stars right now and LaMonte Wade has been an OPS stud at the top. Conforto will get going at some point too and we haven&#39;t see Joc Pederson really light it up yet either.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m not too worried about the offense right now though. Even if Yaz is forced to miss some time, Austin Slater is healthy and has looked good at the plate since his return. They shouldn&#39;t miss to much on either side of the ball if Yaz is shelved for a few games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am, however, a little worried about this bullpen. You look down into that group and you see a ton of ERA&#39;s north of five. It feels like far too many inherited runners are being allowed to score. Camilo Doval has been a big culprit of that struggle too. Doval&#39;s numbers don&#39;t look too bad on paper, but it feels like every time he&#39;s come in with runners on, at least one of those runners crosses the plate. That&#39;s something that has to improve.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The bullpen has also thrown a lot of innings in the early going. The good thing is they do have a couple of guys down there who can handle those multi-inning stretches, but I hope guys like the Rogers&#39; twins, John Brebbia and Scott Alexander are able to get a few days off here at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, it&#39;s still remarkably early on the grand scale of the full season. We&#39;re 1/6 of the way through and despite the team&#39;s struggles, I&#39;m still not ready to write them off or officially panic just yet. If they keep their lineup healthy and on the field and their bullpen can tighten up, we will see a better product in May.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/1449119883156254969/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=1449119883156254969' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1449119883156254969'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1449119883156254969'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/giants-have-rough-time-in-mexico-city.html' title='Giants have rough time in Mexico City'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-3575306805938519120</id><published>2023-04-03T16:25:00.002-07:00</published><updated>2023-04-03T16:44:05.998-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants&#39; bats wake up in Chicago</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;After an overall tough weekend in New York with the Yankees, the Giants really got their offense kick-started in game one against the White Sox on Monday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s taken a few games to get there, but we saw much of what Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler envisioned with this offense. Things got off a bit of a slow start, as Michael Kopech struck out three of the first four batters he saw. After that, however, it was all San Francisco.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Joc Pederson got the party started with the a solo shot in the second, then Roberto Perez laced an RBI single to left later on in the inning. The Giants never looked back after that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most of this team was pressing coming into this series, but a few key guys who really needed to get going did just that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wgntv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/04/AP23093758738558-e1680558248388.jpg?w=2560&amp;amp;h=1440&amp;amp;crop=1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://wgntv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2023/04/AP23093758738558-e1680558248388.jpg?w=2560&amp;amp;h=1440&amp;amp;crop=1&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Michael Conforto, who had a forgettable return to the big apple over the weekend, connected for his first long ball and first multi-hit game with his new club. David Villar, who has Casey Schmitt breathing down his neck, launched two balls deep into the left field bleachers. One of them was a grand slam that really put an end to any hope of a White Sox comeback. Mike Yastrzemski, who had some people worried with his lackluster spring, reached base four times, which included his first home run and a double.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When this offense is really clicking, we&#39;re going to see the long ball. Hitters will work the counts into favorable spots, sit on a pitch and launch it. They&#39;ll have their share of strikeouts, but the walks and big flies should help offset those. We didn&#39;t see that much in New York, as their hitters constantly found themselves behind in counts, but we definitely saw it on Monday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even when they were putting the ball in play in New York, hardly anything was being hit with much authority. It wasn&#39;t so much the racking up of the strikeouts that was frustrating, but it was the fact that they weren&#39;t squaring anything up. It looked like they just weren&#39;t seeing the ball well. It has to feel good for them to have a performance like this coming off such a down weekend.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not to be overlooked in the offensive onslaught, Anthony DeSclafini provided exactly what the Giants needed on the mound. He shut down the powerful White Sox lineup over six innings, striking out four and allowing just three total base runners on the afternoon. He very much resembled the pitcher that won 13 games and rocked a 3.17 ERA two seasons ago.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, just as we couldn&#39;t get too wrapped up in their series&#39; loss verse the Yankees, we can&#39;t get too high on the offensive performance just yet. We have to keep seeing it. Kopech clearly did not have his best command today. The thing we can be optimistic about though, is they had multiple guys all get going. It wasn&#39;t just a three-run home run by one guy that made the difference. Everyone contributed in this one. That&#39;s something that should carry over the rest of this series and hopefully on into the season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One thing to keep an eye on over the next 48 hours is how Thairo Estrada bounces back after hitting a ball over 100-mph off the bat, straight into his foot. I&#39;m not sure he would have left the game if it wasn&#39;t the ninth inning of a 4-run ballgame, but the Giants were understandably being precautionary. We&#39;ve seen players break bones in their leg or foot in similar scenarios so anytime someone leaves the game because of it you kind of hold your breath. Estrada is one guy the Giants cannot afford to lose. He&#39;s pacing the team with a .375 average and two stolen bases so far and hit his first home run of the year earlier in the game.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/3575306805938519120/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=3575306805938519120' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3575306805938519120'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/3575306805938519120'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/04/giants-bats-wake-up-in-chicago.html' title='Giants&#39; bats wake up in Chicago'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-5326243438294803916</id><published>2023-03-30T12:55:00.005-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-30T13:01:56.306-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants start &#39;23 with predictable narrative</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Giants opened their 2023 season on Thursday in New York and it can&#39;t come as much of a surprise as to how things turned out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Facing one of the best starting pitchers in the game on a cold day in the Bronx, you knew runs would be tough to come by and they were indeed. The Yankees beat the Giants 5-0 backed by a dominant outing from Gerrit Cole and a couple of clutch big flies.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Logan Webb pretty much matched Cole pitch for pitch, but unfortunately for Webb, he was the one who had to face Aaron Judge. The guy who flirted with the idea of joining the Giants this winter, and actually was reportedly coming to San Francisco for a few minutes, fittingly homered in his first at-bat against them.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Webb really made just two mistakes all afternoon and both ended up leaving the ballpark. Judge&#39;s blast to center, then Gleyber Torres just back-spun a ball over the short porch in right field to make the game 3-0 in the fourth. Neither of those balls are laving the yard if this game is in Oracle, but that&#39;s just how the day went.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/ar_1:1%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_1200/MTk2OTAxMjkyNTc5MjM1MjUz/usatsi_20354442.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;800&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;200&quot; src=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/ar_1:1%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_1200/MTk2OTAxMjkyNTc5MjM1MjUz/usatsi_20354442.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;The outing by the Giants&#39; ace was really the only bright spot of the day. It won&#39;t look as good in the box score as it actually was, but as I said, he looked every bit as good as Cole through most of his outing. He ended his day allowing four runs over six-plus innings, but allowed just four hits and struck out 12.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants were just never able to get anything going to support their ace. Cole struck out seven of the first nine batters he faced and the Giants were only able to collect 3 hits over six innings off him. There were times where it looked like the Giants&#39; hitters weren&#39;t reading the ball at all out of Cole&#39;s hand. Of course we can&#39;t get too caught up on one game, they are certainly not going to face guys with Cole&#39;s ability most nights. They just looked over-matched and unprepared at the plate, and that is a little concerning.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thairo Estrada hit a couple balls pretty well and Roberto Perez hit a line drive base hit to center but other than that it was relatively soft contact all day mixed in with a total of 16 strikeouts. Even when Cole left the game after six, the Giants&#39; at-bats did not improve much at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course we&#39;re probably going to hear a lot about the Giants lackluster lineup and how they messed up by not improving it more over the winter, but it&#39;s far to early for that. It may be true, but we can&#39;t judge them after one game in 40 degree weather against a dude throwing high-90&#39;s with filthy stuff.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was a tough one for sure. But the emphasis is one. It&#39;s the first of 162 and despite the lack of optimism coming out of this one they&#39;re going to look better than they showed this afternoon. It will be interesting to see what kind of adjustments or changes they make before game two on Saturday.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/5326243438294803916/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=5326243438294803916' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5326243438294803916'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5326243438294803916'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/giants-start-23-with-predictable.html' title='Giants start &#39;23 with predictable narrative'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-6887761341335738179</id><published>2023-03-28T20:49:00.006-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-28T21:00:15.594-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants set to head to NY for opener</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;The exhibition part of MLB&#39;s schedule officially ended Tuesday, and the Giants have to fell pretty good about a lot of things that transpired in Arizona.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We saw the emergence of Casey Schmitt, who both impressed with the bat and the glove during the Cactus League. He&#39;s going to be in San Francisco sooner than later.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rule 5 pick, Blake Sabol, also raked this spring, and has ensured his spot on the opening day roster. With Joey Bart&#39;s continual struggle to make consistent contact, Sabol could eventually find himself as a regular behind the plate. It will come down to how well he can handle the position, but that bat plays, and the Giants look intent on giving him a legitimate shot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another young guy who&#39;s had a quietly impressive spring is shortstop Will Wilson. The 24 year-old hit .321 with 2 home runs, 13 RBI and a robust 1.079 OPS. Much has been said about Brett Wisely and Isan Diaz as the next line of defense in the middle infield, but I think Wilson has to be looked at more seriously with how clutch he performed this March.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Those are just a few positives we saw transpire over the last six weeks, but I think the ultimate goal was to keep the big league roster as healthy as possible and they mostly accomplished that. Unfortunately Mitch Haniger and Austin Slater will open the year on the IL. Haniger looks like he&#39;ll be back by mid-April, but Slater&#39;s is a little more of a mystery.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With both Slater and Haniger starting on the shelf, it&#39;s opened the door for spring standout Bryce Johnson who led all of baseball in stolen bases this spring. Johnson had a brief stint with the big club last season and underwhelmed greatly at the plate, but he&#39;ll get another shot early on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Other than Johnson likely cracking the opening day roster, there aren&#39;t really any other surprises. Here&#39;s a look at the group expected to head to New York for the opener on Thursday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Catchers: Joey Bart, Roberto Perez, Blake Sabol&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Infielders: LaMonte Wade Jr., Thairo Estrada, Brandon Crawford, David Villar, J.D. Davis, Wilmer Flores&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Outfielders: Michael Conforto, Mike Yastrzemski, Joc Pederson, Bryce Johnson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Starting Pitchers: Logan Webb, Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, Ross Stripling, Anthony DeSclafini, Sean Manaea&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Relievers: Camilo Doval, Taylor Rogers, Tyler Rogers, Scott Alexander, John Brebbia, Sean Hjelle, Jakob Junis&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As for any last minute insights as to how this team will do this year, I think it&#39;s going to ultimately come down to how their players who didn&#39;t perform as well last year, or missed it all together, bounce back this year.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/RWED45NfD_j_hMDvd4Sbgw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNw--/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-03/ded75520-c128-11ed-96ea-c7aea658ae40&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;427&quot; data-original-width=&quot;640&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/RWED45NfD_j_hMDvd4Sbgw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNw--/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-03/ded75520-c128-11ed-96ea-c7aea658ae40&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conforto is at the top of that list. I&#39;ll make my preseason bold prediction and say he&#39;ll finish the season with some down MVP votes and make the NL all-star team. He&#39;s healthy, in shape and fully motivated to put the last couple years behind and earn himself a nine-figure deal next offseason. I think he&#39;ll do it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Crawford and Haniger, the older vets in this lineup, have to be out there for 75-80 percent of games this year. No frequent or prolonged IL stints or nagging injuries that hamper their play for extended periods.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yaz and Wade simply need to be closer to their 2021 form.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All of these scenarios are completely plausible, but hard to suggest based on all their performances last season. If they can get decent production out of those five players along with the steadiness that Pederson, Flores, Estrada and Davis should provide, then the offense will be surprisingly deep. I&#39;m still not sure what to expect defensively but it has to improve over last year, right?