* Manny is a Dodger, to no one’s surprise. The Giants are very unlikely to break camp with someone besides Bengie Molina as clean-up hitter. They could still pull off a trade, but I think Noah Lowry’s setback drops the odds nearly to nil. So the O we see is the O we get.
* The Giants and Dodgers are mirror images right now. LA: above-average lineup with Furcal at the top, Manny in the middle, and a lot of good young complementary players: Kemp, Ethier, Loney, Dewitt and Martin. They also have Orlando Hudson for a year and Casey Blake at third. Hudson could be their 8th place hitter. That’s a solid lineup.
The Giants…you know about their lineup.
In the rotation, though, L.A. is much thinner. Billingsley is their ace, and he’s very good, but behind him it’s injury-plagued vets (Schmidt, Wolf), a middle-rotation import (Kuroda), and talented young guys who might not have 200 innings in the tank (Kershaw, McDonald).
On defense, the main goal when playing the Dodgers is hit it to left field. They’ll be good to very good everywhere else. The Giants’ weak link is the left side of their infield, unless Sandoval surprises us and Renteria pulls the unlikely trick of getting more spry in his mid-30s.
* Fangraphs has thumbnail sketches of the Giants’ top prospects. Not much we haven’t seen before.
