San Francisco Giants
 

It's a testament to how great a year Barry Bonds and Rich Aurilia had that the Giants were in contention for the NL West title until the very last weekend of the 2001 season.  The Giants scored 799 runs; according to Bill James' runs created formula, Bonds and Aurilia were responsible for 314 of them, or nearly 40%.  Throw in Jeff Kent's "off-year" total of 112, and over half of the Giants runs were created by 3 men.  Given that there's usually 11 other guys who are supposed to be contributing on offense, there's really not much to say about the performance of the supporting cast.  Unless the pitching gets a whole lot better or the other spots in the line-up start contributing, the Giants may be in for another end of season disappointment.
 

Hitting

While he's not the only Giant hitter, Barry Bonds is certainly the most productive.  After a career of being considered one of the top power hitters in baseball, Bonds' 2001 effort emphasized that he's one the best hitters in history.  His 73-homer, 177-walk performance was one of the best seasons in history.  But if we can, for a moment, take a deep breath and get some perspective, we might be able to silence some of this hysteria about him being the greatest player in history.  First, he never pitched.  So Babe Ruth, who was one of the best pitchers of his era before moving to the outfield, has a huge advantage over Bonds.  Second, he's only led the majors in OPS 3 times.  While that's impressive, that's only one more time than Larry Walker and 8 fewer times than Ruth.  Third, if you take the rate of runs created over the course of his career, and compare it to only the players with more career runs created, Bonds still finishes 6th, behind Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Foxx and Hornsby.  Similar results are yielded when comparing to league averages.  So if we can just cease the hyperbole about him being possibly the greatest ever, and just enjoy the fact that we get to watch the 6th best hitter in history, then maybe we can stop looking like the Japanese Army in a Godzilla movie.  By the way, he'd need between 3 and 4 more seasons comparable to last year's to get into Ruth's neighborhood.

Aurilia is another Giant who had a historical season.  His 37-homer, 206-hit campaign last year was one of the best ever by a shortstop.  Oddly enough, another shortstop who gets far less recognition than Bonds, other than for his contract, has already had 4 seasons comparable to Aurilia's and he's only 26.  But then again, Alex Rodriguez may never get the recognition he deserves.  But I digress... Aurilia is the best offensive shortstop in the NL and won't have a whole lot of competition until Juan Uribe or Orlando Cabrera develop more.

Kent's position atop the NL second base heap is not as clear.  He's still one of the best and in a year where he doesn't suffer any significant injuries, can still assert himself as king of the hill.  However, he'll get considerable competition from budding stars like Jose Vidro and Marcus Giles, and AL-escapee Roberto Alomar.  Still, no team can boast a more productive middle infield keystone than the Giants with Aurilia and Kent.

The supporting cast, however, still needs help.  This offseason, GM Brian Sabean brought in several players in an effort to upgrade offensive production.  However, it's questionable whether there will be any improvements.  David Bell was added at third, but his career numbers are not any better than those of Giant utilityman Ramon E. Martinez.  Only his range on defense is marginally better.  Tsuyoshi Shinjo was brought in to be the Giants new lead-off man, but his on base percentage is significantly lower than that of last year's lead-off hitter, Marvin Benard.  Reggie Sanders was signed as a free agent and he certainly has the ability to be more productive than last year's right fielders.  However, his history with injuries is so spotted, one never knows if one is getting the .850+ OPS Sanders (1995, '97, '99 ,2001) or the sub .800 OPS Sanders (1993, '98, 2000).

Benito Santiago returns as the primary catcher.  While his leadership skills have improved much since his halcyon days in San Diego and resuscitation in Philly, his offensive production has been waning now for 5 years.  Ex-Dodger farmhand Angel Pena has a chance to make more of an impact the plate, but Dusty Baker prefers vets to young players.

Another issue will be production from first base.  Last year, the Giants were energized by the arrival of elderly Andres Galarraga.  This year, Galarraga is gone and they are once again left with JT Snow and AAAA hitter Damon Minor.  Whatever production the Giants get out of first base will likely come from whichever guy has the hot hand as neither one really has a history of being any better than league average.