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They have enough pitching depth that it should be their anchor all season. There is no Carlos Rodon paired with Logan Webb at the top of it but they have more depth than they did a year ago. Even if a couple starters don&#39;t pan out or get hurt, they have another handful of guys who they can call upon, including their top-prospect, Kyle Harrison. I&#39;m not worried about that area of this team at all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their mid-relief has some questions, but the back-end of the bullpen should be elite with Doval and Taylor Rogers. They&#39;ll add another top-end arm to the mix in June when Luke Jackson joins the group.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Best-case record for 2023: 89-73, winning a wild card spot.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Worst-case: injuries mount and defense stays sub-par: 78-84.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My guess is they finish somewhere in-between. They&#39;re better than .500 but probably a couple games out of playoff contention: 84-78.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/6887761341335738179/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=6887761341335738179' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6887761341335738179'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6887761341335738179'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/giants-set-to-head-to-ny-for-opener.html' title='Giants set to head to NY for opener'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-7550916219357891484</id><published>2023-03-23T21:16:00.003-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-27T14:11:02.897-07:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 NL West Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Finally, after going division-by-division for the rest of the league, we end up with the NL West.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course we all know about the big moves made by the Padres and the expectations there. The Dodgers didn&#39;t have as flashy of an offseason but they still are the division favorites in many people&#39;s eyes. The Giants, while not adding the stars they wanted, also improved and should be a better team than they were a year ago. The D-Backs are slowly creeping back into the picture, piling up young position playing talent and just waiting for their pitching to catch up. The Rockies are the only team in this division who don&#39;t have much of a shot at being a .500 ball club.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, San Diego Padres&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. SS Xander Bogaerts 2. LF Juan Soto 3. 3B Manny Machado 4. RF Fernando Tatis* Jr. 5. 1B Jake Cronenworth 6. DH Matt Carpenter/Nelson Cruz 7. 2B Ha-Seong Kim 8. CF Trent Grisham 9. C Austin Nola&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Yu Darvish 2. LHP Blake Snell 3. RHP Joe Musgrove* 4. RHP Michael Wacha 5. RHP Nick Martinez CL: LHP Josh Hader&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Padres lineup has been getting a ton of buzz after they&#39;ve added both Juan Soto and Bogaerts within the last 9 months. Add that to the fact that Tatis Jr. will return to them in mid-April with presumably a big chip on his shoulder and your looking at four guys with MVP-type talent filling out half of their batting order. I&#39;m not concerned about that part though. Who knows how much Carpentar and Cruz have left? Will Grisham bounce back offensively? If he does it makes this lineup even more lethal. Even if they don&#39;t get a ton from their bottom half, that top-five is good enough to carry them as long as those guys can stay on the field.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They have a quality starting rotation, but they don&#39;t have much depth. Musgrove is already questionable to start the season. Darvish is 36, and Snell has spent a ton of time on the injured list throughout his career. If those guys stay relatively healthy, and they get serviceable production out of the bottom of their rotation, they&#39;re going to be one of the best teams in the NL. They have Hader shutting the door on teams who, despite some shaky moments in 2022, is still one of the top-five closers in baseball.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Second Place, Los Angeles Dodgers (NL Wild Card)&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/r/2023/03/10/ce518b01-70b5-49f2-8c6b-446c3efb7bc3/thumbnail/1200x675/059fececb61dbf6d0b79c23275aef0da/betts-getty.png&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://sportshub.cbsistatic.com/i/r/2023/03/10/ce518b01-70b5-49f2-8c6b-446c3efb7bc3/thumbnail/1200x675/059fececb61dbf6d0b79c23275aef0da/betts-getty.png&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. CF Mookie Betts 2. 1B Freddie Freeman 3. C Will Smith 4. 3B Max Muncy 5. DH J.D. Martinez 6. CF Trayce Thompson 7. LF Chris Taylor/David Peralta 8. 2B Miguel Vargas 9. SS Miguel Rojas&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Clayton Kershaw 2. LHP Julio Urias 3. RHP Tony Gonsolin* 4. RHP Dustin May 5. RHP Noah Syndergaard CL: RHP Evan Phillips/RHP Brusdar Graterol&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Dodgers don&#39;t appear to have the powerhouse team they&#39;ve had the past few years, at least on paper. They still have a lot of talent in that lineup headed by Betts and Freeman. I think Martinez is going to have a good year for them as well. Losing Gavin Lux was a huge blow though. They don&#39;t have the fire power that San Diego does on paper. They&#39;re going to have to rely on a few different guys stepping up in order for them to keep pace but this should still be an above-average lineup.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation, despite missing Walker Buehler, should still be really good. They do need Gonsolin back early in the season, and May to be all the way back from his 2021 surgery in order to hit their potential though. Like Martinez to their lineup, I think Syndergaard was a sneaky good pickup and a guy the Dodgers could end up getting a lot out of. They don&#39;t have a clear-cut closer heading in but more than a couple guys who can do the job. They&#39;re not as flashy as they were a year ago, but they still have the core and makeup to be a 90+ win team.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Third Place, San Francisco Giants&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 1B LaMonte Wade Jr. 2. 2B Thairo Estrada 3. RF Michael Conforto 4. DH Joc Pederson 5. LF Mitch Haniger* 6. CF Mike Yastrzemski 7. SS Brandon Crawford 8. 3B David Villar 9. C Joey Bart&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Logan Webb 2. RHP Alex Cobb 3. RHP Ross Stripling 4. LHP Alex Wood 5. LHP Sean Manaea/RHP Anthony DeSclafini CL: RHP Camilo Doval&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ll do a more in-depth look at them before their opener next Thursday in New York but the Giants could go a number of directions this season. They didn&#39;t add Judge or Correa to their lineup like they had hoped, but Haniger and Conforto were not terrible consolations. I&#39;m expecting an all-star year out of Conforto and if Haniger stays healthy, he should lead the team in home runs. They have a few young question marks in their lineup (Bart and Villar), and a few guys they&#39;re hoping bounce back from tough &#39;22 seasons (Yaz , Crawford and Wade). If they get solid production from the five in question, they&#39;ll have a nice lineup but that could be asking too much.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants rotational depth is something that should anchor them throughout the year. They have seven guys on their big league staff who they feel comfortable handing the ball to in starting situations. Then they have young Kyle Harrison waiting in the wings, who could be better than all of them. Their bullpen should be much better than it was last year as well. Doval has another year under his belt and they have a couple of legit late-inning guys around to help him. If the defense improves and the lineup can stay on the field and produce to their capabilities, they have enough depth and pitching to compete for a wild card spot. It&#39;s a lot that has to go right but in 2021 it did. In 2022 it definitely did not. It should be interesting to see what&#39;s in store for 2023.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fourth Place, Arizona Diamondbacks&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2023/03/14/PPHX/7a2115bc-13f4-4f75-841c-f748342b5102-_RS25431_copy.JPG?width=592&amp;amp;format=pjpg&amp;amp;auto=webp&amp;amp;quality=70&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;698&quot; data-original-width=&quot;592&quot; height=&quot;200&quot; src=&quot;https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2023/03/14/PPHX/7a2115bc-13f4-4f75-841c-f748342b5102-_RS25431_copy.JPG?width=592&amp;amp;format=pjpg&amp;amp;auto=webp&amp;amp;quality=70&quot; width=&quot;170&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LF Corbin Carroll 2. 2B Ketel Marte 3. RF Jake McCarthy 4. 1B Christian Walker 5. 3B Josh Rojas/Evan Longoria 6. DH Lourdes Gurriel 7. CF Alek Thomas 8. C Gabriel Moreno 9. SS Nick Ahmed&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Zac Gallen 2. RHP Merrill Kelly 3. LHP Madison Bumgarner 4. RHP Zach Davis 5. RHP Drey Jamison/Ryne Nelson CL: RHP Mark Melancon/Scott McGough&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The D-Backs have been gaining respect all offseason as a dark horse candidate in the West, but I think they&#39;re still a year away. They have an exciting young trio in their outfield led by the budding superstar Carroll. McCarthy looks primed for a breakout season as well. Thomas didn&#39;t hit quite as well as the team was expecting after he arrived last year but he&#39;s only 22 and has plenty of time to figure it out. They also have Kyle Lewis, a former Mariner&#39;s top-prospect out there for depth. Marte should bounce back after a down &#39;22 and they have one of the best catching prospects in the game in Moreno.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their lineup is certainly on the rise, but their rotation is much more of a question mark. Gallen is to Arizona what Logan Webb is to the Giants, but there isn&#39;t a whole lot behind him yet. Kelly looked really good for most of last year though, and they&#39;re hoping for a little more consistency from him. MadBum has fallen mightily since his time in San Francisco and could lose his spot in the rotation if he doesn&#39;t turn it around. Their bullpen has some exciting arms with potential, but no clear-cut closer and not a ton of experience and depth.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fifth Place, Colorado Rockies&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LF Jurickson Profar 2. RF Kris Bryant 3. DH Charlie Blackmon 4. 1B C.J. Cron 5. 2B Ryan McMahon 6. CF Randal Grichuk 7. 3B Elehuris Montero 8. C Elias Diaz 9. SS Ezequiel Tovar&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Kyle Freeland 2. RHP German Marquez 3. LHP Austin Gomber 4. RHP Jose Urena 5. RHP Ryan Feltner/Antonio Senzatela* CL: RHP Daniel Bard&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Rockies just added Profar to their lineup a few days ago, which could end up being a nice bargain. They&#39;re hoping their investment in Bryant starts paying off after a lost year one. Cron has been a good fit in Coors field but tailed off after a torrid start last year. Montero and Tovar are exciting young hitters who have looked good this spring. At some point we&#39;ll also see Zach Veen, who&#39;s one of the better outfield prospects in the game. The Rockies are the favorites to finish in the NL West cellar but their lineup always is tough at home and should be again this year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rotation is a little messier situation. Freeland is a decent left-handed starter but no ace. Marquez and Gomber both have their moments, but they&#39;re far too inconsistent. The Rockies strength will never be their pitching, but it has to be better and deeper than it currently is if they want to compete again in this division. Bard, at age 37, is still as steady as they come shutting the door on teams, but they just don&#39;t have enough quality on this staff to give them a chance to be truly relevant.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;*indicates player will start year on IL/Suspension&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/7550916219357891484/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=7550916219357891484' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7550916219357891484'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7550916219357891484'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-nl-west-preview.html' title='2023 NL West Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-7697682114356701275</id><published>2023-03-19T15:12:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-19T15:12:54.683-07:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 NL Central Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;The NL Central again looks like the Cardinals&#39; to lose. If the Brewers pitching staff is healthy though, they should absolutely push for a postseason spot. The Cubs did a lot this winter, but still lack the overall depth to really push for October this year. The Pirates and Reds each have some bright spots on their rosters but have a long way to go until they&#39;re legit competitors again.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, St. Louis Cardinals&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://staticc.sportskeeda.com/editor/2023/03/87125-16776175137216-1920.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;533&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://staticc.sportskeeda.com/editor/2023/03/87125-16776175137216-1920.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Tommy Edman 2. C Wilson Contreras 3. 1B Paul Goldschmidt 4. 3B Nolan Arenado 5. LF Tyler O&#39;Neil 6. RF Lars Nootbaar 7. 2B Brendan Donovan 8. DH Nolan Gorman 9. CF Dylan Carlson&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Jack Flaherty 2. LHP Jordan Montgomery 3. RHP Adam Wainwright 4. RHP Miles Mikolas 5. LHP Stephen Matz CL: RHP Ryan Helsley&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Cards lost their leader with Yadiar Molina retiring, but they did a pretty good job at replacing him behind the plate with Contreras. They have two MVP-candidates in the middle of their order and some young studs like Nootbaar and Edman who look like all-stars already. If Gorman can round into form and O&#39;Neil performs closer to his 2021 line than last years then this will be one of the best lineups in the NL. Not to mention, they have one of the best, if not the best defensive team in the game. Not many holes when you look up and down that lineup and they have depth on their bench as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation could pose some questions. Flaherty hasn&#39;t had a full productive season since 2019, but he looks healthy so far this spring. He can be a true ace if he overcomes the ailments that have weighed him down the last few seasons. Matz has also battled injuries in recent seasons but has shown to be a solid starter when he&#39;s healthy. Montgomery looked great after coming over from the Yankees last year. Wainwright keeps beating father time but I have a feeling we&#39;ll see much more decline this year. Mikolas is a solid back-end guy who will consistently give them quality innings. The bullpen is one of the better ones in baseball with multiple guys who have high-end closing stuff. They have the lineup and pen to make a world series run, it&#39;s going to ride on how this rotation holds up and performs.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Second Place, Milwaukee Brewers&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RF Christian Yellich 2. SS Willy Adames 3. DH Jessie Winker 4. 1B Rowdy Telez 5. C William Contreras 6. 2B Luis Urias 7. CF Garrett Mitchell 8. 3B Brian Anderson 9. RF Tyrone Taylor/Tyler Naquin&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Corbin Burnes 2. RHP Brandon Woodruff 3. RHP Freddy Peralta 4. LHP Eric Lauer 5. LHP Wade Miley CL: RHP Devin Williams&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Brewers lost Kolton Wong and Hunter Renfroe this winter. They essentially replaced Renfroe with Winker, which will be an upgrade assuming Winker is in his &#39;20-&#39;21 form. I keep holding out hope Yellich will eventually turn back into that premier talent he was a few years back. At least get that average back up. Adames doesn&#39;t get the clout among the top shortstops in the game but he definitely should. I love the addition of Contreras behind the plate and I&#39;m excited to see what he does as a full-time player. Mitchell looked good after arriving last year and should be in the mix for rookie of the year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rotation is stacked with that top-three. Peralta was injured most of 2022 but if he bounces back like expected, they have essentially three aces heading up their staff. There&#39;s not a trio of starters on any other team I&#39;d take over those guys. Lauer also doesn&#39;t get much credit as he&#39;s overshadowed by the guys in front of him but he&#39;s rocking an ERA around 3.50 over last two seasons. Miley gives them a good veteran presence at the end. The bullpen isn&#39;t spectacular but they&#39;re good enough to get the job done and they have an elite arm in Williams shutting the door for them. I do like this team a lot, and they should at least compete for one of the wild card spots with their talent and pitching.