Standing on the shoulders of Bonds... *ahem* Giants?

Fish rants :

Oh my it's very difficult to remain professional when you have to preview a season of a team you hope falls off the end of the earth (well it's not entirely impossible haha!). The media circus around you-know-who will be of course a huge distraction to this team. They let one ace go and gained a lesser more injury prone one, and pretty much failed to strengthen the rotation at all. It seems I say this at the start of every season by dammit this team is TOO OLD!!! There's not a single guy in a starting field position under the age of thirty and most of them are on the decline.

Barry Bonds is losing power, Dave Roberts is losing speed, Randy Winn never had either of those to things to begin with and that's just the outfield. Omar Vizquel is the model pro, but damn he can't lead this rabble to anywhere out of the basement in this division. The Giants are again going to have to try to play small ball with long ball players on the decline

Barry Zito is of course a good pitcher but it's difficult to figure out how he's going to translate into AT&T Park. He gives up a lot of hits to lefties, but power wise he gets blown out by righties, so it'll be interesting to see how he copes with the new boundaries in the Bay. Matt Cain must have 'frisco fans in a frenzy of excitement, but let's face it, there's only one show in town for at least one more season. With some offence Matt Morris and Noah Lowry could be good tail enders in a rotation but where that offence is going to come from is hard to see. More uncertainties lie in the Armando Benitez led bull pen which includes a bunch of has beens and never was-es.

I almost wish I'd got someone else to write this and then added my two cents after. I hate this club, I hate their lack of ambition, I hate their shear greed in milking the media circus around you-know-who, and most of all I hate Barry Bonds!!

Pete, the voice of reason says:

OK, for starters its not a lack of ambition or greed that has driven this club to attempt to bank on Bonds its the fact that he has been one of the greatest players of all time and the face of the franchise for over a decade. If you don't feel it prudent to build around such a player then I don't know who you build around. That all said I do feel sorry for GM Brian Sabean because he really went all in to try and get that championship with Bonds and they fell just short and we are now in the fall out. Baseball is the greatest sport in the world for celebrating its heroes and Bonds must retire a Giant so the team will remain in limbo for another year.

Like you said, the team is too old and has too many has beens on the roster and unless Bonds can stay healthy there is no big bat anywhere on the team to anchor the team. Roberts can still do a job at the top of the order and the ever green Vizquel batting behind him will see that they are able to scratch out enough wins to be a respectable team but there is nothing that makes you think they can elevate themselves into anything like a pennant race.

Losing Mike Matheny to his injury induced retirement will hurt them big time too as Bengie Molina has slipped in recent years in terms of D (he's still pretty good but not exactly great) and also the leadership and you do wonder if this clubhouse will implode at some point.

Matheny would have been the only reason I would have thought that letting Schmidt go and getting Zito would be a good trade off but alas he is gone and Zito will likely do an reasonable job in between seeing balls that drop into outfield gloves in Oakland, sail into the stands in AT&T.

For the bullpen to work they really have to hope that they can catch lightning in a bottle because it looks a bit messy to me.

Matt Cain is the only real bright spark I can see and any impact prospects are a ways away (possibly Sabean stockpiling for an onslaught in the post-Bonds era). This year will all be about Bonds going for that record (and 2,000 RBI which is none too shabby either) and the Giants standing pat till next year...oh and Bruce Bochy being picked up to manage is an interesting move too.

Conor C-omesback:

I think we're in agreement about this state of this club. You just seem to be more of the opinion that this is the result of putting all the eggs in the Barry Championship Ring basket. Maybe you're not wrong, but to be honest I dislike Barry so much and think he's such a cheat and an asshole that I'm glad he never got his ring, and I'm glad he's going to play out the last year of his career and not win a thing. It's exactly what he deserves, but not what Brian Sabean deserves for being put in the impossible situation of having a player who was bigger than the club, maybe even bigger than the game itself.