This is a fantasy thread of sorts. In our own minds, we’re all great G.M.’s. Like many of you, as a Giants fan, I spend thankless hours tooling and retooling the Giants. It’s an imperfect science. I make roster tweaks. In reality they go unrequited. So a couple weeks later I take the roster at face value and start the rebuild all over again. Well, in my infinite boredom with no team for which to root at the outset of this year’s postseason, I got to thinking. What if all the best case scenarios of my wishful G.M. thinking of years passed had panned out? What would the 2008 Giants have to consist of to be a playoff-caliber team?

So I invite everyone to play along. The parameters for my team are as follows: 1) everyone on the team is someone that could have been acquired. 2) Over past years I had a real-time scenario to acquire each player. 3) There are no overly ridiculous chemistries in the financial or personality departments (no cost-prohibitive combos like Soriano, Beltran, and Guerrero … no impossible clubhouse mixes like Mesa and Omar). 4) Taking the draft curve into consideration, I have taken liberties to add or subtract actual draft picks to adjust for where a better Giants team would have selected over previous drafts.

Those are simply my personal parameters, because if I don’t keep this thing real, I lose sleep at night. I’m sure some of you understand. Please employ your own parameters, rules, gravity, etc. in making your World Series-bound 2008 Giants team. And, please feel free to bag on my team all you want.

So without further pomp and happenstance, I give you MY … ahem … I mean YOUR 2008 World Series Champion Giants:

Lineup:

RF – Randy Winn (would have traded for him with Tampa before ’03)

2B – Craig Counsell (signed before ’07 to platoon with Kevin Frandsen)

CF – Carlos Beltran (one of two big free agent signing before ’05)

1B – Derrek Lee (acquired from Florida before ’04)

LF – Raul Ibanez (acquired for Nate Schieholtz before ’08 trade deadline)

SS – Orlando Cabrera (second big free agent signing before ’05)

3B – Pablo Sandoval (called up during ’08 for injury-plagued Bard)

C – Jason Kendall (signed before ’08 season after retirement of Doug Mirabelli)

Bench:

IF – Rich Aurilia (signed before ’08 to platoon at 3B with Counsell)

IF – Emmanuel Burriss (eventually called up and excelled after Frandsen injury)

OF – Fred Lewis (good starter for first half of ’08, made way for Ibanez acquisition)

OF – Jose Cruz Jr. (resigned before ’08 for defensive purposes)

C – Josh Bard (acquired before ’07 season)

Rotation:

RH – Tim Lincecum

LH – Barry Zito

RH – Matt Cain

LH – Randy Wolf (acquired at ’08 deadline to strengthen rotation)

LH – Jonathan Sanchez

Bullpen:

CL – Brian Wilson (started ‘08 as setup man, but took over closer with Aardsma injury)

RH – Ryan Madson (acquired before ’07)

LH – Jeremy Affeldt (signed before ’08)

RH – Doug Brocail (signed before ’08)

RH – Josh Fields (drafted in ’08, and was fast-tracked to solve Oscar Villareal debacle)

LH – Alex Hinshaw (called up in ’08 and thrived)

RH – Kevin Correia (started ’08 in rotation, valuable bullpen add after returning from DL)