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Third Place, Chicago Cubs&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Nico Hoerner 2. SS Dansby Swanson 3. LF Ian Happ 4. RF Seiya Suzuki* 5. DH Trey Mancini 6. 1B Eric Hosmer 7. CF Cody Bellinger 8. 3B Patrick Wisdom 9. C Tucker Barnhart (*Suzuki will start year on IL)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Marcus Stroman 2. RHP Jameson Taillon 3. LHP Justin Steele 4. LHP Drew Smyly 5. RHP Heyden Wesneski CL: LHP Brandon Hughes&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Cubs did a lot this offseason, bringing in Swanson, Bellinger, Mancini, Hosmer, Barnhart and Taillon. They&#39;re hoping to get a more relaxed version of Bellinger and that it translates to re-finding his stroke. Like with Yellich, the talent is still in there. Swanson is an awesome addition to the top of the lineup and middle infield where he and Hoerner should form a dynamic duo both offensively and defensively. Mancini is just a year removed from an all-star appearance so I would expect a better year from him. They have some young exciting players who are on the verge of arriving as well.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There rotation looks pretty average. I like &#39;Stro at the top of it and I think Taillon was a good pickup but who knows what they&#39;ll get out of the rest. Kyle Hendricks will be healthy eventually though and I&#39;d imagine he&#39;ll take over for one of the pitchers who aren&#39;t performing. They&#39;re going to need their rotation to be good though because they don&#39;t have the deepest bullpen out there. Hughes looks like he&#39;s going to be the closer by default. Regardless of maybe some of the pitching shortcomings, it should be an interesting year on the North Side, and this team looks like it&#39;s one the right path.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fourth Place, Pittsburgh Pirates&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlgIjWX6pD0S91AIS0JKRykPOdr_WrKYKVfA&amp;amp;usqp=CAU&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;183&quot; data-original-width=&quot;275&quot; height=&quot;183&quot; src=&quot;https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlgIjWX6pD0S91AIS0JKRykPOdr_WrKYKVfA&amp;amp;usqp=CAU&quot; width=&quot;275&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. SS O&#39;neil Cruz 2. CF Bryan Reynolds 3. LF Andrew McCutchen 4. DH Carlos Santana 5. 3B Ke&#39;Bryan Hayes 6. 1B Ji-Man Choi 7. RF Jack Suwinski 8. 2B Rodolfo Castro 9. C Austin Hedges&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Roansy Contreras 2. LHP Rich Hill 3. RHP Mitch Keller 4. RHP JT Brubaker 5. RHP Vince Velazquez CL: RHP David Bednar&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Pirates could have one of their more interesting teams they&#39;ve had in a few years. They have the up-and-coming star talents in Hayes and Cruz. An established young all-star in Reynolds (although for how much longer is anybodies guess) and a couple solid veterans in &#39;Cutch and Santana. Castro also showed some glimpses last season and could wind up at the top of the order if he keeps ascending.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation is going to be a bit of a work in progress, however. Contreras looks like he could end up being a solid starter for years to come, and Keller had a pretty nice year in &#39;22 when you take away the win-loss record. Hill and Velazquez are pretty much just fillers at this point in their careers, although Hill keeps somehow making himself useful well into his 40&#39;s now. Their bullpen has some interesting arms down there, led by all-star closer David Bednar. Overall, they should provide optimism, at least on offense, that things are moving in the right direction. They just don&#39;t have the pitching to make them competitive quite yet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fifth Place, Cincinnati Reds&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Jonathan India 2. C Tyler Stephenson 3. DH Joey Votto 4. 1B Wil Myers 5. LF Jake Fraley 6. 3B Spencer Steer 7. RF TJ Friedl 8. SS Kevin Newman 9. CF Nick Senzel&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Hunter Green 2. LHP Nick Lodolo 3. RHP Graham Ashcraft 4. RHP Luke Weaver 5. RHP Luis Cessa CL: RHP Alexis Diaz&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Reds are still in the middle of their rebuild, but they haven&#39;t made much progress the last couple years. India looked good as a rookie but had a terrible season last year. Stephenson is a solid catcher who can hit at the top of the lineup. They have a few veterans in the middle with Votto and Myers. Steer and Friedl could turn out to be something but they haven&#39;t really shown any indication of that. I put them behind the Pirates because the Pirates have a much more dynamic offense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where the Reds do have a leg up on Pirates though is in the starting pitching department. The Reds have three guys who they&#39;re hoping they can build around. Green has shown his ability with his 100+ mph heater. Lodolo already looks like a very good young lefty and Ashcraft is a hard-throwing right-hander who they&#39;re very high on. The bullpen is essentially all replacement level aside from Diaz, who was elite last year with a 244 ERA+ and 3.1 WAR.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/7697682114356701275/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=7697682114356701275' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7697682114356701275'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/7697682114356701275'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-nl-central-preview.html' title='2023 NL Central Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-1727616097309998046</id><published>2023-03-17T20:06:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-17T20:06:42.304-07:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 NL East Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The NL East has three legit World Series contenders in which makes it the best division in baseball. Here&#39;s how we see this division breaking down over the year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, Atlanta Braves&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&amp;amp;d=20190313&amp;amp;t=2&amp;amp;i=1365658340&amp;amp;w=780&amp;amp;fh=&amp;amp;fw=&amp;amp;ll=&amp;amp;pl=&amp;amp;sq=&amp;amp;r=LYNXMPEF2B20P&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;538&quot; data-original-width=&quot;780&quot; height=&quot;219&quot; src=&quot;https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&amp;amp;d=20190313&amp;amp;t=2&amp;amp;i=1365658340&amp;amp;w=780&amp;amp;fh=&amp;amp;fw=&amp;amp;ll=&amp;amp;pl=&amp;amp;sq=&amp;amp;r=LYNXMPEF2B20P&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. RF Ronald Acuna 2. 1B Matt Olson 3. 3B Austin Riley 4. C Sean Murphy 5. CF Michael Harris 6. 2B Ozzie Albies 7. DH Marcel Ozuna 8. LF Eddie Rosario 9. SS Vaughn Grissom&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. LHP Max Fried 2. RHP Charlie Morton 3. RHP Spencer Strider 4. RHP Kyle Wright 5. RHP Ian Anderson CL: RHP Raisel Inglesias&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Braves did lose Dansby Swanson this winter, but added one of the better backstops in the game to help fill that void in the lineup. I also think Grissom is about to blossom as the next big Braves homegrown talent. Acuna has MVP potential at the top of the lineup and I think he&#39;s primed for a career year now fully healthy. Riley and Olson comprise one of the best corner infield duos in the game and Michael Harris is one of the best young hitters out there. This lineup can do it all. If they get good years out of Ozuna and Rosario then this could be the deepest group in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Much like with their lineup, their rotation keeps popping up with good young talent, most recently in the form of Spencer Strider. He and Fried make a dominant 1-2 punch followed by Morton and Wright, who themselves would be front-end guys on most staffs. They lost Kenley Jansen but Inglesias was arguably the most dominant reliever down the stretch in 2022 (only 1 ER allowed in 28 games with Atlanta). This team really has it all and may now have an edge over New York after the Diaz injury.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Second Place, New York Mets&lt;/u&gt;&amp;nbsp;(NL Wild Card)&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. CF Brandon Nimmo 2. RF Starling Marte 3. SS Francisco Lindor 4. 1B Pete Alonso 5. 2B Jeff McNeil 6. 3B Eduardo Escobar 7. DH Dan Vogelbach 8. LF Mark Canha 9. C Omar Narvaez&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Justin Verlander 2. RHP Max Scherzer 3. RHP Kodai Senga 4. RHP Carlos Carrasco 5. LHP Jose Quintana Closer: RHP David Robertson&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Mets spent a ton of money this offseason but didn&#39;t upgrade their team too much from 2022. Luckily for them, they were one of the best in the game last year and look to again be in that running. Their lineup is versatile and deep. They have about as dynamic of a top-four as you could ask for. They should have no trouble getting on the board consistently, whether its stringing together hits and stolen bases or knocking balls out of the park, they can do it all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, I&#39;m not quite as high on the Mets rotation as many around the game. Scherzer and Verlander are still at the top of their game, but both have seen their innings pitched dwindle over the past few seasons. As long as they can both provide 150+ though, that should be enough. I do think Senga will be good, but he will have some growing pains in his first year. Carrasco and Quintana are decent back-end guys but it would&#39;t surprise me if both were on the shelf at some point this season. They have a lot of potential in that rotation, but little margin for error in terms of health. The bullpen, despite the loss of Diaz, should still be a strength.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Third Place, Philadelphia Phillies&lt;/u&gt;&amp;nbsp;(NL Wild Card)&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. SS Trea Turner 2. LF Kyle Schwarber 3. 1B Rhys Hoskins 4. C J.T. Realmuto 5. RF Nick Castellanos 6. 3B Alec Bohm 7. CF Brandon Marsh 8. DH Darick Hall 9. 2B Bryson Stott &lt;i&gt;*Bryce Harper will be out till mid-season*&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer: &lt;/b&gt;1. RHP Aaron Nola 2. RHP Zach Wheeler 3. RHP Taijuan Walker 4. LHP Ranger Suarez 5. LHP Bailey Falter CL: RHP Seranthony Dominguez/RHP Craig Kimbrel&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reigning NL Champs added another star to their lineup in Turner. Unfortunately for them though, they won&#39;t see their squad at full strength until Bryce Harper returns around July. They have enough offense to keep them going until then. Castellanos needs to be better this year to help pick up that slack until Harper gets back. I think Bohm is in line for a breakout. Defensively, they have had some issues, but they seemed to tighten up late last season. That will be an area to keep an eye on though.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think Zach Wheeler is one of the more underrated pitchers in the game. This dude is about as good as it gets when he&#39;s on. Nola is the ace of this staff but I&#39;d trust Wheeler more in a must-win situation. The rest of the rotation should be decent after adding Walker. Suarez looked pretty good in the postseason and still hasn&#39;t really hit his full potential. Their bullpen added a lot of pieces to the mix this winter as well. They have three or four guys down there now that have all had success closing games. If those guys all have good years this could be one of the nastier, deeper pens in the league.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fourth Place, Miami Marlins&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2023/01/22213815/GettyImages-1400900455-1024x683.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;534&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;214&quot; src=&quot;https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2023/01/22213815/GettyImages-1400900455-1024x683.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup: &lt;/b&gt;1. CF Jazz Chisholm 2. DH Jorge Solar 3. 2B Luis Arraez 4. 1B Garrett Cooper 5. RF Avisail Garcia 6. 3B Jean Segura 7. LF Bryan De La Cruz/Jesus Sanchez 8. SS Joey Wendle 9. C Jacob Stallings&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Sandy Alcantara 2. LHP Jesus Luzardo 3. LHP Trevor Rogers 4. RHP Johnny Cueto 5. LHP Braxton Garrett CL: RHP Dylan Floro&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Marlins do have a lot of talent, they just haven&#39;t really panned out quite yet. Chisholm has been the exception, as he looks like he&#39;s rounding into one of the best young talents in baseball. They added Arraez which gives them potential batting champion in the middle of their order. Garcia and Soler need to perform up to their capabilities for this offense to be at full force. I would also like to see De La Cruz or Sanchez really emerge this year as both have the talent to be special players.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Marlins have a ton of pitching depth within their organization but unfortunately their best young pitching prospects are all injured. Alcantara is a legit ace. Both Luzardo and Rogers have elite upside as well. I liked the addition of Cueto to help guide some of their young starters. Even with all their injuries and losing Pablo Lopez, their rotation should still be pretty good. The bullpen has some nice pieces as well and should be solid.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fifth Place, Washington Nationals&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RF Lane Thomas 2. LF Corey Dickerson 3. DH Joey Meneses 4. 3B Jeimer Candelario 5. C Keibert Ruiz 6. 1B Dominic Smith 7. SS CJ Abrams 8. CF Victor Robles 9. 2B Luis Garcia&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Patrick Corbin 2. RHP Josiah Gray 3. RHP Trevor Williams 4. LHP MacKenzie Gore 5. RHP Cade Cavalli CL: RHP Kyle Finnegan&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Nats are in the middle of their full-on rebuild. They have a couple of intriguing players who we&#39;ll get a long look at in their lineup. Their young middle infield could be a good one with Abrams and Garcia. Meneses looks like a late-bloomer, as he was a stud last year with his first extended playing opportunity. Ruiz is trying to prove himself as one of the best young backstops in the game. Other than that, there&#39;s not really much going on here, and they&#39;re going to struggle to score consistently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Looking forward to seeing what Gore, Gray and Cavalli can do. Those three need to be the nucleus of the rotation going forward with Corbin and Strasburg pretty undependable. Their staff lacks depth and experience. The Nats look like they&#39;ll be in the NL cellar all year long.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/1727616097309998046/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=1727616097309998046' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1727616097309998046'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1727616097309998046'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-nl-east-preview.html' title='2023 NL East Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-9000354987874105456</id><published>2023-03-12T14:02:00.002-07:00</published><updated>2023-03-12T17:44:36.017-07:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 AL West Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;Most of the AL West improved this offseason and it should make this one of the better divisions in baseball. Houston again looks like the clear front-runners, but the Mariners look good after a postseason run last year. The Rangers finally have some pitching, and the Angels hope everyone can stay healthy and they can show Shohei they&#39;re ready to compete.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, Houston Astros&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Jose Altuve 2. DH Michael Brantley 3. 3B Alex Bregman 4. LF Yordan Alvarez 5. 