Off-the-cuff-thoughts:

• I’m not sure how much the 2010 team has improved. Sanchez will be better than the group of second basemen that the Giants ran out in 2009, but he’s an injury risk in a playergroup that’s tended to age poorly.
• Mark DeRosa in LF nets the Giants zero wins over playing Fred Lews in LF over a full season.
• Aubrey Huff could very well do worse at first base than a full season of Travis Ishikawa. Again, it’s another position that I’m not sure the Giants got better at.
• The pitching will probably regress a little. To expect the pitching to stay the same that it was in ’09 seems foolish.
• Being positive: bringing Molina back isn’t a terrible deal if it means the Giants are committed to Posey as soon as they can call him up and not have it affect his arb-clock down the line. Molina should not hit 4th for the Giants in the upcoming season.

All interesting thoughts. Molina obviously didn’t get the 3-year deal on the free agent market that he was looking for. I’ll be working on the 2010 WAR team projection. Hopefully I’ll have it online in a week or less.

The Giants have been tentative about naming Posey the starting catcher for 2010 and all signs point to the team bringing in a veteran catcher or bringing back Bengie Molina to help ease Buster into a starting role. Bringing back Molina would probably be one of the worst things for Buster’s development and the Giants’ wallet. If the Giant chose to offer arbitration to Molina, there’s a chance he could accept and get a 1-year paycheck around the $6M he earned in ’09. There’s also some questions about Molina and how happy he would be in a back-up / mentor role. In addition, I just can’t imagine Bruce Bochy sitting down Molina for Buster Posey.

Thus, the Giants are looking for a catcher with the following requirements:

• Has veteran experience. Someone who’s been in the league for more than a few years and has experience working with and catching all sorts of pitchers.
• Has good defense or perceived good defense. For this reason, and this reason alone, Eli Whiteside appeared in 47 games with the Giants.
• Bonus: Can hit a little.

Enter Gregg Zaun.

The Rays, however, did not pick up the options for LHP reliever Brian Shouse ($2 million) and backup C Gregg Zaun ($2 milion).

Gregg Zaun is now a free agent after the Rays declined his option. The Rays chose to pay Zaun $500K instead of picking up his $2M option and bringing him back for the 2010 season. The Rays’ loss could be the Giants gain. Gregg Zaun fits the ideal mold for veteran catcher.

• The price is right. Zaun would only cost the Giants $2-3M as compared to potentially $6M (or more) for someone like Bengie Molina. It doesn’t sound like a huge amount of money, but it’s $2-3M more that the Giants could spend on a more deserving free agent.
• Zaun’s defensive profile is solid. According to this informative post on catcher’s defense, Zaun was an average defender in 2009. Even if you want to factor in aging, he’ll be 38-years-old in 2010, Zaun should rate within 2-3 runs of average.
• He can hit. Over the past 3 seasons Zaun has posted OBP’s of .341, .340, and .345. He owns a career OBP of .344 across 15 seasons. Looks much nicer than Molina’s .285 OBP, right? Don’t let Molina’s HR and RBI numbers fool you, Zaun is just as good of a hitter — if not better. Zaun’s last three seasons by wOBA: .324, .316, and .334. Compare that to Molina’s past three seasons: .314, .328, and .308. Zaun is a good bet to either match or better Molina on offense in 2010.

If I was a GM and had to pick between Zaun and Molina, I would take Zaun almost every single time. He’s going to be cheaper than Molina and he’s got a good chance to give you the same level of performance. If we project Zaun for 2010 he should look like the following:

Batting Wins Above Average (.320 wOBA, league wOBA .332): –0.7 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: -.3 wins
C Positional Adjustment: +1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2 wins
—————————————–
= 2.25 wins * .50 (or about 350 PA’s for PT) = +1.13 WAR

We’ve called him a .320 wOBA hitter with -3 run defense behind the plate. All things considered in a part-time sharing role with Posey, Zaun would be worth around +1.13 wins. That makes him around a $4-5M a year player by recent spending on the FA market. Zaun should sign for around $2-3M making him a nice deal. He gives the Giants everything they like in Molina but with a much smaller commitment. Gregg Zaun makes a ton of sense for the Giants.

It was great.

After we toured Monitcello, found some dinner in Charlottesville, and came back to our small cottage, I turned on the Giants game just in time to see Pablo Sandoval sock a home run all the way across the country in San Diego. Modern technology is amazing. Sandoval’s blast sailed past the CF wall and just like that the season was gone. It’s fitting that the Giants won their final game of the year on a Sandoval HR. No other player stepped up on the offense like Sandoval did in ’09.

The Giants best three hitters from this past season ranked by wOBA:

Sandoval (.396)
Uribe (.351)
Lewis (.327)

Sandoval was by far the best hitter on this horrible hitting team. Past Sandoval, you’ll find Juan Uribe’s surprising season and Fred Lewis — who by July and August was chained to the bench. I found that when Sandoval’s ball left the park and the Giants closed things out in the bottom of the 10th inning, I was already missing baseball. The one thing I won’t miss was the offense. For all the fun and joy this 88-win team brought us, the offense made this team darned hard to watch. There’s more to baseball than just offense and it’s true that the Giants excelled in all things not-hitting in ’09. Their team ERA+ of 120 is probably the best cumulative pitching effort that we’ll see for quite awhile. The last time a Giants team ERA+ cracked 120?

Try the 1954 New York Giants with an team ERA+ of 132. Check out this list of some of the top ERA+ scores and IP totals for that team. An * denotes that the pitcher was left-handed.

To have such a prolific year on the mound you need skill, health, and a good bit of luck. Take for example Ruben Gomez. In ’54 the 26-year-old right-hander threw 221.2 innings of 141 ERA+ baseball despite leading the league in walks with 109. He would go on to win Game 3 of the 1954 World Series and he would never have the same level of success again in his big league career. Only once more would he break a ERA+ score of 100. To expect the Giants’ rotation to have the same level of success in 2010 as they had in 2009 is foolish. What we saw from the mound this year was the best pitching performance since the team moved to San Francisco 51 years ago.

Wrap your head around that for a second. What we saw this year only happens 2-3 times per 50 years. The Giants probably won’t have the same luxury of pitching next season as they had in this one. The pitching should be good, but I’m not sure it’s going to be 120 ERA+ good.

In short, the 2009 Giants are dead. Long live the 2009 Giants! I’m already counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. Thanks for all those that have emailed me, posted on this site, and shared their collective frustration (and occasional joy) on the Giants. It’s been a wild year and I’m thankful that you’ve joined me on this ride we call being a fan.