The 2010 San Francisco Giants: Mea Culpas

I'm still basking in the glow of the 2010 World Series Champions - your San Francisco Giants.(It feels good to write, it feels good to think, it ... well, it feels good.)

It's not shocking -- anyone who roots for a team is pretty happy when that team finishes a season with a championship -- but it's extra special for at least two reasons:

1. It was, as you may have heard, the first championship for the Giants since they moved to San Francisco.

2. At the start of the season, even the most optimistic fans didn't see this coming. 

Now, that last bit is at least somewhat debatable -- after all, the 2009 Giants finished 88-74 and entered the season with the two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum fronting a pitching staff also manned by Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez and Barry Zito. It's not like there weren't strengths to the team -- but the offense ended 2009 with a paltry, insipid offense that didn't seem to get materially better before this season started.

Let's check out the boxscore from this season's Opening Day:

Those names in yellow? Not starters by the end of the season...in their places were (respectively): Andres Torres, Freddy Sanchez (in at 2B, where Uribe slid over to SS), Pat Burrell, Buster Posey and Cody Ross.

Nobody knew that this team would gel - that Aubrey Huff would be a fantastic Giant, that Posey would need no adjustment period once he got called up, that Andres Torres gave the team a legitimate leadoff hitter for the first time since ... seriously, I'm not even sure. Brett Butler? It's been awhile. We didn't know that Madison Bumgarner, who looked lost in Spring Training, would figure things out and become a lock-down stud by the end of the year. We couldn't have predicted that Pat Burrell and Cody Ross would come over, fit in immediately and seem like true Giants from the first time they slipped on a uniform.

We didn't know that - on the flip side - that Pablo Sandoval seemed committed to eating himself out of the league at the tender age of 23, or that Mark DeRosa, the biggest free agent signing, would never be healthy all season and be an afterthought by mid-season. We didn't know - though certainly we could have guessed - that Zito was gearing up for a late season implosion that relegates him to a fifth starter going into 2011.

And we didn't know that because of some of these slips, other guys had moments to shine - Bumgarner where Zito failed, Renteria getting playing time at SS when Uribe had to slide over to 3B because Sandoval was so bad, DeRosa's injury being a main reason the team need Burrell ... we didn't know that. We couldn't know that.

But ... and those who know me know that it hurts to say this -- maybe Brian Sabean knew. I'm not saying this was all part of the grand plan ... but I think that the grand plan was something like this:

Get great pitching. Don't trade great pitching. Get just enough offense to make the playoffs and then have your pitching dominate.

This worked because Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner are potentially the best starting four pitchers in the league since the Atlanta Braves of the early 1990s. Brian Wilson is the most dominant closer in the National League and a freak about fitness and self-improvement. If they are all pitching well - and, even with a few hiccups by Sanchez, they were this post-season - they have a chance to win any playoff series. 

I guess I didn't see that, or I didn't believe in the real potential of this staff past Lincecum and Cain. So, kudos, Brian Sabean -- when folks like me implored you to trade one of these starters for a bat, you refused. And while you will undoubtedly make more moves (or not make ones I think are 'obvious') ... you now get a moratorium on my complaints.

Sure, signing Pat Burrell was a desperation move mid-season that you sort of had to make (nobody else wanted him, the Giants had no offense at the time, and he wanted to play here)...but then Burrell exploded on the field and became (with his college teammate Huff) one of the clubhouse leaders. Sure, you signed Cody Ross more to block San Diego than any expectations of him playing a vital role here ... but he did, and his power streak during the playoffs was one of the key reasons the Giants are now Champions. Sure, you grossly overpaid Edgar Renteria a few years ago ... but if all that money only bought his two World Series homeruns, they were worth every cent. Sure, Aaron Rowand was equally lousy, but ... okay, he wasn't all that critical this year, but he made some very nice plays in the playoffs including a great throw at the plate. 

OK, that last paragraph is proof that this is hard -- I can't quite give a full mea culpa here, but I can give thanks. However lucky it was, however planned it was ... the result is awesome, a World Series Championship and a team that frankly is just as poised to contend for the next few years on the back of that incredible, young and talented pitching staff.

Sometimes, it's nice to be wrong.