1B Jose Abreu 6. RF Kyle Tucker 7. SS Jeremy Pena 8. CF Chas McCormick 9. C Martin Maldonado&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Framber Valdez 2. RHP Christian Javier 3. RHP Lance McCullers 4. RHP Luis Garcia 5. RHP Jose Urquidy CL: Ryan Pressly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Baseball&#39;s reigning champions are back and primed for a run to repeat. The lineup looks even scarier now that Abreu&#39;s plugged into the middle of it. Watch for Pena to build off his big postseason and develop more consistency over the course of the regular season. McCormick and Maldonado aren&#39;t the greatest hitters at the bottom of the lineup but that doesn&#39;t really matter when you have 7 potential all-stars ahead of them.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation took a big hit with the loss of Justin Verlander, but as good as he was during the regular season last year, he wasn&#39;t as impacting in October. They have the depth and the quality to make up for that loss. Javier has rounded into one of the best young right-handers in the game and I think he&#39;ll eventually take over as this staff&#39;s ace. They do need McCullers to be healthier this year though, and that is one of the question marks that surround them. Otherwise, look for them again to approach 100 victories and be the favorites to represent the AL in the World Series.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Second Place, Seattle Mariners (AL Wild Card)&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/04012022_Rodriguez_130150.jpg?d=780x634&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;634&quot; data-original-width=&quot;780&quot; height=&quot;163&quot; src=&quot;https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/04012022_Rodriguez_130150.jpg?d=780x634&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;display: inline;&quot;&gt;&lt;b style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Kolton Wong 2. CF Julio Rodrguez 3. 1B Ty France 4. LF Teoscar Hernandez 5. 3B Eugenio Suarez 6. C Cal Raleigh 7. RF Jared Kelenic 8. DH AJ Pollack/Tommy LaStella 9. SS J.P. Crawford&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Robbie Ray 2. RHP Luis Castillo 3. RHP Logan Gilbert 4. RHP George Kirby 5. LHP Marco Gonzales CL: RHP Paul Sewald/RHP Andres Munoz&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I love what the Mariners have done the last couple of years in building this club. They swapped out Haniger for Hernandez, which could be a slight upgrade, then they brought in Wong to shore up second and hit atop the order. Another under-the-radar move was picking up Pollack, who should see plenty of time split between the outfield and DH. If Kelenic takes that step forward like he&#39;s shown this spring, this lineup will be a balanced force.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rotation could be an elite one. Look for Robbie Ray to improve upon his up-and-down first year in Seattle. Castillo was the perfect addition last summer and a full year with him atop the rotation gives this team a legit 1-2 punch they can throw at anyone. Gilbert and Kirby are also blossoming into dependable, mid-rotation guys with upside to be even better. Their bullpen has depth, including multiple guys who can shut the door on teams. This Mariners team is a well-rounded squad with young talent, productive veterans and plenty of depth. They may be a notch below the Astros but they are slowly closing that gap.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Third Place, Texas Rangers&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Marcus Semien 2. SS Corey Seager 3. 1B Nate Lowe 4. RF Adolis Garcia 5. 3B Josh Jung 6. C Jonah Heim 7. LF Robbie Grossman 8. DH Brad Miller 9. CF Leody Tavaras&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Jacob DeGrom 2. RHP Nathan Eovaldi 3. LHP Martin Perez 4. RHP Jon Gray 5. LHP Andrew Heaney CL: RHP Jose Leclerc/LHP Will Smith&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Rangers&#39; lineup is extremely top-heavy, led by their half-billion dollar middle infield. Lowe and Garcia are solid behind them but then there&#39;s a ton of question marks the rest of the way. They have high hopes for Jung and Heim but neither were great in 2022. Ezequiel Duran could eventually hit his way into the mix if Jung struggles or they get bored with Miller&#39;s lack of upside at DH.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation, which in recent years has been their weakness, looks very good on paper. They brought in three quality arms, including a perennial Cy Young candidate (when he&#39;s healthy). Perez is coming off a career year and I think Gray will benefit greatly being around DeGrom. The issue for their pitching will, of course, be health. Four out of their five starters all missed significant time last season and have had checkered injury pasts. Their bullpen is middle of the road at best. They were terrible last season, so they have a lot of ground to make up to even get back to .500.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fourth Place, Los Angeles Angels&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cdn-japantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/np_file_73363.jpeg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;751&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;188&quot; src=&quot;https://cdn-japantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/np_file_73363.jpeg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LF Taylor Ward 2. CF Mike Trout 3. DH Shohei Ohtani 4. 3B Anthony Rendon 5. RF Hunter Renfroe 6. 1B Jared Walsh 7. 2B Brandon Drury 8. C Logan O&#39;Hoppe 9. SS Luis Rengifo&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Shohei Ohtani 2. LHP Patrick Sandoval 3. LHP Tyler Anderson 4. LHP Reid Detmers 5. LHP Jose Suarez CL: RHP Jimmy Hergert/RHP Carlos Estevez&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;The Angels added a couple complimentary pieces to their lineup this winter with Renfroe and Drury, but their fans were hoping for more. Ward had a nice breakout last season but tailed off down the stretch. If Rendon can stay healthy and Walsh can regain those 200 OPS points he lost from 2021 that would be a huge step in the right direction. There is potential here though, at least offensively.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation is what really needed the upgrades this winter, and they didn&#39;t really get them. There isn&#39;t a ton of talent behind Ohtani. They did add Anderson, who&#39;s coming off a career year but can he do that again?. I do like Sandoval, and Detmers has shown some glimpses. The bullpen is pretty pedestrian as well. Pretty much everything about this Angels team screams average. They have a couple of superstars though, so it&#39;s not out of the realm of possibility they can be decent, I&#39;m just not expecting it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fifth Place, Oakland Athletics&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. 2B Tony Kemp 2. CF Ramon Laureano 3. 1B Seth Brown 4. DH Jesus Aguilar 5. C Shea Langeliers 6. 3B Jace Peterson 7. RF JJ Bleday 8. SS Nick Allen 9. RF Esteury Ruiz&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer: &lt;/b&gt;1. RHP Paul Blackburn 2. RHP Shintaro Fujinami 3. LHP Ken Waldichuk 4. RHP James Kaprielian 5. RHP Drew Rucinski CL: RHP Dany Jimenez&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The A&#39;s actually didn&#39;t have a terrible offseason. They brought in a couple veterans for cheap that could end up being decent and helping the young core of this team. I think Bleday could be a star and I&#39;m excited to see how Langeliers grows this year. They have a ton of speed and athleticism and I don&#39;t think they&#39;ll be as easy to shut down as they may look on paper.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now their rotation is a complete crap-shoot. I love that they brought in Fujinami to, if nothing else, add some excitement to an otherwise boring starting five. Non of these guys, aside from maybe Waldichuk will be long-term fixtures. It wouldn&#39;t surprise me if most of this rotation changes throughout the course of the season. I do really like their bullpen though. They have a few guys down there that can throw well, and that is an area of the team that could be somewhat of a strength. Overall, they have a few intriguing guys on the roster, and they&#39;re lineup may be scrappier than expected, but they don&#39;t have near enough depth or pitching to regularly compete in this league.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/9000354987874105456/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=9000354987874105456' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/9000354987874105456'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/9000354987874105456'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-al-west-preview.html' title='2023 AL West Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-2705313786612585095</id><published>2023-03-09T21:56:00.004-08:00</published><updated>2023-03-09T23:22:46.185-08:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 AL Central Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;The AL Central looks pretty open. Not the best division in baseball, but they have a trio of teams that are capable of winning 90+ games if things go right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Guardians are the reigning division champs and made a couple moves this winter that strengthened them. The Twins had a really good offseason as well. The White Sox have more talent then both those teams but that talent did not translate in 2022.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here&#39;s how we see this division breaking down in 2023:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, Cleveland Guardians&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LF Steven Kwan 2. 2B Andres Gimenez 3. 3B Jose Ramirez 4. DH Josh Bell 5. SS Ahmed Rosario 6. 1B Josh Naylor 7. RF Oscar Gonzalez 8. C Mike Zunino 9. CF Myles Straw&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. RHP Shane Bieber 2. RHP Triston McKenzie 3. RHP Cal Quantrill 4. RHP Aaron Civale 5. RHP Zach Plesac CL: Emmanuel Clase&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Guardians upgraded their lineup this winter with the addition of Josh Bell. They have a nice balance of proven bats mixed with players on the rise. Kwan looks like a potential batting champion, Gimenez was an all-star and JRam is a perennial MVP-candidate. If Naylor and Gonzalez take another step forward then this becomes a lineup without much weakness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation is great on the front-end, but has a couple questions at four and five. Civale and Plesac have both shown ability to be plus-starters in this league, they just haven&#39;t done so with consistency. If they do that this year then the Guardians should easily find themselves playing in October again. We also can&#39;t overlook that bullpen, which may be the best in the game right now.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;u style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Second Place, Chicago White Sox&lt;/u&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;(AL Wild Card)&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/l_he6kd118202022344PM.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;451&quot; data-original-width=&quot;609&quot; height=&quot;235&quot; src=&quot;https://cdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/l_he6kd118202022344PM.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. SS Tim Anderson 2. CF Luis Robert 3. LF Andrew Benintendi 4. DH Eloy Jimenez 5. 3B Yoan Moncada 6. 1B Andrew Vaughn 7. C Yasmani Grandal 8. RF Gavin Sheets 9. 2B Elvis Andrus&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. RHP Dylan Cease 2. RHP Lance Lynn 3. RHP Lucas Giolito 4. RHP Michael Kopech 5. RHP Mike Clevinger CL: RHP Kendall Graveman&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The White Sox are the epitome of a team with all the talent in the world that just cannot put it together for a full season. They flashed the ability in 2021 but took a terrible step back last season. The lineup, even without Jose Abreu, has more than enough fire power. 25 year-old Robert has legit MVP potential and has drawn comparisons to Mike Trout. Anderson is about as good as they come at short. Benintendi was a solid add that breaks up the chain of right-handed bats in the top of the lineup. I also expect to see Andrew Vaughn break-out at some point. When that happens, look out.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation is similar to their lineup. A ton of talent, but largely inconsistent last year, aside from Dylan Cease. If Kopech keeps ascending, Lynn can stay on the field and Giolito finds some consistency, they&#39;ll have a great starting rotation. The tough loss of Liam Hendricks takes this bullpen down a notch too, but they&#39;re still very good. They have the ceiling to be one of the best teams in the AL but the floor to be a sub-.500 ball club.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Third Place, Minnesota Twins&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Lineup:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;1. CF Byron Buxton 2. SS Carlos Correa 3. 2B Jorge Polanco 4. RF Max Kepler 5. 3B Jose Miranda 6. LF Joey Gallo 7. 1B Alex Kirilloff 8. C Christian Vazquez 9. DH Nick Gordon/Donovan Solano&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;1. RHP Sonny Gray 2. RHP Pablo Lopez 3. RHP Joe Ryan 4. RHP Tyler Mahle 5. RHP Kenta Maeda CL: RHP Jhoan Duran&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I have a hard time picking between the Twins and White Sox. The Twins were one of the biggest winners this offseason. They wound back up with Carlos Correa and are hoping a change of scenery for Joey Gallo will tap him back into his Rangers&#39; form. Of course, they need Buxton and Correa to stay healthy in order to carry this offense but both look ready to go early on. They&#39;re still very high on Kirilloff and need him to take a big step forward this year. They don&#39;t have the deepest, most dangerous lineup, but there is upside. Defensively, they&#39;re extremely strong, especially up the middle.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation got a huge upgrade with the Pablo Lopez trade. One of the more underrated pitchers in the game, Lopez could arguably be the ace of this staff. If Maeda returns to form and shores up the back-end, this rotation is about as deep as they come. Then they have one of the best relievers in baseball in Jhoan Duran looming late in games. They have depth throughout their whole pitching staff and that &quot;pitching and defense&quot; model is what they&#39;re pushing in 2023.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fourth Place, Kansas City Royals&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wgAy5OcSSRVoM-AzgmmaZoVRdck=/1400x1400/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23764094/usa_today_18127454.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;800&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;200&quot; src=&quot;https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wgAy5OcSSRVoM-AzgmmaZoVRdck=/1400x1400/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23764094/usa_today_18127454.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;:&lt;/i&gt; 1. SS Bobby Witt Jr. 2. DH MJ Melendez 3. C Salvador Perez 4. 1B Vinnie Pasquantino 5. 3B Hunter Dozier 6. CF Kyle Isbel 7. RF Edward Olivares 8. LF Nate Eaton 9. 2B Michael Massey&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer&lt;/b&gt;: 1. RHP Brady Singer 2. RHP Zach Greinke 3. RHP Jordan Lyles 4. RHP Ryan Yarbrough 5. RHP Brad Keller CL: RHP Scott Barlow/LHP Aroldis Chapman&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Royals are in the midst of their rebuild and are hoping to beat everyone&#39;s expectations in &#39;23. Like the Orioles, they have a couple of bright young players in their lineup they&#39;re extremely excited about. Witt Jr., Melendez and Pasquantino all made their debuts in 2022 and they are the foundation of what this team is wanting to build.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation isn&#39;t great, but it shouldn&#39;t be bad. Singer really broke out last year and they brought in Greinke to help mentor some of their younger arms. Their closer, Barlow, is a good one and they brought in Chapman which should help their bullpen out. KC is headed in the right direction, for sure, but they need at least another year or two of development and a couple of good moves before they can be taken too seriously.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;Fifth Place, Detroit Tigers&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lineup:&lt;/b&gt; 1. CF Riley Greene 2. DH Kerry Carpentar/Miguel Cabrera 3. SS Javier Baez 4. LF Austin Meadows 5. 2B Jonathon Schoop 6. C Eric Haase 7. 3B Nick Maton 8. 