The San Francisco Giants And Their Underwhelming Offseason

The above picture shows Brandon Crawford, the man who is likely (I don't want to use the word "destined" as that implies a level of expectation or import that would be woefully inappropriate to bestow on the poor lad) to become the starting and/or everyday shortstop for the 2012 San Francisco Giants. Although I like Brandon Crawford quite a bit in general and adore his glove in particular, this seemingly-inevitable roster solidification pretty much encapsulates what has been an underwhelming offseason for the Giants.

I don't know how much time I'll be able to devote to writing about the Giants for Baseball Feelings in the coming season, for all six of you who read this blog (seven for the non-staffer who stumbled upon this post while googling "rubber glove fetish." Sorry to trick you), so while I had a few spare minutes, I thought I would put up my baseball feelings regarding the Giants moves that I should have posted a few weeks ago, probably.

The Giants started the offseason by giving a million billion dollars to Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez, who I like just fine (particularly Lopez), but not that just fine. Still, a bullpen is important and this ensures that nearly the entire pitching staff will be returning for this year. I say "nearly" because the Giants then traded Jonathan Sanchez (he of the, shall we say, "frustrating inconsistencies") in order to acquire Melky Cabrera, who had a career year last year with the Royals, but let us be frank, is still Melky Cabrera. The next move was to trade away Andres Torres (one of my favorite players) to the Mets in order to acquire Angel Pagan, who I actually like just fine and shows a lot of promise, but is basically Andres Torres minus the ADD, but plus some pooping issues.

The Giants did not sign Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, or Carlos Beltran, as we feared they would not. In their defense, they also did not sign Orlando Cabrera, instead opting for Brandon Crawford, who is a human with functioning legs and the ability to manipulate his hand in such a way as to close a glove around a baseball. This is a big upgrade. Also welcome is the decision to release Jeff "I'm Running As Fast As I Can, You Guys!" Keppinger and instead retain Mike "No. 3 Hitter" Fontenot -- who is about as endearing a tiny baseball player this side of Jose Altuve -- as a backup infielder. The Giants also picked up Ryan Theriot as a utility infielder, who seems destined to be one of those patented acquisitions in the mold of the Steve Finley-esque "guy who always seems to have clutch hits against the Giants but then becomes a Giant and does largely nothing."

That's the extent of what the Giants picked up. As far as what else they lost, they opted to not extend offers to Beltran or Cody Ross, who will likely someday have a statue at AT&T park where he's high-kneeing while Roy Halladay stares at the left-field fence. (I truly would weep with joy were such a statue ever to be commissioned.)

So the starting rotation will be Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong and, for better or worse, Barry Zito. That is fine. That will be fine. The issue is not the pitching. The issue has never been the pitching. The issue is whether this team will score any runs. If statistics mean anything (and all my nerdy friends say that they do), it would be nearly impossible for the Giants to not score more runs than they did last season. So that is something.

Here are the storylines for 2012:

- Injuries. Posey is coming back from -- you know -- the incident and who knows how much he will be affected by all that business. You would think the Giants would split the difference between 2010's All-Healthy squad and 2011's "All-New, All-Injured" horror show, but in the first week of pitchers and catchers reporting, Vogelsong and Lincecum have already experienced back problems and Brian Wilson's elbow is still in question. That's not even mentioning the returning Freddy Sanchez. If Sanchez can't bounce back from both of his arms falling off, the backup options are Theriot, Fontenot and Emmannuel Burriss. We are all holding our breath over here, let me just tell you.

- Positional scuffles. Chris Stewart, Hector Sanchez and Eli Whiteside will be duking it out all spring (and likely, beyond) for rights to spell Posey every five days at catcher. I'm hoping either Stewart wins outright or Sanchez slugs a bazillion dingers and we laugh all the way to the bank (the bank in this case being "not one-run losses to Clayton Kershaw"). But the biggest positional kerfuffle of all involves, of course,

- Brandon Belt. This poor kid can't catch a single break. After his treatment last year, you'd think he'd be ready to be an everyday player this year, but no. The outfield looks like it's pretty set with Cabrera, Pagan and Schierholtz, and Bochy and Sabean are pretty adamant that the starting first baseman job is Aubrey Huff's to lose. Considering that Huff wasn't able to lose said job after batting .013 last year with 1,342 double-plays, that doesn't seem likely. You should also be aware that Bochy seemed to further sour on Belt when Bret Pill came up and hit an RBI. Those things win ball games, you know. So Belt is fighting four guys for one of two positions. Doesn't look good, but maybe the team will score so many runs that I won't notice Belt got optioned to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in May.

- Pablo Sandoval. Fat, thin, or Yokozuna-level super-fat, just please keep hitting, Panda. Please please please.