2008 MLB Preview: NL West

Vizquel meanwhile, is more known for his 11 Gold Gloves than his bat. Vizquel has never been one to hit the ball out of the park, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he finishes the year with no long-balls, while it’s not out of the question for his average to continue to plummet (down to .246 in 2007 from .297 in 2006). Then we get to the fact that Vizquel has spent the spring recovering from knee-surgery, and he’s not expected to be ready in time for the season’s opening week. So who takes his place? One of Brian Bocock, Emmanuel Burriss or Ivan Ochoa—none of which have seen time in the Majors—reassuring eh?

Behind the plate, Bengie Molina is making his way through the spring on an injured quad, but (overlooking the fact that he’s slower than Michael Moore on his way to the gym) he’ll be looked to for some offensive spark this season. Molina was able to post a second consecutive year of 19 homers in 2007, while seeing action in a career-high 134 games, and posting a .991 fielding percentage.

But this could be where the mediocrity ends however. Despite the age and chronic ineffectiveness across some of the position-players, and the youth and inexperience in the others, the Giants sport a plethora of talented young arms that could offer fans some positives this season.

First of all, we all know that Barry Zito signed an enormous contract last season. We also know that he’s a former Cy Young award winner. 2007 was also the first time in his career that Zito finished with fewer than 200 innings (196.2) after competing in more than 30 games. I won’t lie: I’ve never been impressed with Barry Zito personally, but he has posted some great numbers, and has the hardware to back him up (if not for last year’s 11-13 record, he also would have joined Houston’s Roy Oswalt in the “Pitcher’s who’ve never had a losing season” club). Can Zito be better in 2007? Definitely. I’m just not banking on him to win more than 15 games.

The two arms that everyone’s concerned with though, are Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. Cain was able to top 200 innings for the first time in his career, although he saw a significant change in his record (13-12 in ’06 to 7-16 in ’07) and a drop in his strikeout numbers. Lincecum was surrounded with trade rumors this off-season, however he certainly earned that interest as he averaged 6.25 strikeouts per start— the best ratio amongst the “big three”. The Giants were definitely smart to hold on to these two, and with Zito locked up for another six seasons, they certainly have the building blocks to have a strong rotation for future MLB seasons.

However the strength doesn’t stop there as Noah Lowry, the staff leader in wins with 14 returns, hoping to improve upon his 14-8, 3.92 ERA of last season, while Kevin Correia provides a solid number five man with a 3-1 record over eight starts with a 2.54 ERA if he can win the job from Jonathan Sanchez. The only issue between these three is that Lowry won’t be available until the middle of April as he’s recovering from arm surgery.

Granted the rotation hasn’t looked exceptional in spring, but that’s what spring is for—to get out the kinks.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?