1B Spencer Torkelson 9. LF Akil Baddoo&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/b&gt; 1. LHP Eduardo Rodriguez 2. RHP Spencer Turnbull 3. LHP Mathew Boyd 4. RHP Matt Manning 5. RHP Michael Lorenzen CL: RHP Alex Lange/RHP Jose Cisnero&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Tigers are a mess. They&#39;re trying to go younger but none of their young guys seem to be making an impact. Hopefully Riley Greene is the one who changes that narrative. The lineup is flat though, not much power and not much average. I&#39;ll be watching just to see Miggy Cabrera&#39;s farewell tour but aside from Greene and maybe Baez when he&#39;s right, there&#39;s nobody that moves the needle offensively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their pitching is maybe in slightly better shape but still well below league average. Still perplexed why they gave all that money to Eduardo Rodriguez last offseason but they&#39;re stuck with him for four more years. Turnbull looked poised for a breakout in 2021 until he got hurt. Other than that, not much else going on. One of the more uninspiring teams in the league and should finish somewhere in the bottom five when it&#39;s all said and done.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/2705313786612585095/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=2705313786612585095' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2705313786612585095'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2705313786612585095'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-al-central-preview.html' title='2023 AL Central Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-5820613205337228052</id><published>2023-03-05T18:15:00.002-08:00</published><updated>2023-03-05T18:22:42.601-08:00</updated><title type='text'>2023 AL East Preview</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;Spring training is cruising along quickly. We&#39;re over 10 games into the schedule now and the WBC is about to kick off this week.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With opening day quickly approaching, now just a little over three weeks out, I wanted to start a little overview of both leagues. With the balanced schedule this season, every team will play one another at some point so it&#39;s more important than ever to really know both leagues.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ll start off in the AL East. Here&#39;s a glimpse at all teams in the division and a prediction as to how I think it will shape up for the 2023 season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;First Place, Toronto Blue Jays&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lineup:&lt;/i&gt; 1. LF George Springer 2. SS Bo Bichette 3. 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 4. 3B Matt Chapman 5. DH Brandon Belt 6. C Alejandro Kirk 7. RF Daulton Varsho 8. 2B Whit Merrifield 9. CF Kevin Kiermaier&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/i&gt; 1. RHP Alek Manoah 2. RHP Kevin Gausman 3 RHP Chris Bassitt 4. RHP Jose Berrios 5. LHP Yusei Kikuchi CL: RHP Jordan Romano&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Blue Jays were a playoff team a year ago and improved themselves over the winter. They deepened their rotation with adding Bassitt. If Berrios and Kikuchi are healthy then they should have one of the better rotations in baseball. They also have one of the best closers in the game shutting things down for them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Offensively, the Jays lost Teoscar Hernandez but gained both Varsho and Belt, two left-handed bats they needed to help balance their lineup. The outfield defense got a whole lot better as well. They have some guys on the roster who have had issues staying on the field but based on assumed health, they should have one of the best teams in American League and will be the team to beat in the AL East.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;2nd Place, New York Yankees (AL Wild Card)&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lineup:&lt;/i&gt; 1. CF Harrison Bader 2. RF Aaron Judge 3. 1B Anthony Rizzo 4. DH Giancarlo Stanton 5. 2B Gleyber Torres 6. 3B Josh Donaldson/DJ LeMahieu 7. SS Oswaldo Peraza 8. LF Aaron Hicks 9. C Jose Trevino&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Rotation/Closer&lt;/i&gt;: 1. RHP Gerrit Cole 2. LHP Carlos Rodon 3. LHP Nestor Cortes 4. RHP Luis Severino 5. RHP Domingo German CL: RHP Clay Holmes&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Yankees brought Judge back this winter, and added Rodon to their rotation, but I think Yankee fans were expecting more. Their lineup has a ton of question marks. They have some vets like Donaldson, LeMahieu and Hicks who are capable of bounce back seasons but you can&#39;t count on that. They have some intriguing young guys ready to contribute though and that middle of the order is still one of the scarier ones in the game.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as the rotation, they took a big hit with the loss of Frankie Montas but they still have one of the top-5 rotations in baseball. That has to be what leads them this year. They&#39;ll hit enough to win games, and if that pitching performs like it&#39;s capable of then they&#39;ll have no problems making it back to October. And of course, if they&#39;re competitive like we assume they will be, you can bet that Brian Cashman and company will be very aggressive around the trade deadline.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;3rd Place, Tampa Bay Rays&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lineup:&lt;/i&gt; 1. 1B Yandy Diaz 2. SS Wander Franco 3. LF Randy Arozarena 4. 2B Brandon Lowe 5. DH Harold Ramirez 6. RF Manuel Margot 7. 3B Isaac Paredes 8. CF Jose Siri 9. C Christian Bethancourt&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/i&gt; 1. LHP Shane McClanahan 2. RHP Tyler Glasnow* 3. LHP Jeffrey Springs 4. RHP Drew Rasmussen 5. RHP Zach Eflin CL: RHP Pete Fairbanks/RHP Jason Adam &lt;i&gt;(*Glasnow is expected to miss first month of season)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Rays should again be a pesky team that is not easy to beat. They may not have the power to keep up with the Yankees and Blue Jays, but their 1-4 in their lineup could be very good. They have some questions around the bottom half of the lineup though. Margot showed flashes last season and Paredes has some big power potential. They need that bottom half to produce if they&#39;re serious about making a playoff run.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I love their rotation. Hate that Glasnow will once again be on the shelf heading in but if they can get him back strong by May/June, it could help him stay fresh the rest of the way. McLanahan is a true ace and Springs looks like the real deal.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;4th Place, Baltimore Orioles&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lineup:&lt;/i&gt; 1. CF Cedric Mullins 2. C Adley Rutschman 3. 3B Gunnar Henderson 4. 1B Ryan Mountcastle 5. RF Anthony Santandar 6. DH Kyle Stowers 7. LF Austin Hays 8. 2B Adam Frazier 9. SS Jorge Mateo&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/i&gt; 1. RHP Kyle Gibson 2. LHP Cole Irwin 3. RHP Dean Kremer 4. RHP Grayson Rodriguez 5. RHP Tyler Wells CL: RHP Felix Bautista&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Rays and O&#39;s are so close in my rankings, but I gave Tampa the edge because of pitching. Baltimore definitely a team that is ascending, but I think they&#39;re still a year away. The combo of Rutschman and Henderson might be the best young duo in the game. Much like the Rays, they have that strength in their top half of the batting order but it falls off quick. Frazier has been a solid big league hitter and could bring some stability down there but they&#39;ll need a couple guys to help solidify that area.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their rotation is still a work in progress as well. They have some nice complementary pieces but no real ace. We should get a good look at Greyson Rodriguez this year, and he very well could become that guy moving forward but still is very green. They probably won&#39;t make any playoff noise this year, but they&#39;ll be fun to watch and should be in the mix in 2024 if they keep on this path.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;u&gt;5th Place, Boston Red Sox&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Lineup:&lt;/i&gt; 1. 1B Triston Casas 2. 3B Rafael Devers 3. DH Justin Turner 4. LF Masataka Yoshida 5. RF Alex Verdugo 6. SS Enrique Hernandez 7. CF Adam Duval 8. C Reese McGuire 9. 2B Christian Arroyo/Adalberto Mondesi&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Rotation/Closer:&lt;/i&gt; 1. LHP Chris Sale 2. RHP Corey Kluber 3. RHP Nick Pivetta 4. LHP James Paxton 5. RHP Tanner Houck/Bryan Bello/Garrett Whitlock CL: RHP Kenley Jansen&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Red Sox are sort of entering rebuild mode, but&amp;nbsp; they&#39;re still loaded with veterans. Losing JD Martinez and Xander Boegarts will definitely hurt them. I think Yoshida has a chance to be pretty good but it may take him a while to settle in. Even if Trevor Story had been healthy I still see this team having to overcome too much.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The rotation has more questions than their lineup. A lot of age and guys coming off injury-plagued seasons, it&#39;s just hard to know what to expect. Sale should be OK, even if he&#39;s lost some life on his fastball, but I have no confidence in any of the guys behind him. I would expect a lot of these veterans to be auctioned off in July if they&#39;re performing anywhere near their career norm. Then we could start to see more of the youth movement over the second half.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/5820613205337228052/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=5820613205337228052' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5820613205337228052'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5820613205337228052'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023-al-east-preview.html' title='2023 AL East Preview'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-5506865364768775426</id><published>2023-02-26T19:03:00.002-08:00</published><updated>2023-02-26T19:11:19.387-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Spring Training notes: Let the games begin</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;Baseball is back!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although it&#39;s only spring training, and these games don&#39;t have any impact on how this upcoming season will go, it still is an important stretch for the Giants.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most notably, this spring is about getting some of their upper-tier prospects a long look. It&#39;s also about getting guys like Michael Conforto and Mitch Haniger, who didn&#39;t play much if at all in 2022, the work they need to be ready for the regular season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two of the younger guys who stuck out this first weekend have been Casey Schmitt and Blake Sabol.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Schmitt hit a no doubt rocket out to left center that almost cleared the berm where all the fans sit. He did it off a pretty established big league arm as well in Adrian Sampson. Then he turned around and made a few jaw-dropping plays on the defensive side. I know it&#39;s only one game and there is still a long way to go, but you can&#39;t help but get excited when you see a performance like that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/t_2x1/t_w1536/mlb/tnls3lcuvwpyy3mn0o8j.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;400&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;160&quot; src=&quot;https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/t_2x1/t_w1536/mlb/tnls3lcuvwpyy3mn0o8j.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even the Giants&#39; veterans were impressed with Schmitt&#39;s &#39;23 Cactus League debut. Brandon Crawford showed the ultimate respect by saying the 23 year-old is &quot;on another level&quot; defensively compared to other infielders he&#39;s played with throughout his career.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sabol, who was already generating buzz throughout camp since it began, ended his first day as a Giant going 2-3 with two extra-base hits, including a big fly to dead center. The 25 year-old started behind the plate in this one and looked to handle himself pretty well. I mentioned in our &lt;a href=&quot;https://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/giants-2023-projected-roster-breakdown.html&quot;&gt;2023 roster preview&lt;/a&gt; that Sabol faces an uphill battle to earn a spot on this opening day roster, but nobody is counting him out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another thing that could work in favor of Sabol squeezing onto the roster is that the Giants will be without Luis Gonzalez for the next 4-6 weeks with a back issue. If Sabol hits, the Giants will find a way to keep him. He can play the corner outfield spots and could be the third catcher if they roll with Bart and Perez.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;LaMonte Wade Jr. is worth noting. A lot is riding on him coming in as the incumbent to Brandon Belt at first base while coming off a really lost season in 2022. He hit a laser out to left center in his second at-bat on Saturday. Wade has been overlooked a lot in terms of importance to this 2023 team but he does hold a big key. Not only is he expected to get the bulk of playing time at first, but he looks like the favorite to bat leadoff when he is in the lineup. To see him go &#39;oppo with authority like that in his first game should give him some confidence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;Sean Manaea looked solid in his debut Sunday, punching out three in in two innings of work while sitting between 93-96 mph with his fastball. In comparison, &lt;a href=&quot;https://sports.yahoo.com/giants-michael-conforto-gets-nerves-234057927.html&quot;&gt;he averaged 91.2&lt;/a&gt; during the 2022 season and was around 88-90 at the start of last spring.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;I mentioned Manaea being &lt;a href=&quot;https://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/five-players-key-to-giants-23-success.html&quot;&gt;one of five&lt;/a&gt; players who could have a huge impact on how this club does. Prior to his rough &#39;22 season, he&#39;s looked more like a front-end starter than a back-end. He put in a ton of work at Driveline this offseason to get to where he thinks he should be. He&#39;s certainly got as much or more talent than any other starter on the staff, aside from Webb. Good to see some positive progression with him early.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;Camilo Doval struck out the side in relief of Manaea. It will be interesting to see how Doval manages the new pitch clock as he is by design, one of the most deliberate pitchers in the big leagues. He managed to get through his inning with no issues though.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;Conforto saw his first live action since 2021 on Sunday as well, leading off in the DH spot. He made some loud contact in a couple of his at-bats and winded up 1-3 with an opposite field single.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;vertical-align: inherit;&quot;&gt;Other than that, there hasn&#39;t been a ton that has stood out from the first two games. We haven&#39;t gotten a look at Kyle Harrison yet, but that should be coming any day now. It wouldn&#39;t surprise me if he&#39;s brought in after Logan Webb in Monday&#39;s game.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/5506865364768775426/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=5506865364768775426' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5506865364768775426'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5506865364768775426'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/spring-training-notes-let-games-begin.html' title='Spring Training notes: Let the games begin'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-2188499060096949984</id><published>2023-02-19T18:36:00.002-08:00</published><updated>2023-02-19T18:54:57.751-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Spring Training Notes: Catcher competition?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Giants&#39; pitchers and catchers have been in Scottsdale now for the better part of a week, and on Sunday, they were joined by the rest of the position players.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So far things have been pretty quiet on the Giants&#39; front. The biggest news to take out of the first week of spring are a couple of injuries that were disclosed, as well as possible position battle shaping up at catcher.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First off let&#39;s get to the injuries.