San Francisco Giants: Why the G-Men Will Coast to NL West Title

Although AT&T Park is technically located on the corner of Third and King, the San Francisco Giants might also start getting their mail on Easy Street. Because they've got the NL West wrapped up with just under half of the 2012 season left to play.

Of course, a three-game lead over the Dodgers might not sound like an insurmountable advantage. But looking ahead to the season's final couple of months, all signs are pointing to a division title.

For starters, let's take the starters, shall we?

Barry Zito has been the third-worst pitcher among qualified National League starters. In accumulating a WAR of 0.1 this year, he's hurt his team more than all but two other starting pitchers in the entire senior circuit. I realize that sounds like a bad thing for the Giants, but take solace in the following glass-half-full assessment: It can't get any worse.

Looking at it this way, there's actually a positive spin on Zito's woeful ineffectiveness. Despite his incompetence, the Giants lead the NL West. If they demote him to the bullpen, skip a few of his starts or replace him with any other able-bodied human being, the Giants rotation improves. Better options abound.

Bruce Bochy and Dave Righetti could slot Brad Penny in Zito's place, stretch out George Kontos or pick someone up off the scrap heap and instantly bolster the starting rotation.

But there's an even bigger potential boon in the pitching department: Tim Lincecum.

The Giants' two-time Cy Young award winner finally had a good start. In his last outing against the Houston Astros (yes, I know, the Astros are awful), Lincecum looked more like himself than he has all year. At long last, he had his old changeup and threw a whole bunch of strikes. On the way to punching out 11 Astros (against just one walk), Lincecum appeared reborn.

Applying the same positive outlook as we did on the Zito issue, Lincecum couldn't really have gotten much worse. And now, he might get a whole lot better.

In a sense, the Giants traded the awful version of Tim Lincecum for the great version of Tim Lincecum. That's a pretty good deal.

Of course, while the Giants look to improve in the second half, the Dodgers' prospects don't appear as promising.

Unlike San Francisco's rotation, the regression to the mean LA pitchers are likely to suffer won't be a good one.

Chris Capuano has pitched way over his head this season, vastly outperforming his peripheral stats. For example, his 2.75 ERA is about one-and-a-half runs below his career average. But that's a pretty superficial stat. Looking deeper, his xFIP is more than a run higher than his ERA this year. Basically, that means that he's been a little lucky and that he's pitched more like a guy with an ERA in the high threes, as opposed to the high twos.

In addition to Capuano, a number of other Dodgers come bearing red flags. The injury bug has already bitten the Dodgers' only two legitimate bats, resulting in DL stints for Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Both are back in the lineup, but Kemp's nagging hamstring is the type of injury that lingers and Ethier's been hurt every year of his career since 2010.

Ethier is also known for his half-season splits, in which his first-half production is markedly better than his second-half production. In 2010, Ethier's OPS before the All-Star break was .932. Afterwards, it fell to .773. And last season, he went from .846 to .672. How far will it plummet this year?

And if you think the Dodgers will continue to get OPS numbers north of .800 from Jerry Hairston, Jr. and A.J. Ellis, keep dreaming.

So, the Giants are likely to improve in a few key areas, while there's reason to believe that the Dodgers will slip. Of course it's always possible that Zito and Lincecum continue to be the pathetic one-two punch they were in the first half. And maybe the Dodgers will continue to get great performances from unforeseen sources.

But in all likelihood, the Giants are primed to coast to an NL West crown. Sounds easy enough.