In an effort to avoid going stir crazy with MLB and every other major sports league shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, I've decided to take a look at the best of the best for each baseball franchise. We've created a 30-day series making an all-time team for each MLB club. We're breaking down one team each day throughout April, continuing today in the Bay Area.

As a (hopefully?) fun twist, I'm making a Baseball Stars team for each. That's right, the old-school Nintendo video game "Baseball Stars," which I still consider to be the best baseball video game ever. It allowed you to create teams and I used to make all-time lineups for prominent MLB franchises. There are the eight position players with four starting pitchers, one reliever and five bench position players on each Baseball Stars squads.

Up next are the San Francisco Giants, who started in New York. It's a rather storied franchise, with 23 pennants and eight championships. I expect we're about to see a loaded ballclub. 

Catcher

Perhaps it would've been interesting to go through this a decade ago. I wouldn't know. What I do know now is the top five WAR seasons among Giants catchers all belong to Buster Posey. Even if we didn't look this up, it's a rather easy choice. 

First base

Hall of Famer Bill Terry finished in the top seven of MVP voting six times and owns a career .341 batting average. In reviewing all these players during this exercise, it strikes me that Will Clark has become pretty underrated. Part of it was a short prime with the Giants. From 1987-92, Clark hit .303/.378/.515 (152 OPS+) with four top-five MVP finishes. Orlando Cepeda authored a 140 OPS+ with 226 homers in his nine seasons with the Giants, too. It's a loaded position. 

There is only one answer, though. Willie McCovey. 

Second base

A tip of the cap to Frankie Frisch, a Hall of Famer with an all-time great nickname ("The Fordham Flash"). He spent eight seasons with the Giants and hit .321. He also played in a pre-integration, offense-heavy era. If there are other options, we're going elsewhere. And there are. 

Robby Thompson had a very nice career and posted three 5-plus WAR seasons. 

Jeff Kent is my man, though. He only played for the Giants for six years, but he hit .297/.368/.535 with 247 doubles, 175 homers and 689 RBI. He won the 2000 MVP and had three other top-10 finishes. 

Shortstop

Rich Aurillia's amazing 2001 season deserves a name check, but he's not the pick. We're a bit crowded here with pre-integration players who weren't upper-echelon all-time greats, most notably Travis Jackson. I'm left with Al Dark, Chris Speier and Brandon Crawford. 

But ...

Matt Williams actually came up a shortstop and played 121 games there. In his Giants career, Williams hit 247 homers with 732 RBI and a 122 OPS+. He finished second in 1994 MVP voting and sixth two other times. We're taking him here in a bit of a game of musical chairs, as I spy a crowded outfield. 

Third base

Among full-time third basemen, Williams might've been the pick here, but I cleared him and, again, I'm looking forward to a crowded outfield. I've already mentioned something I've discussed throughout this exercise, and that's not taking pre-integration players who aren't all-time greats. Mel Ott is absolutely an all-time great, though. In 22 years with the Giants, he hit .304/.414/.533 with 511 homers and 1,860 RBI. He led the league in runs twice, homers six times, RBI once, walks six times, OBP four times, slugging once, OPS twice, OPS+ five times and more. He also played third base 256 times. He gets moved here. 

Left field

Barry Lamar Bonds. 

Center field

Say hey, it's Willie Mays time. 

Right field

Having cleared Ott and used two obvious all-timers in the previous two outfield spots, we're opening up right field for any remaining outfielder. That means we have to consider Johnny Mize, Kevin Mitchell, Ross Youngs, Bobby Bonds, Monte Irvin and a host of others. Youngs only played 10 years through the 1910s-20s, but let's look closer at the rest. Giants-only rate stats coming. 

Mize: .299/.389/.549, 155 OPS+, 6.6 WAR/650PA
Mitchell: .278/.356/.536, 151 OPS+, 5.0 WAR/650PA
Bo. Bonds: .273/.356/.478, 131 OPS+, 5.4 WAR/650PA
Irvin: .296/.389/.477, 127 OPS+, 4.9 WAR/650PA

Mize looks best there, but it was also right when the league started to integrate and wrapped around World War II. Mitchell won an MVP. Bonds was the most complete player. Irvin was one of the first black players in the league and helped spark the Giants comeback that led to the Shot Heard Round the World (hey, we should mention Bobby Thomson, too). Irvin also only averaged 103 games from 1950-55. It's a bit of a toss up. 

I'll take Bobby Bonds. What the hell. Two Bondses in the outfield is fun. 

Starting pitchers

Blah blah blah pre-integration, blah blah blah Deadball era ... Christy Mathewson gets picked anyway. Easy and obvious. 

Carl Hubbell, however, doesn't get a free pass from the pre-integration era. He'll be kept in mind as we proceed. Joe McGinnity of the Deadball era gets a tip of the cap, but he's going to be out. 

I don't see any reason to draw things out with Juan Marichal. He's the number two selection. 

I also am throwing Madison Bumgarner on the team. With parts of 11 seasons under his belt, he's one of the best regular-season Giants pitchers in history. He also helped them to win three World Series rings. In 102 1/3 postseason innings, Bumgarner is 8-3 with a 2.11 ERA, 0.899 WHIP and three shutouts in 14 starts. He essentially carried them across the line in 2014 as the only productive member of the rotation in the World Series and closed down Game 7. He's an easy pick. 

I'm left with one spot. Hubbell is in the mix. Tim Lincecum won two Cy Youngs and three rings. Jason Schmidt was excellent. The first 10 years of Gaylord Perry's Hall of Fame career came with the Giants. 

I'm going with Lincecum. His fall was drastic, but he had a big hand in three titles and won the two Cy Youngs while leading the league in strikeouts three times. I love the upside play. 

Reliever

Lots of quality choices here. Robb Nen, Rod Beck, Brian Wilson, Santiago Casilla, Sergio Romo, Gary Lavelle. I like Nen's heat and he's the top option when considering the run suppression, keeping runners off base and strikeout rate. 

The Lineup

Baseball Stars uses six characters for each name. What follows is the Baseball Stars lineup. 

  1. Bobby, RF
  2. SayHey, CF
  3. Barry, LF
  4. Willie, 1B
  5. Mel, 3B
  6. Kent, 2B
  7. Buster, C
  8. Matt, SS

SP: BigSix (Mathewson), Juan, MadBum, Freak (Lincecum)
RP: Nen 

First off, holy hell, is that a lineup or what? Anywho, we need five bench players. We'll go with Flash (Frankie Frisch), Monte (Irvin), Will (Clark), (Orlando) Cepeda and Kevin (Mitchell). 

There aren't really any wrong answers here (unless someone left off Willie Mays or something), but let me hear your Giants team, San Francisco. Hit me up @MattSnyderCBS.