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The concerning one was the news about Marco Luciano&#39;s stress fracture on his back. The organization&#39;s top positional prospect had his season cut short due to back injuries last year and was supposed to make up some of those missed at bats in Dominican winter league ball. Unfortunately that didn&#39;t go as planned, and the Giants are not clear on when they expect the 21 year-old to return to the diamond. As of now, he looks to be in danger of not only missing all of spring but maybe having the start of his minor league regular season delayed as well. My guess is that when he is able to get back on the field, he&#39;s brought along very slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s a tough pill to swallow for a minor league system that dealt with a lot of injuries and under-performance issues with multiple guys in their top-10 list last season. All we can really hope at this point is that this set-back doesn&#39;t push back his ETA to the big leagues. A lot of people around the team expect him to be an option for them by next season. In order for him to stay on that timeline though, he&#39;s going to have to both pile up at-bats and produce in them this summer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants don&#39;t believe his back issues are stemming from him playing shortstop, although there has been talk for a few years now that his future is looking more and more likely ticketed for the outfield.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A less concerning issue, although one that could effect the bullpen to start the year, is a strained right lat on Cole Waites. This one, luckily, isn&#39;t expected to sideline him for all of spring training as his MRI revealed no tear. Best case is he&#39;s back on the mound and throwing within 10 days. Gabe Kaplar said he expects Waites to still be an option to make this team out of spring.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside from the bullpen getting sorted out, Kaplar eluded that both Giants catching jobs are completely &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.knbr.com/2023/02/16/joey-bart-not-guaranteed-anything-as-giants-keep-catcher-options-open/&quot;&gt;open to competition&lt;/a&gt; heading into spring. Everyone assumed that Joey Bart would claim that starting gig, and I still think that&#39;s the plan, but it sounds like Kap is igniting a little competition in that catcher&#39;s room.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.marinij.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/BNG-L-GIANTS-02171.jpg?w=525&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;349&quot; data-original-width=&quot;525&quot; height=&quot;212&quot; src=&quot;https://www.marinij.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/BNG-L-GIANTS-02171.jpg?w=525&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s likely an attempt to motivate Bart a little bit. He&#39;s by far the most talented of the bunch, but there are certainly aspects of his game that need refining. He&#39;s come a long way defensively since that 2020 debut, but he still has some issues back there from time to time. His strikeout rate has to improve though, no question about it. There were stretches last year where he was striking out in nearly half his plate appearances. The general belief is he can be better, now is the time to prove it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I still think Roberto Perez is the favorite to claim that second spot, but Blake Sabol has been getting a lot of buzz around camp and is apparently very much in this mix. Sabol has a strong left-handed bat, but doesn&#39;t have nearly the experience behind the plate as the other three, so he&#39;s facing an uphill battle.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First base is also getting some attention early on. LaMonte Wade Jr. is slated to start the year as the primary guy, but the coaching staff is working with Joc Pederson there as well. Wade is coming off a injury-plagued 2022 season, and if he runs into any of those issues again, Pederson could give the Giants some left-handed depth at the position.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If Joc doesn&#39;t work out at first base, the next left-handed option, Ronald Guzman, becomes an intriguing player. He&#39;s already turning some heads this spring with his left-handed power arm on the mound in addition to his left-handed power in the batter&#39;s box.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Guzman&#39;s two-way capability gives him an outside shot at cracking the roster but as with Sabol, it will not be easy. Aside from Wade, the Giants already have two or three options at first on their roster and that&#39;s all Guzman has played, aside from pitching.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He&#39;s going to be interesting to watch over the next six weeks, regardless. May not make the team out of spring but he could put himself on the short list of players who the club would look to as soon as injuries start popping up.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/2188499060096949984/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=2188499060096949984' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2188499060096949984'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2188499060096949984'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/spring-training-notes-catcher.html' title='Spring Training Notes: Catcher competition?'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-5620992598399920725</id><published>2023-02-05T20:01:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2023-02-05T20:18:53.920-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Five players key to the Giants&#39; &#39;23 success</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Giants&#39; fan fest has passed, the super bowl is just a week away and a few days after that pitchers and catchers officially arrive in Scottsdale. It&#39;s baseball time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Today I wanted to take a closer look at a few guys who I believe will be huge keys in determining how this 2023 season goes for the Giants.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, there are the obvious things that need to happen, and I won&#39;t discuss those because it&#39;s pretty common knowledge. Logan Webb must continue entrenching himself as a true ace. They need Camilo Doval to keep growing on the success he&#39;s had the last two seasons. They also need Brandon Crawford to improve upon his 2022 output and anchor that middle part of the diamond like he&#39;s capable of.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This one isn&#39;t about those guys though.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead of the ace, the closer and the team&#39;s most tenured position player, who could help propel this team to 90+ wins and make them legit postseason contenders?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ll start with one of the newest additions, Michael Conforto.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the Giants&#39; deal with Carlos Correa fell apart in the 11th hour, a huge void in the middle of their lineup resurfaced. The Giants are hoping Conforto fills that void.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Overlooked because he&#39;s not Correa and the last time we saw Conforto he underwhelmed with a down 2021 season, this guy has the ability to be the best all-around hitter on this team. Looking at what he did prior to that &#39;21 campaign, you can see his intriguing upside.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants lacked a true impact bat in their lineup after losing Buster Posey, and they never really had an identity to the middle of their order in 2022. Joc Pederson was the only guy they had last year suited to hit in that part of the lineup and they needed help there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, it&#39;s no guarantee that Conforto can tap back into that pre-&#39;21 form. That may be lost for good. However, if he does, he&#39;ll give the Giants an impact bat they desperately need to anchor them. I compared a lot of his career numbers with Buster Posey&#39;s a couple posts back, and Conforto has the ability, or at least had the ability, to be a star. A big season will likely net him a nine-figure contract next winter. There is no other position player on the team with the ability to do that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/urn-publicid-ap-org-d012bae8fa18258ae7237820f4106ce4Mets_Giants_Baseball_84242.jpg?d=780x520&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;520&quot; data-original-width=&quot;780&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/urn-publicid-ap-org-d012bae8fa18258ae7237820f4106ce4Mets_Giants_Baseball_84242.jpg?d=780x520&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;The next guy I want to look at is Joey Bart.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bart&#39;s journey has been well documented. We&#39;ve been waiting for his breakout since 2020 and it just hasn&#39;t happened. There were times last season where it looked like he was turning the corner, but he finished the season slumping. The potential is still there though, and by the Giants not going out and pursuing a starting catcher this winter, their belief is as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If he gets a little more consistency at the plate and cuts down the k&#39;s, he could move up the lineup because we know his power is legit. It looks like he&#39;s right on the cusp, and he should be more comfortable in his second full season as a starter (not counting 2020). If he can just get that strikeout rate down 10-15% it seems like the rest would fall into place. Needless to say,&amp;nbsp; it would pay huge dividends for their chances this year if this guy becomes more than just a bottom of the order project.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next up is Mike Yastrzemski.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After the front office failed to obtain a more capable replacement in center field this winter, that job will mostly fall onto Yaz.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of people forget just how good Yaz can be. MLB TV gave him props earlier in the offseason by naming him as the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-network-top-10-at-each-position-in-2023&quot;&gt;9th best CF&lt;/a&gt; in baseball for 2023 (the only Giant to make any of their top-10 lists). His glove should be solid out there which should help bring some stability to the outfield defense regardless, but at the plate he could make an even bigger impact.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It feels like an eternity ago, but this guy was in the talk for NL MVP during that truncated 2020 season. With Posey opting out, Yaz really shouldered a lot of the offensive responsibility and he thrived. He took a little step-back in 2021 followed by a huge step back last season, but he battled some nagging injuries and missed time with covid. It was a bizarre year for him.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If he&#39;s fully healthy and can get back closer to that 2019-20 form when he was in the lineup no matter who the opponent was throwing, he could solidify the top part of the order. He can be an effective leadoff choice, especially vs. right-handers. Dude had a .400 OBP in 2020 and has had an above average OPS+ in three of his four seasons. If he can lock down that leadoff or two spot in front of Conforto, Hanigar and Joc, that would be huge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The last position player that I think holds a larger key to 2023 than I think a lot of people realize is David Villar.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Never high on any prospect lists or highly touted as an amateur, Villar earned his way to the big leagues by just mashing at every level of the minors. His arrival in 2022 got off to a bit of a sketchy start, but he came back a different player in September looked like he belonged.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That strong finish has him penciled in as the Giants everyday third basemen, and if that production in September can translate over a full season he&#39;ll be an upgrade over Evan Longoria, offensively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It will be him on the defensive side of things that I&#39;ll be watching close this spring. Longo was still a good defender last year, and for a team needing to stabilize their all-around defense, Villar&#39;s glove will be integral.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We pretty much know the range of outcomes at the other infield positions, but it&#39;s Villar at third that could go a long way toward making or breaking that group.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fifth and final player we&#39;ll talk about today is Sean Manaea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Manaea is largely viewed as the most disappointing of the Giants&#39; free-agent acquisitions this winter and you can absolutely understand the skepticism. The lefty had a rough go of it during his first tour of the national league with the Padres last season, finishing with an ERA just under five. Much of that inflation can be attributed to just a few bad outings, but nonetheless, he&#39;s coming off his career-worst year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, Manaea has never been considered an ace-level starter, so we definitely can&#39;t expect Carlos Rodon part two. He has always pitched much better than his showing in 2022 would suggest, however. Prior to last season, Manaea had a career ERA well under four and his strikeout rate was improving each season. Even last year he was still right at a k per inning and his WHIP wasn&#39;t terrible at 1.29.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reason why I think he can be such a contributing factor is because he has the best shot at being the Giants&#39; number three behind Webb and Alex Cobb if he&#39;s right. He&#39;s got that pedigree and likely some ability that Andrew Bailey and the staff think they can tap into.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants have a lot of depth in their rotation, but most of it is viewed more as back-end rotation pieces. Number fours or fives. They need someone to separate from the that pack. As long as that ERA dips back below 4 and that strikeout rate stays up, good things should happen for him in San Francisco.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once again, it&#39;s going to take a team effort for this Giants&#39; squad to exceed expectations and sneak into the playoffs. I just see these five guys as players who have the potential to impact this team in a particularly big way. Three of them have been all-star level players more than once and are at pivotal points of their careers. The other two have the path to become the team&#39;s first homegrown mainstays since Crawford, Belt and Panik.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/5620992598399920725/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=5620992598399920725' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5620992598399920725'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/5620992598399920725'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/02/five-players-key-to-giants-23-success.html' title='Five players key to the Giants&#39; &#39;23 success'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-1596661272849985163</id><published>2023-01-23T16:55:00.005-08:00</published><updated>2023-01-23T23:50:35.732-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Minor League players we could see in &#39;23</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;Last week, we had a full rundown on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/giants-2023-projected-roster-breakdown.html&quot;&gt;Giants projected opening day roster&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This week, we&#39;ll look at nine players who may not start the year with the big club, but look to figure into the Giants&#39; 2023 plans at some point.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Kyle Harrison, LHP&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ve heard a lot about this kid over the last 2 years and we should be getting his arrival at some point in 2023. He&#39;s the most hyped Giants pitching prospect since Madison Bumgarner and has done nothing but dominate at every stop he&#39;s made during his minor league career.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Despite the Giants&#39; depth they have in the rotation this season, they don&#39;t have any long-term fixtures aside from Logan Webb. Four of their six starters are likely going to be free-agents after this season. They&#39;re hoping Harrison entrenches himself this year. He&#39;s a big reason the club was OK with letting Rodon walk this offseason. They envision him being that co-ace with Webb for years to come.