Rough Road Awaits Can the Giants repeat as World Series champions in 2011? Of course they can. Dan Szymborski, however, offers up four reasons why it'll be quite a difficult challenge.

Yes, but I don’t think we are allowed to copy paste insider articles. He is saying basically what we’ve said the entire offseason :

Can the Giants rotation stay healthy?
Is this true talent level of Posey?
Can Huff / Burrell / Torres maintain their performance?

The Giants will need all those to happen to contend. We could do it, we might not. That’s why we play the games.

timmy, mattee, dirty, weezee, madbum, posey, huff, torres, mole, panda, pat the bat, nate the great, ish, miggy, PACBELL

oops, that’s more then 4, my bad….

GO GIANTS!!!!!1

…all 75 words needed to be in the title

This recent trend of articles like the ESPN one and one on NBC sports (http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/11/the-giants-are-going-to-have-some-problems-in-2011/) really make me angry. I get the impression that they are implying that the 2010 Giants just got lucky and weren’t very good, thus they won’t repeat their success or even make the playoffs. Have the other teams in our division improved? No. The Rockies and Dodgers are have made some shifts that amount to standing pat. The Padres lost their only good hitter, and the Dbacks will still suck. All of the improved teams in the NL are in the Central (Cubs, Brewers) and East (Phillies, Braves).

Although it’s not really a curse. It’s just that when you’re at the top, your likely destination is down.

I mean, realistically, what type of chance do you think we have at winning the West? I’d say it should be an interesting battle with at least LA and COL, and there are quite a few people who think the Padres aren’t actually that much worse (small improvements in a number of areas to offset the loss of Gonzalez). Let’s just say that the Giants have a 30% chance to win the west and another 10% chance to win the WC (both pretty optimistic), so 4/10 total. Then, once in the playoffs, you have approximately a 1/8 shot. Total chance ~5%, with optimistic assumptions.

No fucking duh. As someone wisely pointed out, repeating is really goddamn hard. The Giants are not the late 90s Yankees, and they are not the Big Red Machine. We have great pitching and some potentially great pieces, but we are far from perfect.

I think we are still plenty good enough to have a decent shot at making the playoffs, but this year, as last year, it will take a good bit of luck to get us to the promised land.

Predicting that the Giants will not repeat is like predicting it will rain at least once next May. We have a lot of numbers that suggest that it’s a pretty safe bet.

Let’s get to October before we talk about the World Series. Remember, our opening day lineup last year included John Bowker, Mark DeRosa, and Bengie Molina. Aaron Rowand was our leadoff hitter. Pablo Sandoval was hitting third. Todd Wellemeyer was our fifth starter. We did not have Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Jose Guillen, Javier Lopez, Ramon Ramirez, Santiago Casilla. We did not know when Buster Posey would be getting called up, or if he would play when he got here. And we did not know if Madison Bumgarner was ever going to get his fastball back.

It’s a long fucking season. Let’s just say we’re a good team, and hope for the best.