2009 Giants Preview and Predictions

I wanted to break away from the spring training jargon for a bit and I wanted to go ahead and do more of an in-depth preview of what the Giants will look like come opening day. I also am going to predict some of the key stats for the players. With our annual MLB team/divisional preview just around the corner, and opening day less than a month away, now is as good a time as any to take a closer look at the San Francisco Giants. Some of the final roster moves aren't set yet (as there still is 3 weeks of Cactus league to go still) but I'm going to go with my best guess.

Lineup:
1. RF- Randy Winn ( .288 avg, 11 hr's, 57 RBI, 89 runs, 21 sb's, .776 OPS)
2. SS- Edgar Renteria (.282, 12 hr, 64 RBI, 79 runs, 9 sb's, .759 OPS)
3. LF- Fred Lewis (.301, 17 hr, 76 RBI, 84 runs, 26 sb's, .817 OPS)
4. C- Bengie Molina (.280, 15 hr, 77 RBI, 43 runs, 0 sb, .756 OPS)
5. 3B- Pablo Sandoval (.277, 15 hr, 70 RBI, 62 runs, 5 sb, .786 OPS)
6. CF- Aaron Rowand (.281, 16 hr, 74 RBI, 64 runs, 9 sb, .782 OPS)
7. 1B- Travis Ishikawa (.270, 15 hr, 68 RBI, 44 runs, 2 sb, .778 OPS)
8. 2B- Emannuel Burriss (.285, 4 hr, 41 RBI, 63 runs, 31 sb, .759 OPS)

Rotation:
1. Tim Lincecum (19-8, 2.81 era, 217 IP, 242 k's, 1.12 WHIP)
2. Randy Johnson (14-9, 3.35 era, 184 IP, 172 k's, 1.26 WHIP)
3. Matt Cain (13-11, 3.79 era, 211 IP, 181 k's, 1.29 WHIP)
4. Barry Zito (9-15, 4.74 era, 188 IP, 113 k's, 1.42 WHIP)
5. Jonathan Sanchez (11-12, 4.26 era, 190 IP, 175 k's, 1.37 WHIP)

Bullpen:
CL: Brian Wilson (2-5, 67 games, 42 saves, 3.62 era)
SU: Bob Howry ( 4-3, 77 games, 2 saves, 3.31 era)
LH Jeremy Affeldt (4-4, 80 games, 1 save, 3.79 era)
RH Merkin Valdez (2-3, 61 games, 0 saves, 3.12 era)
LH Alex Hinshaw (1-4, 70 games, 0 saves, 4.36 era)
RH Brandon Medders (2-4, 65 games, 1 save, 4.14 era)
RH Joe Martinez* (2-5, 47 games, 7 starts, 4.67 era)

DL- Sergio Romo (mid-April, replaces Medders or Martinez)

Bench:
IF Juan Uribe (.252, 254 ab's, 11 hr, 31 RBI, 3 SB)
IF Rich Aurilia (.283, 275 ab's, 8 hr, 36 RBI)
OF Andris Torres* (.272, 142 ab's, 3 hr, 22 RBI, 11 SB)
OF Nate Schierholtz (.297, 340 ab's, 11 hr, 45 RBI)
UT Eugenio Velez (.272, 300 ab's, 7 hr, 27 RBI, 25 SB)

*denotes player who starts the year on 25-man roster, but isn't expected to finish season w/team.

Again, this is just pure instinct on how I think things will turn out as of March 11th. I haven't taken any other projection sites into account and this is assuming all stay healthy and on the team all season, which we know won't happen. It should be interesting to look back at this in September though, and see how close (or likely how far off) I was to predicting some of these numbers. I also am reserving the right to change them any number of times before opening day and finalize it once the roster has been finalized. I will revert back to this post at least once a month during the season to see how things are going.

2009 Record: 80 W-82 L