The most optimism? How about if the Giants complete the nearly impossible and finish barely above .500 at 83-79 as Lincecum and Cain win 8 1-0 decision apiece. Meanwhile the rest of the league underachieves, Peavy gets hurt, the Dodgers' kids go into the tank, the Rockies' pitching implodes and half of the D-Backs test positive for steroids three times and miss the season. So, just like the Padres did a couple years ago, we win the division at .500 and get swept by the Phillies in the first round of the playoffs.

If Sabean can pick up a first baseman of some sort, even a scrap-heap type like Brad Wilkerson or Shawn Green, this is about an 80-win team. The offense should be better even with Bonds gone.

With surprise breakouts from a couple of young players -- Lincecum or Sanchez or Schierholtz, most likely -- they could get up to 83. Then they outperform the pythagorean projection by as much as they underperformed it last year, and presto! 90 wins.

Realistically, the most optimistic thing I can imagine is Sabean finding a future star on the cheap -- the way David Ortiz and Dan Uggla came out of the reject pile, the way Aramis Ramirez and Travis Hafner and Carlos Guillen were traded for table scraps just before they took off.

Oh, I like this post. I am a master of irrational exuberence. Here is my senerio.

1) Thanks to their rigorous offseason training program Kevin Frandsen and Dan Ortmeier morf into the second coming of the 1997 Jeff Kent and JT Snow combining for 57 Homeruns, 171 Runs, 225 RBIs, and an .842 OPS in 1288 Plate Appearances.

2) Randy Winn and Aaron Rowand repeat their career years of 2005 and 2007 respectively combining for 47 Homeruns, 190 Runs, 152 RBIs, and an .874 OPS in 1367 Plate Appearances.

3) Dave Roberts and Rajai Davis form a very efective platoon in LF and as the Leadoff Hitter combining for 60 Stolen Bases with only 10 caught stealing, 120 Runs, 50 RBIs, and a .360 OBP in 729 Plate Appearances.

4) Giants re-sign Pedro Feliz to play 3B and he joins Bengie Molina and Omar Vizquel in repeating last years offensive and defensive performances at 3B, C, and SS and hitting 7th, 6th, and 8th respectively.

5) The Giants starting rotation lives up to our high (but not highest) expectations getting 200+ Innings for all four of Cain, Zito, Lincecum, and Lowry with sub 4.00 ERAs.

6) Brian Wilson, Tyler Walker, Brad Hennessey, and Vinnie Chulk all repeat last years sub 4.00 ERA performances combining for 250 Innings, 50 Saves, 80 Holds, with only 20 Blown Saves.

Therefore the Giants Win the NL West, get first seed in the NL Playoffs with the most wins in the NL, Win their NLDS and the NLCS and then finally win their first SF WS!

How is that for irrantional exuberance? And really only 1) and the conclusion is totally irrantional!

Note to self: I've really got to get some of what Rainman is smoking.

Lefty, using your figures (to the right of your page) for Giants' salaries, I put their '08 salaries at about $71 mil - well below the $95-105 mil that has been talked about. [To get $71 I used your numbers plus, basically $1 mil for Chulk and Coreia and half a mil for the remaining spots on the roster. I ignored what is owed Bonds and Matheney as those obligations are not part of the '08 budget.']
Interesting, no? Clearly there is room for any of a number of players, plus room to eat a salary or two.

Evan... do you really think that this is a 78 or so win team as it is presently constituted? No player currently available is worth more than 1-2 wins above what sludge the giants currently field at 1st base.

Optimism, hmmm...

I like the Peavy gets hurt scenario. It was only two seasons ago when he inexplicable had a horrible season (I think it was because he knew that I lucked out and got him in my auto-Fantasy Baseball draft, and thus he had to hurt my team).

Plus Greg Maddux has got to age decline SOME day, no? And Chris Young is like one of those animals that scientists says cannot exist based on his body structure.

