Well as far as the Giants go, there you have it. LA is still the team to beat in the NL West, and the reason why is they have speed and they hit the shit out of the ball. It was a formula we were going for 2-3 years ago, when we decided we wanted our "youth movement" and then at some point, we went away from it. Last year we traded for Freddy Sanchez, a trade many were happy with, but he doesn't have a lick of speed. DeRosa and Huff are the same way, and add in a lineup with Sandoval and Renteria with Bowker and Rowand in center and you pretty much have the slowest team in baseball. In addition, you got a bunch of guys in their 30s playing again, not the young guys. Meanwhile, LA has Furcal, Kemp, Ethier aside from Ramierez and Blake, a good young catcher. They've been spending years courting talent and making good business desicions, while the Giants essentially are a patchwork team, adding players that come and go to keep their fabric. It's dissapointing to watch teams like the Dodgers and Braves and A's go out and draft five tool players and watch the Giants put John Bowker in right field and call it a youth movement. Thank god for Pablo Sandoval.
That said, the Giants still might be the better team this year with the pitching they have. If the starting pitching holds up, they're in for an incredible year. What I am trying to point out is as an offensive team they still don't have the firepower that the Dodgers, Angels, Cards, Yankees, Redsox, and guess what, those teams make the playoffs every year.
I'm not going to jump ship on my team at all right now. We are going to take 2 of 3 from LA LAs. But I think if we want to be taken seriously as a playoff contender we need to do a couple of things. I'd like to see Renteria benched. Yea he started off hot, but Uribe is playing better ball right now. You got a guy named Velez right now who deserves a spot too, and he's FAST, he should be at second. I'd like to see Torres get another shot in center while Rowand is out, because he's FAST too, and if Bowker doesn't put it all together soon, I think Schierholtz needs to get his job back. That would build a line-up something to the likes of Torres, Velez, Sandoval, Huff, DeRosa, Molina, Uribe, Schierholtz with the P and I think that's a lineup much more capable of stirring up some problems both swinging the bat and on the basepaths. Just my two cents here.
