Since there is so much talk about roster construction and how poor ours is, I thought I would do a small comparison.
My methodology (which would make my stats instructors cringe): I compared the Giants to three teams we are often compared to, Braves, Padres, Tigers. I also looked at Boston as they have MLBs best record and are largely (are they not?) sabermetrically operated. It is not a perfect comparison as injuries, demotions, DL visits all confuse what the roster is for a given team. I tried to look at primary players, pitchers with over 20 IP, for example. So, there is a variation in the 'size' of rosters, which range from 23 to 26.
I was looking for comparisons as to ages (+ or - 30) and home grown vs acquired through trades/FAs. The one thing I would have liked to do differently would be to break the ages off at 32 rather than 30, but I didn't want to do the entire study over.
The study makes no attempt to grade players or to compare teams as to who has the most valuable, etc.
Here are the results:
team # players -30 # players 30 or +
Giants 12 12
Detroit 9 14
SD 8 13
Atl 11 12
Boston 11 15
team # drafted/home grown # traded/FAs
Giants 11 14
Detroit 6 17
SD 4 17
Atl 13 10
Boston 6 20