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SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
2009 Outlook

By Tom Stern

It is year two of the Giants' great rebuilding challenge, and the operative word is "if," as in: If Benjie Molina catches 130 games and hits at least .275 (lay off that eye-level fastball, Benjie!) … If Travis Ishikawa can hit like a first baseman … If Fred Lewis and Randy Winn can get timely hits and elevate their game from "scrappy" to flat-out nasty … If Edgar Renteria, a lifetime .290 hitter, can prove that last year (.270) was a fluke rather than the beginning of a trend … If Pablo Sandoval, all 245 pounds of him on a 5-foot-11 frame (lay off that eye-level and shoe-level fastball, Pablo!), makes the plays at third while fulfilling the offensive promise he showed late last year … If Aaron Rowand bounces back from injuries to show the fire that propelled his 2005 White Sox to a world championship (Chicago hasn't been quite the same since without him) … If Tim Lincecum stays healthy … If Randy Johnson stays interested after getting his 300th career win (he started the year with 295) … If Matt Cain gets a few runs to work with … If the bullpen can protect leads before turning things over to closer Brian Wilson … If Wilson keeps racking up saves. (But, my man, please, could you do it this year without scaring us half to death?) … If Barry Zito figures out where his next pitch is going … Ditto Jonathan Sanchez … And if the team can score at least 100 more runs than last year's 640 … then the Giants are headed for respectability, perhaps even contention.

That's a lot of ifs, but stranger things have happened. The defending NL West champion Dodgers have Manny Ramirez (!) and a team of talented young veterans behind him. The Dodgers won 21 of their first 29 games, with Manny delivering big hits nightly, it seemed. Then the morning of May 7 brought an ignominious 50-game suspension for the team leader because of a simple misunderstanding — oh, like you never accidentally ingested a women's fertility drug! — and no matter what happens the rest of the year, the Giants' tough-minded refusal to get into the late-winter bidding for the chemically altered slugger was vindicated.

Still, L.A. gets Ramirez back before the All-Star break, and they're solid without him. (How did they pull off getting infielder Orlando Hudson from the Diamondbacks over the winter? What a steal.) The pitching staff took some hits in the off-season, but Chad Billingsley, 24, seems to have arrived and 21-year-old lefty Clayton Kershaw has electric stuff. So losing Derek Lowe and Brad Penny might not be a great concern (it will be interesting to see if Lowe and the oft-injured Penny win as many games in '09 as these two young Dodgers hurlers do). L.A., alas, still looks like the team to beat in the West.

But second place is a definite possibility for the Giants. Would that be so bad? Arizona has young talent, but that strange malaise that overtook the Diamondbacks most of last year, after a blistering start, indicates the team is flunking chemistry — no wonder manager Bob Melvin was fired in early May. In San Diego, the Padres seem a few years away, having followed the Giants' blueprint and fielded a team of hungry, hustling youngsters. Colorado never has trouble scoring runs in Coors Field, but the Rockies' pitching is always a mile-high issue in Denver.

Speaking of which, remember the 2007 Colorado Rockies? That team ended April at 10-16 and thereafter did not reach .500 until its 66th game. After that point, the team went 64-40 and represented the National League in the World Series.

The '09 Giants similarly stumbled out of the starting gate, losing seven of their first nine with erratic pitching and a maddeningly drowsy offense. Two weeks into the season, and already the hopes of Giants fans were sagging.

But then the team took the next eight of 11, finishing April at .500. It's a long season, with lots of dizzying peaks and dark valleys, and there's no reason to quit on this squad.

The Giants opened the season with the feeling that they were right on schedule. So much so, in fact, that some of their fans felt they should go for it all and shell out the megabucks for Manny, when his negotiations with the Dodgers stalled.

To more circumspect Giants supporters, such a move would have been akin to offering your alcoholic Uncle Ed a jug of the Christmas eggnog. I mean, we just came out of the Bonds Era, the last years of which were excruciating, and now, impatient fans wanted to imperil progress by going for the old quick fix (emphasis on "old").

Even if Ramirez were drug-free and there'd been no suspension and the Giants had signed him and won the division and, like the '07 Rockies, somehow made it to the World Series, by this time next year the team's waning Bonds hangover would mutate into a horrific Manny-ic depression, with the mercurial 38-year-old slugger insisting on four more years, or else. That would stop the momentum and sabotage the post-Bonds vision to which the Giants finally committed themselves.

In truth, the Giants will never win if they try to live by the home run, not in that ball park. Despite their name, they need to be less hulking giants than nimble whippets who get lots of doubles and triples and play relentless heads-up defense.

Fans should be well satisfied watching this team rise above mediocrity with intriguing question marks like speedsters Andres Torres and Eugenio Velez, and blue-chip prospects like pitchers Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner, catcher Buster Posey and infielders Conor Gillaspie, Nick Noonan and Ryan Rohlinger waiting in the wings.

Getting an old slugger means retarding the development of the stars of the future. So who needs two years of a shady, fading masher when we could be talking about this young talent for the next decade or more?

If recent events both within and beyond sports have taught us anything, it is the importance of prudent investing. Americans must now retrain themselves to be patient in all things, and take it step-by-step, rather than trying for too much at once. Giants fans should be delighted with this team's core of eager youngsters. Let them get to .500 this year, and take it from there.