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He hasn&#39;t thrown above AA yet, but that doesn&#39;t necessarily matter. We see pitchers make the jump from AA to the big leagues often. He&#39;ll probably start the year in Sacramento for a little more seasoning and if he performs as expected, the Giants will find a spot for him sooner than later.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nbcsports.com/sites/rsnunited/files/styles/article_hero_image/public/article/hero/Kyle-Harrison-FuturesGame-GETTY-1241947399.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;450&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://www.nbcsports.com/sites/rsnunited/files/styles/article_hero_image/public/article/hero/Kyle-Harrison-FuturesGame-GETTY-1241947399.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Casey Schmitt, 3B&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Schmitt&#39;s glove is already MLB ready, as he&#39;s one of the best defensive third basemen at the minor league level. His bat took a huge step forward in 2022 as well.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After watching a lot of video on him this offseason, I see a lot of Matt Chapman in his game. They both have a very similar approach at the plate and gold glove caliber defense. Chapman showed more power potential in the minors than Schmitt, but the ladder has shown better bat-to-ball skills.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The 23 year-old slashed .293/.365/.489 across AA and AAA last season. It was a small sample size in Sacramento but he looked good at the highest level in the minors and he&#39;s now on the fast track to San Francisco.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Villar tore it up in September and will begin the year getting the bulk of playing time at third for the Giants. He&#39;ll get every opportunity to further prove he&#39;s ready to be a major league regular. Villar can move to first to make way for Schmitt when he&#39;s ready, and that&#39;s what I think the long-term plan looks like.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One way or another, Schmitt is expected to arrive this year, and the hope is that when he does he&#39;s here for good.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Heliot Ramos, OF&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ramos has become somewhat of an afterthought in the Giants&#39; system after failing to breakthrough last season. He had a terrific spring and got a few looks with the big club, going just 2 for 20 with San Francisco. It was his performance in Sacramento that was the real discouragement, however. He hit .227/.305/.349 in 475 plate appearances for the River Cats.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He&#39;ll likely get the first call when the Giants need help on one of the corner outfield spots. He&#39;s still just 23 and was a consensus top-100 prospect as recently as 12 months ago, so the Giants haven&#39;t given up on him. The pressure is on him to perform at this point though. If he can prove himself in AAA, the Giants will find a spot for him somewhere, whether with them or as a possible trade chip in July.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;RJ Dabovich, RHP&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The hard-throwing right hander has an outside shot at making the big club this spring but enters just behind Cole Waites for that last bullpen spot. If he doesn&#39;t make the sqaud, he&#39;ll land in Sacramento and throw in high-leverage situations there until the Giants need relief help.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The 24 year-old has struck out an impressive 131 batters over 82.3 minor league innings, so he&#39;s certainly got the stuff to be a big leaguer. His command is still a bit of a work in progress but I expect we&#39;ll see him at some point in 2023.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Isan Diaz, IF&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Diaz is an interesting player, particularly when assessing the Giants&#39; needs at the big league level but also due to his 2022 showing in Sacramento. He hits left handed and plays the middle infield and the Giants lack depth in both those areas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We likely would have seen Diaz make his Giants&#39; debut in September but he got injured and never got a chance. He&#39;s a 26 year-old former 2nd round pick and has pretty much proved himself at the minor league level. He exploded with the River Cats after coming over in a trade with the Marlins early in the year, slashing .264/.367/.551 with 23 home runs in only 89 games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants have had some success with adding those older, proven minor league bats with good pedigrees. The hope is Diaz can follow in the steps of similarly acquired guys like Thairo Estrada, Mike Yastrzemski and LaMonte Wade Jr.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unless there&#39;s an injury, he likely doesn&#39;t have much of a shot at making the club out of spring. However, as soon as this club needs a reinforcement in their infield, he&#39;ll be here.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Brett Wisely, IF&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Wisely was added this winter in a minor league trade with the Rays. The 23 year-old is another left-handed hitting middle infielder who&#39;s hit well at the minor league level. He&#39;ll likely start the year behind Diaz on the organizational depth chart, but he&#39;s another guy who the Giants expect to help them at some point this season.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The team has a couple options who can play 2B/3B which is primarily what Wisely has played. He&#39;s looked good during his stints at short though, and if he can show capability there, that could be what really gets him on the big club&#39;s radar.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Thomas Szapucki, LHP&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Szapucki was part of the Darin Ruf/JD Davis trade last year. His overall numbers from &#39;22 look bad but they were largely due to one horrendous outing with the Mets early on. As a Giant, he went 13.2 innings with a nice 1.92 ERA and 1.17 WHIP. He punched out 16 batters to just 4 walks for a sparkling 209 ERA+.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Scott Alexander will start the season as the Giants&#39; second left-handed reliever after Taylor Rogers at the moment. He has the experience and threw very well and emerged as the Giants best lefty reliever last year. Szapucki is third on that depth chart though.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At some point, the team is going to need another lefty reliever and when they do, they&#39;ll call on the 26 year-old.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sam Long LHP, Sean Hjelle RHP&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I clump these last two together because they&#39;ve gotten pretty good looks already. Both were up with the big club at some point in 2022, but none enter &#39;23 as key parts of the Giants&#39; plan.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Long and Hjelle looked pretty good at times, especially Long. With the starting pitching depth they&#39;ve accumulated though and the ascending Harrison knocking on the door, the Giants are hoping to not need them in the rotation this year. We all know how fickle pitching is, however, and I would expect to at least one of them at some point.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/1596661272849985163/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=1596661272849985163' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1596661272849985163'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/1596661272849985163'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/minor-league-players-we-could-see-in-23.html' title='Minor League players we could see in &#39;23'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-6453465004345187828</id><published>2023-01-16T19:43:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2023-01-16T19:43:26.645-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants&#39; 2023 projected roster breakdown</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;The wild 2022/23 MLB offseason is winding down. Most free agents who hadn&#39;t signed before the new year have found new homes over the last couple weeks, including longtime Giants&#39; first basemen Brandon Belt.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Farhan Zaidi addressed the media last week after Belt officially ended his Giants&#39; tenure by signing a one-year deal with Toronto. We got, more or less, the same rhetoric Zaidi provided after the Taylor Rogers&#39; conference call on December 30th.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He essentially said they don&#39;t anticipate making any other major league free agent additions before spring training. However, he did keep open the door for potential middle infield help as well as bringing in some more catchers to battle it out for an opening day roster spot. It also was made clear that they plan on entering the season with LaMonte Wade Jr. being the main replacement for Belt at first base.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, with everything pretty much set at this point, it&#39;s time to take a look at what the Giants 26-man opening day roster will look like.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Catchers-&lt;/b&gt; &lt;i&gt;Joey Bart, Austin Wynns&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As of now, it would appear Wynns has a leg up over rule 5 draftee Blake Sabol to be the second catcher. Sabol would need to rake in spring, and more importantly, show the ability to handle himself behind the plate in order to change that. Again, we could see another name or two added to the competition, but the Giants are banking on Joey Bart taking a big leap in his second full season as the starter.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Infielders-&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt; LaMonte Wade Jr. 1B, Thairo Estrada 2B, Brandon Crawford SS, David Villar 3B, JD Davis 1B/3B&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is the area on the team which has the most question marks. They appear ready to hand third base to Villar and hope that his strong finish in September was a sign of him acclimating to major league ball after a rough start. Davis should also get some looks there vs some tougher right-handed pitching.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Crawford and Estrada have a lot of pressure on them to tighten up the defense up the middle. Craw finished the year on a roll but largely had one of his worst defensive seasons in 2022. Estrada was one of the team&#39;s most steady offensive performers last season and hopefully he continues to grow on both sides of the ball in his sophomore season as a full-timer. The tough part is the Giants don&#39;t have much in the way of backups to the middle infield spots at the moment, so expect these two to get all the work they can handle early on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At first, we should see mostly a platoon of Wade and Davis with Flores&#39; role being the primary DH vs. lefties. It&#39;s been a tale of two seasons for Wade. After a strong 2021 debut with the Giants, the 29 year-old was never able to get healthy in &#39;22 and didn&#39;t contribute much when he was on the field. He&#39;ll lead the strong side of the platoon and very well could hit at the top of the order if he can regain that form from two seasons ago. Davis played well for the Giants last year after coming over from the Mets and, between 1B and 3B, I expect to see him in the lineup a lot.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Outfielders-&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt; RF Mitch Haniger, CF Mike Yastrzemski, LF Michael Conforto, OF Austin Slater, OF Luis Gonzalez&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants are hoping that solidifying the corner spots and letting Yaz settle into center full time will yield better results than the outfield defense showed last season.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Haniger and Conforto are guys who could be big impact players, as long as they can stay on the field. Haniger is viewed as a solid defensive right fielder, and Conforto will move to left to take some pressure off his surgically repaired shoulder. Both should be fine out there on the corners, but the real reason they were brought in was to hit in the middle of the batting order. There is a lot riding on the two newest Giants&#39; additions and their performance will go a long way toward determining the overall strength of this lineup.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I also am holding out hope for a Yaz rebound. It&#39;s been a tough couple of years for Yaz since his MVP-caliber short season in 2020. He&#39;s had some injury issues that have limited him during that span but he still has that potential to hit 20+ home runs while providing an OPS around .800 with plus defense.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Slater and Gonzalez are depth pieces. Slater still rakes lefties and likely will get the call in center whenever the team is facing a southpaw. Gonzo arrived with a bang last year and was hitting over .300 into June, but the league made adjustments and he mostly struggled in the second half. Still with options, he&#39;s someone who could be on the fringe of making the team, depending on how spring goes.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;DH- &lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Joc Pederson LF, Wilmer Flores 1B/3B&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I list these guys as DH&#39;s because the Giants hope their exposure to the field is limited this season. Pederson had an all-star year in 2022 for the Giants and he&#39;ll head up the strong side of the DH platoon, likely hitting somewhere between 3rd and 5th in the batting order. Flores could see some time at first base on occasion but the Giants view him more of a DH at this point.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MTg4NjI3MjM3MjYyNTk5OTE2/logan-webb-2022-1.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;600&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MTg4NjI3MjM3MjYyNTk5OTE2/logan-webb-2022-1.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Starting Rotation-&lt;/b&gt; &lt;i&gt;RH Logan Webb, RH Alex Cobb, RH Ross Stripling, LH Sean Manaea, RH Anthony DeSclafini, LH Alex Wood&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I listed six starters because that&#39;s where the Giants are heading into spring. I don&#39;t think they will run a 6-man rotation, but if all these guys are healthy and throw well in spring, we could see that out of the gate until it sorts itself out.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Webb heads up this group, and right now it would appear Cobb would get the ball in game two in New York, but after that it&#39;s really anybodies guess as to the order of the rotation. I doubt Manaea and Stripling signed here with the idea they&#39;d be coming out of the bullpen so my guess is that if one of the&amp;nbsp; guys listed is moved to relief for a while, it would be either DeSclafini or Wood.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Again, these sort of things usually sort themselves out during spring. Who knows whether DeSclafini will even be ready to take on a full load early on after missing nearly all of last year? It&#39;s a good problem to have though. Hopefully with the depth they have now, we won&#39;t be relegated to nearly as many John Brebbia and Sam Long starts as we were last year. The Giants also hope to get even more depth at some point in 2023 with the expected arrival of MLB&#39;s top left-handed prospect, Kyle Harrison.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Bullpen- &lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;RH Camilo Doval, LH Taylor Rogers, RH Tyler Rogers, RH John Brebbia, LH Scott Alexander, RH Cole Waites, RH Jakob Junis, *RH&amp;nbsp; Luke Jackson (starting year on DL)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With Rogers&#39; arrival and a May/June return to full effectiveness by Luke Jackson, the bullpen should be in a much better spot than they were a year ago. Both should help solidify late inning leads with Rogers taking some of the pressure off Doval being the only guy they&#39;re comfortable with in closing situations. The questions lay with the rest of this bunch.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tyler Rogers&#39; ERA was a little inflated last year but he should be fine, especially if the Giants can deploy him as more of a situational guy rather than in a main set-up role. Brebbia was strong in his first full year removed from Tommy John surgery. Alexander did well being used as the main left-handed reliever down the stretch. Waites has a power arm and arrived last year but he&#39;s only thrown a handful of big league innings and has some control issues still. Junis pitched very well as a starter last year but with the depth they have now, most of his work should come in long relief.