Day 26: San Francisco Giants

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: San Francisco Giants

2007 Regular Season Record: 71-91

Cost per Win: $90,219,056 / 71 = $1,270,690 per win

2007 Season Recap: It’s never good when your team is all about 1 player but that was definitely the story of the Giants in 2007. Everything about the team revolved around Barry Bonds and his pursuit of the career home run record. As a team they finished in last place in the NL West and were 19 games back of the Diamondbacks. The odd thing about the Giants was that offense was their big problem and they ranked 14th in the NL in team batting average and 15th in the NL in runs scored. Pitching was a strong point for the team with the team ERA ranking 5th in the NL but they were 12 in the league in saves as a team which tells you how many save opportunities they actually had.

The things the Giants have a lot of in their offensive lineup is experience. The thing they lacked in 2007 was consistent hitting. One of these veterans was Randy Winn who led the team in batting average with a .300 average. The highest profile of veterans on the team was Bonds and he did put up good power numbers leading the team in home runs with 28 and runs with 75. Not too many people really seemed to notice how the team actually did the entire focus was on Bonds’ chase of the home run record. Which did sell tickets but it didn’t really make for good baseball to watch.

The Giants pitching actually did rather well in 2007 but with the lack of offense their records didn’t exactly represent that performance. The team leader in wins was Noah Lowry who had a record of 14-8 and a 3.92 ERA. Another starting pitcher who performed well in 2007 was Matt Cain who had an ERA of 3.65 and led the team with 163 strikeouts. For all of this effort though Cain only earned himself a record of 7 wins and 16 losses. The lack of offensive support he received though kept him from getting the record he deserved which should have been at least a winning record. The Giants biggest addition in the offseason was Barry Zito and his $10 million salary in 2007. Zito finished the season with 11 wins and 13 losses and a 4.53 ERA, the highest ERA of his 7 year career. This was a big investment for the Giants and they certainly hope that his numbers improve in the next season.

Key Free Agents: OF Barry Bonds, 3B Pedro Feliz, SP Russ Ortiz, 1B Ryan Klesko; Bonds is the most notable of the losses in that he did sell a lot of tickets in San Francisco and there will probably be a drop in attendance next season. Those other free agent losses didn’t contribute with any sort of great numbers in 2007 but then a lot of their lineup that is returning in 2008 didn’t contribute that great of numbers.

Offseason Needs: The Giants have already addressed their one big positional need and that was in the outfield when they signed Aaron Rowand. Rowand will also be an added bat to the lineup that is definitely needed. The Giants should try and add another bat or two to the lineup if they can. They have the pitching in place to improve they just need to get the offense to help the pitching staff. It was reported that they were interested in signing Alex Rodriguez but his price tag was probably too high for the Giants to really be able to get him but he would have been the big bat that they needed.

Prediction for the 2008 season: The Giants do have some of the pieces in place to be a good team in 2008. They do need some more offense and it is getting pretty late in the offseason to find anyone that they won’t have to overpay for. With all this in mind I do think the Giants will improve in 2008 just because their offense really can’t be that bed 2 years in a row with the veterans they have. I think it would be a real reach to say that they will move to high in the standing but I think they will be closer to .500 but with the quality of the other teams in their division they probably won’t move above 4th place in the NL West. I think they can best the Dodgers for that position in the standings.