If I were a codefreak I would write a program to crawl the Web and capture all the mentions of the San Francisco Giants’ ability to compete in their division. Then I would command my program to gather all the mentions into a vast database, assign values to each type of mention and come up with a formula that shows us how the world’s perception of the team has sunk each successive year since the 2003 playoff disaster.
Or I would simply quote Baseball Prospectus’s Christina Kahrl from her latest transaction roundup:
…whether or not the Rockies contend again will depend as much upon the break-outs of hurlers like Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales. Beyond that, they can hope that the Dodgers somehow screw up again, the Padres' latest collection of patches don't keep them going, and the Snakes' crew of young hitters doesn't improve enough to support a strong staff. Taken on their face, none of those are all that unlikely as propositions go, so there's no reason to expect the Rockies to fade dramatically, not when they're doing the truly important things—like committing to Tulo in this way.
Wait, you say: That wouldn’t work with your theoretical Web-crawling program. She doesn’t even mention the Giants.
Exactly.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Chron’s Gwen Knapp tells us that a .500 record for the Giants isn’t “completely impossible”! That’s about as warm ‘n’ fuzzy as it gets, folks.
What’s the most optimistic scenario you can imagine this year? Discuss.
(photo courtesy of loupiote under a Creative Commons license. See more spider photos here.)
