12 above 6 WAR Average 2008 -2010 Name WAR Albert Pujols 8.43 Chase Utley 7.00 Cliff Lee 6.87 Roy Halladay 6.73 Evan Longoria 6.53 Zack Greinke 6.50 CC Sabathia 6.30 Hanley Ramirez 6.30 Joe Mauer 6.27 Tim Lincecum 6.13 Matt Holliday 6.07 Justin Verlander 6.00 Justin Verlander might actually be underrated.

I think the main reason Sabean doesn't have much to do this winter is the pitching staff. Last year's WAR STARTERS Cain- 3.6 Lincecum- 3.3 Sanchez- 3.3 Bumgarner 2.3 in half a season The oldest of those starting pitchers is 27. They are all young, good, and getting better. BULLPEN Wilson- 3.2 Romo- 1.6 Casilla- 1.6 Lopez- .7 in a quarter of a season Ramirez- .8 in a quarter of a season. There is not a team in baseball that would not trade their entire pitching staff for the Giant's pitching staff.

Renteria career: .318 BABIP Renteria 2010: .323 BABIP It appears that the elbow losing the giant foreign object that affected his swing in 2008 and 2009 helped him regain his swing again in 2010, making 2008 and 2009 the outlier, in my opinion. For a manager who won't play young players, he decided to keep Fred Lewis as the starter even though Dave Roberts came off the DL and was healthy (relatively). He also threw in Sandoval and Ishikawa in 2008 and 2009. And, of course, there are all the young pitchers he kept in there. The thing to me is that Bochy don't like using unproven players and the worse they are in the majors, the less likely they are to produce in the majors, while the opposite is true for vet players. It is just that fans don't really realize the talent difference between TOP prospects like Posey and top prospects like Bowker and Lewis, who are top for the Giants but not so much overall. The thing is, why get a DeJesus, who would fill up your outfield and prevent you from promoting Belt to 1B or LF and maybe pushing Huff to LF? Plus cost you some prospects? I would much rather wait for Belt to be ready for his spotlight, he's that much better in the long run, I believe. And why get Bartlett? His offense is going to be sub 700 OPS most likely, the only reason anyone thinks anything about him as valuable is because of his 2009 season, where his BABIP of .364 is way above his .322 career BABIP, and when you remove it from his career stats, during the rest of his career his BABIP is closer to .310. For that we would have had to give up two relievers with some MLB experience. We don't really have anyone close to that, Runzler would be the closest and there is no way I would trade him for Bartlett. Hinshaw would be close to that, but he might not be in our system anymore, Matos would be another, but again not in our system I think.

I'm not one to rely on any form of doctrinal orthodoxy when it comes to my view of the Giants' GM and manager, but given Bruce Bochy's track record, roster construction for the Giants needs to take into consideration Bochy's excessive reliance on veterans. The result is that you cannot construct a roster for the Giants right now that includes veterans on the bench who have no business starting. So reading this article, my concern isn't so much that there aren't that many great players out there, it's that the Giants might sign declining veterans who will get excessive playing time. Although I'm not particularly fond of the Tejada contract, the logic behind the signing isn't atrocious as he is an okay player, it's a one year contract, and he at least had a WAR of 1.3 last year according to fangraphs. He hasn't been adequate defensively since 2006, although he had a very strange and fluky +10 UZR/150 for 2008, but his bat is okay, and he fills an immediate need. But the potential signing which truly scares me is bringing Renteria back, as has been rumored. I recognize that players who are overpaid are typically undervalued as they are not worth their contracts, but last year was just another demonstration of his serious decline, and given Bochy's knack for relying on small sample size decisions, Renteria's playoff success could very well result in significant playing time. Renteria was good for 1.3 WAR last year, but that is a truly deceptive number. His UZR/150 was 6.9, particularly noteworthy given that his next highest since 2003 was 1.2. It marked his greatest fielding year since advanced metrics started to be widely recorded. It is highly unlikely that he suddenly figured out how to field, so I have to accept that this was just a crazy fluke. In addition, looking at swing data, he clearly regressed. Most of his numbers are consistent with his recent performance, except for his contact percentages. In general his contact percentage fell by more than 3% from 2009, but more significantly his contact percentage for pitches outside of the zone fell by 5%, and his contact percentage on pitches within the zone fell by nearly 3%. His swinging strike percentage also climbed from 6.8% to 8.3%. So he was swinging about as often, but missing more balls. Considering he had a terrible 2009, a decline in numbers for 2010 is scary. So we would expect a decline in hitting performance, but instead his average and slugging percentage improved from 2009. Why? Well his BABIP jumped from .281 in 2009 to .323 in 2010. That is a massive increase. If you believe that BABIP is something of a barometer of luck, we can say that he lucked into better batting performance in 2010. So he was lucky in 2010 as far as his batting, he had very unusual data defensively suggesting substantial luck in the field, and all of that luck resulted in a WAR of 1.3. All that luck and just 1.3 WAR. This suggests that without this luck he is at the very best a replacement level player, or worse, and given his age he will likely only further decline. That's what scares me. Renteria signed to play back-up SS, ends up playing many games because of his “veteran grit,” and Bochy hits him second because “he knows how to hit there.” That's a terrible, terrible situation. With Bochy one needs to place young players on the bench, as Bochy is unlikely to play them excessively since he's scared of the kids. This allows the appropriate starters to play, unless the kids have a really good short stint as Velez did, and as a result he got excessive playing time. So my argument is essentially the filling a bench with vets is a terrible idea, and that more specifically Renteria is a terrible idea. So what do you do? My general reaction is that Sabean needs to be more willing to trade for players without an extensive track record, but with potential and decent past play. He seems to only trade for vets on the decline who once were very good, which is a real problem. Bartlett would have been an excellent target, and the price seemed reasonable. From an outsider perspective the Giants could have made a run there. David DeJesus was another target who was acquired for a reasonable price would would have been an excellent addition, including his lefty bat. The point is that there have been trades for mid level players which are the types of deals the Giants should be doing. DeJesus as a useful outfield bat plus Bartlett at short would have made for a couple of solid improvements. And I understand the fear of trading prospects, but neither of these players would have required a Belt or a Wheeler. Just so I don't only include negative statements, let me say that the talk about signing Andrew Miller is a good sign. He's the sort of player who the Giants might be able to straighten out, and with his stuff having him tucked away in case they need another starter is important. If I were Sabean I would sign a whole bunch of pitching projects, as the risk is low and the Giants aren't in desperate need of pitching that's ready on opening day.

Your line "between one two wins per season" should have an "and" in there. What do I win? For 6 WAR, maybe Adrian Gonzalez?

Great first post, Otis! First, let me try and guess the 6+ WAR club: Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramirez, Tim Lincecum, Cliff Lee, Evan Longoria, Ryan Zimmerman, Miguel Cabrera....I'm drawing a blank now. I think it's a good point to note -- most of the Giants roster is pretty well set at this point. After the team filled SS, there's not really any room to improve things drastically (or maybe prudently is the right word). Though, watching JJ Hardy getting traded for so little kinda stings. (Looks like I'm wrong on Zimmerman and Cabrera, that's surprising!)