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Heading into the spring, they have essentially all their 26 spots filled. They&#39;ll be holding auditions for their second catcher and have a vacancy in the bullpen until Jackson is ready. That&#39;s about it, barring unforeseen injuries.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not a perfect roster by any stretch, but competitive. They should put forth a lineup with significantly more upside than they had last year and the starting pitching depth, despite not being as flashy, should anchor the team.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My hope is that the young guys, Villar and Bart, really assert themselves as lineup mainstays. Not saying these guys have to be the next Posey or Belt but the Giants absolutely need some of their homegrown position guys to step up this year. They need foundation in that lineup that they can build with. Most of their starting lineup will likely be gone in a year or two. These two have the clearest path to leading that next wave and had stretches where they looked very good last season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m also low-key excited about the outfield, particularly offensively. It will be nice not needing to hit Brandon Crawford or Luis Gonzalez in the middle of the lineup this year by default. Haniger is my pick to lead the team in home runs. Conforto could easily slot into that huge lineup void that Buster Posey left behind after 2021. Overlooked after missing last season and coming out of an off-year in &#39;21, it&#39;s easy to forget how good this dude is. His career .824 OPS and 124 OPS+ are nearly identical to Posey&#39;s (.831 and 129), and he&#39;s only entering his age-30 season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s not the roster we were all envisioning in November, and certainly not as recently as mid-December. Still, if you put the free agency misses over the last 2 months aside, and address the simple question whether or not they&#39;re a better team heading into spring than they were in October? I think the answer is yes.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/6453465004345187828/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=6453465004345187828' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6453465004345187828'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/6453465004345187828'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/giants-2023-projected-roster-breakdown.html' title='Giants&#39; 2023 projected roster breakdown'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-2145247809948550412</id><published>2023-01-09T15:34:00.006-08:00</published><updated>2023-01-09T16:53:12.002-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Giants make bullpen upgrade, possibly?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;The Giants continued their active offseason on Monday, making a couple of moves that change the outlook of their bullpen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of them was dealing Yunior Marte to the Phillies in exchange for minor league pitcher Erik Miller.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Marte was considered to be on the opening day roster bubble heading into spring and was occupying a 40-man spot. This move shows the Giants didn&#39;t see him as an important piece to their bullpen plans. It allows them to clear that spot while adding a young arm that possesses a lot of upside in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Miller is a few years younger, 25 next month, than Marte, 28. They both are power arms with strikeout stuff, although Miller has battled control issues which have been the only thing keeping him in the minors. The Giants most likely see in him something they can fix to get him in the strike zone more consistently. If they can, we could see him in the bullpen mix in 2023.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Someone who we certainly will see in that bullpen mix is the newly signed right-hander Luke Jackson.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants inked the 31 year-old right-hander to a two-year deal on Monday, giving this team a legit right-handed set-up man to pair with the lefty Taylor Rogers. Only catch here is Jackson probably won&#39;t be ready until around June after undergoing Tommy John surgery last April.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MTk1MDQ2NTE3OTMxNzc5Mjcx/usatsi_17064209.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;593&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;235&quot; src=&quot;https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MTk1MDQ2NTE3OTMxNzc5Mjcx/usatsi_17064209.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s easy to see what the Giants are hoping to get in Jackson. He was one of the best relievers in baseball in 2021 and was a huge cog in that dominant Braves&#39; bullpen that carried them to a World Series tittle. During that season, Jackson rocked a 1.98 ERA over 71 games. He worked 63.2 innings and allowed just 45 hits while striking out 70 batters for a sparkling 220 ERA+.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside from that dominant 2021 however, Jackson has been a little hit or miss over his career. He struggled badly in the truncated 2020 season to the tune of a 6.84 ERA over 19 games. His 4.37 FIP suggests his numbers should have been slightly better, but he gave up 39 hits in 26 innings of work and had a WHIP just shy of 2. His ERA+ for that year was 69.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He was better in 2019, striking out 106 batters over 72.2 innings with a respectable 3.24 FIP and 120 ERA+.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Like with seemingly every other signing by the Giants this winter, they are basing their evaluation on the player&#39;s potential and what they&#39;ve shown in the past over the production the player provided in 2022.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I am a little surprised they guaranteed a guy coming off TJ surgery a two-year deal and close to $12M with a team option for a third. However, if this guy comes back strong by mid-season and shows that his 2021 was no outlier, they essentially get a high-end set-up guy for about half the going rate. In addition, Jackson has as much or more upside than any other reliever left on the market.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, coming off a major surgery like he is, you never can guarantee exactly how long a player takes to regain form or if he&#39;ll ever get back to where he was. So there is just as much risk as there is potentially reward.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We saw the same idea in their signing of Mathew Boyd last winter, and Boyd ended up throwing just 13 innings in 2022, none of which came in San Francisco. That was just a one-year deal, however, and Boyd battled other injuries during his rehab which delayed his return. I&#39;m assuming they feel pretty good about where Jackson is at this point in the process though. Hopefully nothing else arises as he begins to ramp up over the next few months.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the move, the Giants are most likely done adding to their bullpen, at least on any major league deals. They could throw a few spring training invitations to some guys who don&#39;t land on a team over the next month, but I don&#39;t think they&#39;ll give out anymore guaranteed 40-man spots.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Again, this offseason approach by Farhan and the Giants&#39; front office has become a theme. Aside from Ross Stripling, the Giants would not be thrilled by a repeat of 2022 with any player they&#39;ve added this winter. However, every one of their additions have shown the ability, prior to last year, to being all-star caliber pieces.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Who knows how things will pan out this upcoming season? If their additions all stay healthy and/or prove 2022 was just an off-year, this team will be better than fans are expecting. However, that may be asking a lot, and if they get anything less than that, it&#39;s going to be another frustrating summer at Oracle Park.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/2145247809948550412/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=2145247809948550412' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2145247809948550412'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/2145247809948550412'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/giants-make-bullpen-upgrade-possibly.html' title='Giants make bullpen upgrade, possibly?'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17901010.post-9183421572305108402</id><published>2023-01-02T14:45:00.004-08:00</published><updated>2023-01-02T17:57:09.814-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Where the Giants stand entering 2023</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;We&#39;ve officially entered 2023 and the countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting to Scottsdale can now begin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With it being the start of a new year, and with most of the Giants heavy lifting this offseason likely finished, I wanted to give my thoughts on the offseason as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Giants are set to arrive in Scottsdale in mid-February, so we still have a little over 6 weeks off offseason left. They could still be active in the trade market searching for middle infield help and it also wouldn&#39;t surprise me to see them add another veteran reliever or two to at least invite into camp.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was indeed a busy offseason for the Giants. Unfortunately, it hasn&#39;t transpired quite the way they or their fans were hoping back in early November.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The front office made it known that they were in the market for a star this winter and their first attempt came up short with the Aaron Judge pursuit. I never really envisioned Judge leaving New York though, and the Giants had to know the chances of them bringing him home were slim.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Their path to their plan B appeared a lot more clear though, and they actually landed Carlos Correa. For about a week. We all know how the rest went, no need to rehash. The point is, the Giants promised their fans that they were going to go big this winter and would stop at nothing in order to land one of the big ticket guys, and that mistake is ultimately what taints this offseason.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They probably would have been better off keeping their plans private in order to temper expectations. Even if they have the most money to spend, you still have to get players to agree to join your ball club and a team never has full control over that decision.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the Giants have learned over the last half-decade in their pursuit of a big star, it takes two to tango, and this will be seen as another offseason where they just couldn&#39;t get the job done. Whether that&#39;s a fair assessment or not, it&#39;s simply the case.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Despite not being able to land Judge or finalize their agreement with Correa, it&#39;s been one of the more active offseasons that this team has had in years. Most people have graded what they&#39;ve done somwhere in the D+ to C+ range and I think that&#39;s pretty accurate. They did upgrade their team, albeit marginally, so I would give them a C.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m most excited to see what Mich Hanigar and a healthy Michael Conforto bring to the everyday lineup. The batting order just had too many easy outs in it last year, and these two should definitely help improve that.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/09/22/sports/22mets-1/merlin_161281290_40b4c686-c5f8-48f9-95a0-1cb91ca6faf0-superJumbo.jpg&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; data-original-height=&quot;562&quot; data-original-width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;226&quot; src=&quot;https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/09/22/sports/22mets-1/merlin_161281290_40b4c686-c5f8-48f9-95a0-1cb91ca6faf0-superJumbo.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Conforto, especially, is a wild card. He&#39;s shown in the past that he has the ability to really be the catalyst in a lineup. He probably has more upside than any other Giants&#39; hitter they&#39;ll trot out this year and he&#39;s the one I&#39;m most curious to see play come March.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As far as the pitching additions, I didn&#39;t necessarily love the Manaea signing mostly because he was terrible during his first tour in the National League West with the Padres last year. That being said, I understand the logic in this move and if the Giants see something they can fix and get him back to his pre-San Diego days, this should end up being another solid starting pitching add by them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stripling isn&#39;t a flashy addition by any stretch either but the dude knows how to pitch. If we&#39;re going off of last years performances alone, this guy could wind up being the number two here behind Logan Webb.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If Manaea rebounds and Stripling keeps throwing the way he was in &#39;22, the Giants will have both quality and quantity in their rotation. That could get an even bigger boost when Kyle Harrison arrives as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A deep rotation plays very well over the course of a 162-game schedule and that&#39;s what they&#39;re building for. They may not have a clear-cut number two behind Logan Webb like Rodon was, but they have five or six guys lined up behind him that are quality big league starting pitchers and would probably land somewhere in the middle in most other starting rotations.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Taylor Rogers&#39; signing gives the back end of the bullpen a little depth now as he&#39;ll provide a left-handed closing option to help Camilo Doval out on occasion. Like Manaea, he too isn&#39;t coming off his best performance in 2022, but his track record suggests that it was just an outlier. If he&#39;s back to his typical form then the Giants are going to be pretty tough when they get into the 8th inning with a lead..&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Before you get to those two, however, things are still a little up in the air.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside from Doval and Rogers, the only guys assured spots are Tyler Rogers and John Brebbia. That leaves three or four slots up for grabs and if no other additions are made, they&#39;ll all be filled with guys are are not yet dependable. I don&#39;t mind rolling out a bullpen with a wild card or two at the bottom, but if half your depth chart are unproven arms, that could get dicey.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Approaching the end of this crazy offseason, the Giants do appear slightly better on paper, with more offensive upside than they had coming into 2022. The outfield defense should be better, but the infield still has some roles to be defined. The rotation is deeper but not quite as electric at the top, and the bullpen should be more stable later in games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only time will tell how it comes together, but the best way for the organization to move past the misses from this winter is if this team gets off to a good start and goes on to win 90+ games. There&#39;s no big star in the center of it like everyone wanted, but if nothing else, the roster they&#39;re putting together has the chance to be competitive. You don&#39;t necessarily need a huge superstar to win, it just makes things a little easier and a lot more exciting.&lt;/p&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/feeds/9183421572305108402/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17901010&amp;postID=9183421572305108402' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/9183421572305108402'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/17901010/posts/default/9183421572305108402'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/where-giants-stand-entering-2023.html' title='Where the Giants stand entering 2023'/><author><name>Trevor Cole</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06696291809198194781</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='https://img1.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry></feed>

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