Sorry for the sporadic posting this week. It's more or less the fershlugginest most crazy work week of the year for me, so I appreciate your patience between posts.
Quick hit tonight: A few days ago, when Juan Uribe officially came back, I used the Pintonian Lineup Analyzer to project an extremely rough offensive performance of nearly 4.5 runs per game. Let's do it again now that Aubrey Huff is a Giant. I was going to present two different lineups, one against lefties, one against righties because of Aubrey Huff's left-handedness, but Bruce Bochy says Huff will play nearly every day and bat cleanup, a questionable strategy. With Huff's subpar career numbers against lefties, the Giants would be better served with Sandoval at first, DeRosa at third and Torres in left against the tougher lefties.
Oh well. Here's a possible opening day lineup against Houston (and probably Roy Oswalt):
CF Rowand
2B Sanchez
3B Sandoval
1B Huff
LF DeRosa
RF Schierholtz
SS Renteria
C Posey
P Lincecum
Using the Bill James 2010 projections for OBP and SLG, swapping Huff for Uribe would produce 4.5 runs a game over a full season, basically no change. Swap Posey for Yorvit Torrealba and it drops to 4.45 runs. That's still more than they scored last year, but it's unfair to assume the Giants pitching and defense will keep pace with last year.
From the Huff press conference comments, it seems unlikely the Giants will sign a free-agent fifth starter, which makes it more unlikely they'll trade Jonathan Sanchez, which makes it more unlikely they'll have the wherewithal to trade for a real hitter. It feels like 2005, except it's Pablo Sandoval instead of Barry Bonds surrounded by fungible parts.
