Sabean's gonna stay, unless.....

He had just doubled and Huff singled through on the next pitch.
(I just commented on this elsewhere. Reviewed MLB – TV an’ everything.)
“…almost collapsed…”? Calm down.

I don’t believe the Giants need to worry about making the World Series. It would be nice to be in that position though!

And if Sandoval has to worry about pulling a blubber muscle while running the bases, he shouldn’t be playing baseball.

Also, 19 games.

Yea, Bowker has no game at all!

*Ignores double, and subsequent run from last night.

and when you go the World Series, your GM gets to stick around for at least 5 years

It’s certainly not typical but there are actually a few examples of GMs who’s ring didn’t save them from the axe. Most recently, and maybe most notably, Walt Jocketty was shown the door only one year after the Cards won the World Series (one of the worst Series winners in history, but still). The Yankees naturally have a couple fo these guys, but probably the worst one in recentish baseball history was when LaBatt’s bought the Blue Jays and immediately ran Pat Gillick out of town less than a year after back to back championships.

Larry Beinfest lasted 4 more seasons before getting axed.

They had five future Hall of Famers – three in their lineup. Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry. They had two other starting pitchers who were about 10+ points above average by ERA+. They had Jim Davenport posting a 118 OPS+ – which was only the fifth best OPS+ on the team. They had three Alou brothers. They had Mike McCormick, who wasn’t actually good that year, but who was coming off of seasons where he posted ERA+s of 120 and 130, so in April, you probably would’ve expected him to be good. They were best in the NL in runs scored and fifth (out of ten) in runs allowed.

They didn’t win the World Series.

My point? I think you might be getting just a little bit ahead of yourself here.

The Giants are not a contending baseball team in any conventional sense of the term.

They have 7 marginal position players, a 300 pound third baseman, and two-three really good starters at any one time through the rotation.

On most nights, the Giants are unwatchable at the plate. And have been unwatchable for years, not counting Bonds. They are bad, boring, have no power, have bad at-bats, are slow slow runners when they do reach, and are essentially automatic outs and not just this April.

This has been going on since 2005 when they commenced their current run of being one of the worst and sometimes the worst offensive team in all of MLB, including those with payrolls the size of a homeless person’s petty cash jar.

Optimism is one thing. Wishful thinking is another. Hoping for a 5 year run to come to an end when the same people are running things the same way is not my idea of changing things for the better in terms of being a championship contender.

“Nate and Torres have game, Bowker and Velez don’t.”

BS. Velez is garbage, true.. But Bowker is fine.

I pretty much entirely disagree with your characterization of the NL West. This year’s NL West has got game.

The Rockies may be the best team in the league, not “okay but that is all”. The Bums are a bit worse. The D-Backs are a dark horse with good pitching potential and some nice signings (LaRoche). The Padres won’t be pushovers, though they probably will end up as cellar-dwellars.

This division is easily the best in the NL.

Why do people keep forgetting that there are very few players who can generate good results with marginal playing time? When Torres has been given decent playing time, he has produced. I don’t suppose that he can duplicate his 2009 performance, but he doesn’t have to come even really close to it to be a quite valuable player. I’d rather have him in CF than Rowand, and not just for his decidedly better fielding; on overall offensive value, he’s probably at least as good as Rowand, and likely notably better.

As I said on another thread, the Giants, with the pitching they have (even if it’s not going to end up with a staff ERA under 3), can contend with merely decent offense; and they have the players to provide at least a merely decent offense if—a huge “if”—they can and do: a) sort the contenders from the pretenders; and b) use everyone they’ve got in an optimal way (which largely means distributing playing time in a reasonable way).

Sure, the lineups are not as good as a reasonably bright 12-year-old could draw up, but lineup order seems to have a much smaller effect than is commonly thought (one study, quite old now, suggested that pretty much turning it upside down would only cost a dozen or so runs a season—I’m not sure I’d bet the ranch on that number, but the effect is just not huge).

Once again: what’s needed is addition by subtraction.