Pedro Feliz will back up Bell at third.  He has got good power, but has less selectivity than a starving dog in a kibble factory.  Benard will get a reasonable amount of playing time as the 4th outfielder, but if the team was desperate enough to trade for a defensive specialist to replace him, how much value could he really have?

Unless Bonds, Aurilia and Kent can duplicate their 2001 performance, the Giants will have a tough time staying with the top teams in the NL West.
Rating: 55
 

Pitching

This year, pitching was supposed to be the Giants' strength.  And if one is referring to their bullpen, it will be.  However, the rotation could still be an iffy proposition.  Russ Ortiz returns as the ace of the staff, but control is still an issue.  Despite significantly cutting his walk rate in the second half, he hasn't mastered throwing strikes consistently.  It also appears that his strikeout rate has been a casualty of his efforts to reduce walks.

Everyone seems to be waiting for Livan Hernandez' arm to either fall off or actually explode.  No pitcher has endured as many high pitch count outings over the last 5 years as Hernandez.  There was some hope that in all the visa-related age revelations this winter than Hernandez would be exposed as a much, much older pitcher than 27 years old.  Since that didn't happen, he may be just one of those rare pitchers - like Bob Feller was - who simply has an indestructible arm and can endure ridiculously hard workloads from a very young age without suffering a catastrophic injury.  Or maybe he just hasn't had enough yet.  It will be interesting, in a macabre sort of way, to watch.

The Giants traded for Jason Schmidt at the trade deadline last year and he was dynamic down the stretch.  Many thought that this was a sign that he had finally turned the corner and found a way to harness his considerable talent.  However, he's gone through similar stretches previously, only to rediscover mediocrity or injury, so it remains to be seen if last year was just another tease.

If there's a pitcher who does more with less than Kurt Rueter (the Bill Lee of the 21st century), he's not in the majors.  On a good day, his fastball reaches the low 80s.  He has a solid change-up and can throw several other pitches for strikes if he has to.  But normally, he doesn't because he is almost always pitching with a lead.  His record is remarkable in that he is almost always among the leaders in run support.  Rueter is uncanny in his ability to irritate hitters into getting themselves out with his below average stuff.

The Giants have a couple of promising young arms who will battle for starts this year, but will be fixtures in the rotation by next season.  Ryan Jensen and Kurt Ainsworth quite possibly could be the most talented starters the Giants have.  Both reach the low-90s with their fastballs and have a nice repertoire of breaking pitches.  They, and farmhand Jerome Williams, should provide enough depth for the Giants to endure any slumps or injuries in the rotation.

The Giants bullpen is superb.  Led by closer Robb Nen, Dusty baker is not averse to going to them early in the game.  Felix Rodriguez is as solid a set-up man as there is in the majors and should be closing for some team soon.  Jay Witasick is back in the NL, where he pitched brilliantly for San Diego last year before being traded to the Yankees.  His curve is something to behold when it's on.  Todd Worrell and lefty Jason Christiansen round out an experienced and hard-throwing pen.
Rating: 60
 

Defense

The Giants don't beat themselves on defense, but they're not a particularly exciting team in the field.  No player has exceptional range, with the possible exception of JT Snow at first.  But all of them make the plays they can get to and rarely allow a big inning with errors.
Rating: 55
 

Management

For the most part, Brian Sabean has done a good job of keeping a steady flow of talent in San Francisco.  But his farm system is nearly exhausted and his major league payroll is nearing it's limit.  This should prove to be an interesting challenge for a GM who's always been active getting the pieces his team needs at the trade deadline.  Will he be able to finagle another hitter  for some magic beans?  Time will tell.  Dusty baker is universally lauded for his ability to take a team that has very few assets on paper and make them a contender.  So far, the heavy - some might say abusive - workloads he's dumped on his young starters hasn't come back to bite him as most of them have remained fairly healthy.  He does have a great knack for putting the right reliever in at the right time.  Still, one has to wonder if he's sitting on a ticking timebomb of his own construction.
Rating: 65