For the third time in five seasons, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2014, making them a modern age dynasty. They did lose Pablo Sandoval to free agency over the winter and that's a big loss, but for the most part the rest of the team returns intact. A tremendous front office, a smart manager and prime-age stars should make San Francisco a contender again in 2015.
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Probable lineup
1. Angel Pagan, CF
2. Joe Panik, 2B
3. Buster Posey, C
4. Brandon Belt, 1B
5. Hunter Pence, RF
6. Casey McGehee, 3B
7. Brandon Crawford, SS
8. Norichika Aoki, LF
Bench: OF Gregor Blanco, UTIL Travis Ishikawa, IF Joaquin Arias, IF Ehire Adrianza, C Andrew Susac
Susac will compete with Hector Sanchez for the backup catcher's job this spring and others like Matt Duffy, Juan Perez and Adam Duvall will be in the mix for Adrianza's roster spot. Blanco should see lots of action in the outfield and Ishikawa will be the team's primary left-handed pinch-hitter.
Probable rotation
1. LHP Madison Bumgarner
2. RHP Matt Cain
3. RHP Tim Hudson
4. RHP Jake Peavy
5. RHP Tim Lincecum
Manager Bruce Bochy already confirmed Lincecum will be in the rotation, sending righties Ryan Vogelsong and Yusmeiro Petit to the bullpen for the time being.
Probable bullpen
Closer: RHP Santiago Casilla
Setup men: RHP Sergio Romo
Middle men: LHP Jeremy Affeldt, LHP Javier Lopez, RHP Jean Machi
Long man: Vogelsong, Petit
Casilla and Romo have alternated setup man and closer duties the past few years -- when one struggles, the other slides into the ninth inning. Right-handers Hunter Strickland and George Kontos are also bullpen candidates.
Under-the-radar offseason transaction
The Giants do as well with minor-league free-agent signings as any team in baseball. Blanco, Ishikawa, Casilla, Machi, Vogelsong and Petit were all minor-league signings once upon a time and played important roles in the club's most recent World Series title. This year's under-the-radar pickup is another guy on a minor-league deal: outfielder Justin Maxwell. The 31-year-old spent most of last season in Triple-A with the Royals, where he hit .285/.352/.464 with eight homers in 56 games. He's a righty bat with a career 108 OPS+ against left-handed MLB pitchers. Pagan has battled lots of injuries in recent years, and if he visits the disabled list again, Maxwell could step into a platoon role with Blanco and/or Aoki.
Fantasy bust: Tim Hudson
Via Scott White's Giants fantasy preview:
"Hudson has had a storied career, and for that portion of last season when everyone was still paying attention, he looked like he was adding another chapter to it, wowing in his return from a gruesome ankle injury with a 1.81 ERA in 13 starts to make him what many were calling the best free agent pickup of the offseason. Even now, it'll carry weight for some people, especially those who didn't suffer through the collapse. He wasn't just bad over his final 18 starts, going 2-11 with a 5.13 ERA and 1.46 WHIP. He was a different pitcher. He couldn't even give the Giants innings, going six or more in only eight of those 18 starts. As a non-strikeout pitcher, he needs innings to get by in Fantasy. Maybe it was just a slump, but for a 39-year-old who's had elbow, back and ankle surgeries over the last seven years, you can assume we've witnessed the beginning of the end."
Biggest strength
Putting the ball in play. Power is becoming harder to find around the league and teams are gravitating toward infield shift proof contact hitters who spray the ball all over the field. (Plus AT&T Park is not an easy place to hit homers.) Here are San Francisco's projected regulars with their 2014 strikeout rates and ball-in-play distribution data:
| Giants: 2014 Strikeout and Ball In Play Data | ||||
| Player | K% | Pull% | Middle% | Opposite% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pagan | 12.8% | 35.5% | 37.0% | 27.6% |
| Panik | 11.5% | 32.2% | 40.3% | 27.5% |
| Posey | 11.4% | 41.6% | 37.2% | 21.1% |
| Belt | 27.2% | 48.0% | 30.7% | 21.3% |
| Pence | 18.4% | 42.7% | 31.9% | 25.4% |
| McGehee | 14.8% | 30.0% | 41.1% | 29.0% |
| Crawford | 22.9% | 39.5% | 34.3% | 26.2% |
| Aoki | 8.9% | 29.9% | 32.4% | 37.8% |
| MLB AVG | 20.4% | 40.6% | 34.1% | 25.3% |
Blanco, who figures to see plenty of playing time off the bench, struck out in 17.3 percent of his plate appearances last year with a 37.0/34.5/28.5 pull/middle/oppo batted ball distribution. The Giants don't strike out and they shoot the ball to all fields. Belt is both their most strikeout-able and shift-able hitter, and having one guy in the lineup like that isn't the end of the world. We've seen it in October three times in the past five years: San Francisco's hitters are always a pesky bunch who are hard to put away.
Biggest weakness
The rotation worries me. Bumgarner is excellent, but he threw 270 innings between the regular season and postseason last year, and had one less month to rest in the offseason. That's the sort of workload that can lead to a down year. Just ask Cole Hamels, who threw 262 1/3 innings while helping the Phillies to the 2008 World Series title at the same age Bumgarner is right now, then had the worst year of his career in 2009.
Both Cain (ankle, elbow) and Hudson (ankle) are coming off surgery -- Cain has already had his first Cactus League appearance pushed back -- and Lincecum's days of contending for the Cy Young are long gone. He has a 4.76 ERA (73 ERA+) in 539 1/3 innings over the past three seasons and lost his rotation spot last summer. Vogelsong and Petit are solid depth pieces, but there are an awful lot of question marks here.
Outlook
Winning the World Series makes it easy to forget the Giants got into the postseason as the second wild-card team and went 47-53 in their final 100 games of the regular season. They were a good team in 2014, not a great team, and they got hot at just the right time.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course. We just have to remember San Francisco isn't bringing a powerhouse club back for 2015. Sandoval is gone and the days of having three young aces in Bumgarner, Cain and Lincecum are over. The Giants are a well-rounded club short on power but making up for it with contact ability.
The NL West got more competitive this offseason thanks mostly to the ultra-aggressive Padres, though I still see the Giants as legitimate contenders for a postseason spot, most likely as a wild-card team. The "win the World Series every other year" storyline is fun, but this club is designed to win right now.
Coming Tuesday: Previewing the Los Angeles Dodgers
