Another Mediocre Year for the Giants

So a recent blurb from the latest Giants mailbag got me thinking. Here's the excerpt:

"Atlanta's deal with the A's for Mark Kotsay made me wonder about Roberts' marketability, too. The Giants surely would trade Roberts in the right deal. But Roberts' contract (he's owed $6.5 million in each of the next two seasons) could be a hindrance." -- Chris Haft, taken from http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080114&content_id=2345932&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf

If you haven't heard, the A's traded Mark Kotsay to the Braves for Joey Devine Jamie Richmond and the Braves taking off 2 million from Kotsay's contract. The A's elected to eat most of Kotsay's 7 million dollar salary in exchange for the prospects. While Devine and Richmond aren't amazing, some still think Devine has the chance to bloom into a major league reliever, or even a closer. Richmond is just some guy.

The issue I want to discuss here is planning. The A's have made an effort to build a team for 2010. They've been selling off there veterans and rebuilding their farm system in the hopes that they can recover from a number of years of success. What I mean by "recovering from years of success" is that because the A's have been either in the playoffs or competing for the playoffs for a number of years, they've been consequently receiving low draft picks. With a team like the A's that have an artificial ceiling on their payroll due to the ownership, the draft is their bread and butter. The team every now and then has to take a step back, and replenish the farm system in order to have anything worth building up.

What does this have to do with the Giants? I believe the Giants are in a rut at the moment because they have no such planning. The Giants are stuck between the idea that they have a contending team, or that they should rebuild. On one hand, the giants could be contenders. They have a solid pitching core, with Lincecum, Cain, and Zito all capable of 20 wins if they pitch to their best ability and have run support. Some would argue that they're one or two pieces away from having a contending team (Think about it: If the Giants could sign A-Rod at third, and stick Francisco Cordero in the back of the pen, they wouldn't be all that awful.) Especially considering that the NL West, while appearing good on paper, all could suffer 2007 Dodgers syndrome and poop out near the end.

The other idea is that which most Non-Fransiscans subscribe to: that the Giants are old and suck. They have no corner infielders still, still need two pieces of the 3-4-5 punch, and have nothing but speedy Rajai Davis types coming up from the farms, since 5 of their 6 high draft picks in 2007 went to high school players.

The main problem I see though is that the Giants can't make up their minds about which of these they are. They have a few veterans locked up for a while now in Rowand and Zito, though the two of them eat up a lot of payroll. They re-signed Vizquel to another year in hopes that, despite his aging bat, his hot glove will give a boost to a pitching oriented club. They offered Pedro Feliz a two year contract (he hasn't signed yet because he wants three,) but it's still perfectly plausible that Feliz will come back to the Giants after he fails to get three somewhere else. Furthermore, they continue to hang on to Dave Roberts as mentioned above, hoping that they can ink another mediocre year out of him.

Another mediocre year. That's the problem with the Giants. Guys like Dave Roberts, Pedro Feliz, Omar Vizquel, Bengie Molina, Randy Winn, and Ray Durham aren't even surefire bets to have League Average seasons. These guys are all on their way down from their peaks, and the Giants are clinging to the hopes that they can have at least a season better than a replacement player. This kind of mentality does not win championships. The Giants core team are all guys who, at their best, are average. More likely, they will rest somewhere in between limbo and Mario Mendoza, and the Giants will fall below mediocrity again.

The Giants need to abandon the thought that they are one or two pieces away. They need to trade away their old farts and pick up some position players in the farm system. It's usually a sign that you're not one or two pieces away when you have a season like 2007 (despite what the White Sox may say.) The Giants are hoping that their minor leagues will catch up and be major league ready near the end of Rowand's and Zito's contracts, though it's hard to believe Rowand will be still All-Star calibur near the end of this contract. More likely, by the time the Giants prospects are ready for the bigs, Rowand and Zito will have become Randy Winn and Russ Ortiz, and I'll be making the argument again that the Giants need an identity.

Pick something, anything, Sabean. Either rebuild or go for it, but sitting here in mediocrity will only lend to disappointment for your fans.