Offseason Starting Quietly

Although the Major League Baseball off-season isn't quite a full-month old yet, I'm pretty surprised at how quiet things have been. As far as the Giants are concerned, the only news to come from them in recent weeks, besides Tim Lincecum winning his second consecutive Cy Young award, has been Brian Sabean hinting that they'll steer clear of the top offensive free-agents, Matt Holliday and Jason Bay, this offseason.

Now, this shouldn't come as a surprise to Giants fans, the team hasn't added a big time offensive player in decades, but for a team that has a need for offensive as much as the Giants do, I am a little surprised that Brian Sabean is already dismissing the idea of pursuing either of them. I made a post here a couple weeks back comparing Jason Bay and Matt Holliday here, so I'm not going to be comparing them as players today, but I'm just not sure what the Giants are waiting for in terms of building their offense? One bat like Holiday's or Bay's would certainly give this team an offensive boost, maybe even make them the favorites in their division. They have such a good pitching staff, that even a league average offense would probably be good enough to keep this team atop the NL West. Now, I understand that Bay and Holliday are far and away the best offensive players in this free agent market, and whoever gets them will wind up spending some serious dough, but that doesn't mean the Giants should completely remove them from their plans.

The Giants pitching staff is on the rise and is one the best in baseball, but they're not going to have Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Jonathon Sanchez, Brian Wilson, Jeremy Affeldt ect... all together forever. When these guys become free-agents, they're not going to want to stick around if the Giants are still hovering around .500 and struggling to score runs. At some point they're going to have to figure out whether they'll need to deal from within or use free agency in order to get some offense, cause they're going to need it. I'm not talking about dealing for a Ryan Garko or Freddy Sanchez, I'm talking about making a play for a Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzalez. They need someone who will come in and anchor their offense, much like Barry Bonds did during his 16 year stay in San Francisco. I think Matt Holliday is that type of player and could impact the team in a way that Gonzalez or Fielder could. Is he the best player in baseball? No, he's probably not even in the top-15, but he's a legit middle of the order hitter who is going to be good for a while, and he would allow the Giants to hold onto Cain, Bumgarner and Wilson.