But seriously, they are relying on Wolf and Prior as the back of their rotation? I don't think so.

However, Kouzmanoff should take off this year, he was solid after April and particularly in 2nd half. He's going to be scary. And now they have a useful 2B in Iguchi and Edmonds in the OF. The only negative is Hairston in the lineup. And their bullpen should be great again.

Dodgers I'm not too worried about. They signed Andruw Jones and the signs are not good in his stats in FanGraphs, his BABIP is plummeting for no apparent reason, for two straight seasons. That suggests he already reached his peak a couple of years ago and can only go down (though only two seasons for Dodgers). Then Pierre might become the $9M bench player if Ethier wins LF over him? Ooo, not going to be a happy clubhouse there. Plus he might be sitting next to another $9M bench player in Nomar if LaRoche wins 3B. Then they have Kuroda and Loaiza at the back end of the rotation. Given how well Dice-K was expected to do and he ended up over 4 (which I will pat myself over the back as I was one of the few to predict that), Kuroda isn't even as highly touted, so what's he going to do? And Loaiza is not really that good a pitcher, something Beane fortunately found out instead of the Giants, who were also bidding for him. Lucky the A's "won" him.

D-backs, they way overperformed, but the addition of Haren and perhaps Randy Johnson might make up most of the regression to the mean that should have happened in 2008. Still, none of their young players really played that well, they were all about OPS+ of 100, none significantly over, some significantly under (Drew, Young, Quentin, Upton), so I question whether any of their young players reach the potential that most seem to have annointed them great players already.

Colorado, I still cannot believe they made the World Series. Still, they lost their starting 2B and now that's in flux, with a rookie who's OK in terms of minor league performance, slated to start, though Marcus Giles will be in the mix (looks done though...). But their pitching staff looks awesome and probably will make up for the lost of Matsui.

Giants, well, the only way I see them competing is if Lincecum matches what Cain did in his second year, Cain does it again, Zito pitching like he did in the second half of 2007, Lowry doing what he's always done, ERA under 4.00, and Correia is average, which is grreat for a #5 starter. The bullpen is led by Brian Wilson, and the setups are OK. Lineup, Roberts deliver normal hitting of recent years and Davis delivers his hitting against LHP, Rowand is the hitter he has been in 2.3 of the past 4 seasons, Winn is traded for two good position prospects, say C and SS, Schierholtz does what he normally does, figure out how to hit a lot of homers the second time he is around a new higher level, Vizquel hits what he hit after April, Durham returns to 800 OPS land, Frandsen hits well playing 3B, and Ortmeier hits well playing 1B. I think there is a good chance of any of these individual things happening, but for all of them, not so much...

Best case scenario:
1) Sabean is Fired, Quits, "is rendered inoperatable"
2) Bonds comes back

It is my understanding, and I do not know this for sure, that deferred monies, by MLB rules, are not part of the 25 man roster operating budget, announced by the teams. These mon ies have to be put in some sort of semi trust fund and are 'guaranteed.' So, as I understand it, when the team decides on/announces their budget, it excludes deferred payments, just as it does not include the admin budget, the scouting budget, the budget for the draft or international players.

This is my understanding as well. But to clarify, I think that the amount set aside in the "semi trust fund" is counted against the salary budget of the year it is defered from and not of the year in which it is defered to. I think I read some where that a team only had to set aside 60% and then could treat the balance (40%) as debt service rather then salary budget.

I think it's even less complicated than that. I recall in Sabean's chat a couple seasons ago when he was asked how Bonds' deferred salaries effected the total payroll numbers he was quoting, he stated fairly definitively that they have no effect, as deferred salaries have been funded 'off budget'.

Oooh, I'm good at optimism (at least in baseball).

Cain and Lincecum win 25 games each with ERAs below 3.00. Frandsen and Schierholtz break out, and Sabean finds a stud first basemen on the cheap, like, say, Nick Johnson.