Postseason rosters are serious business. Look at this team:
Rk | Pos | |
---|---|---|
1 | C | Ivan Rodriguez |
2 | 1B | Derrek Lee |
3 | 2B | Luis Castillo# |
4 | SS | Alex Gonzalez |
5 | 3B | Mike Lowell |
6 | LF | Todd Hollandsworth* |
7 | CF | Juan Pierre* |
8 | RF | Juan Encarnacion |
Your palms start sweating. The heart palpitates. What if, you think, there isn’t a left-handed specialist available to pitch to Todd Hollandsworth? Good. Gravy. You can’t expect Matt Herges to get a guy like that out, and not just because things would get awfully awkward around the Thanksgiving dinner table. That’s Todd Hollandsworth. And, man, imagine if Juan Pierre were up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game. If you put a generic righty out there, Pierre could end the damned game. Just like that. You wouldn’t even know what happened. Stunned. Mouth agape. Pierre circles the bases, fist in the air, as he’s done it again. You would have been outmanaged.
So, obviously, the answer is "carry two left-handed specialists." With both Jason Christiansen and Scott Eyre on the playoff roster, teams can avoid horrifc moments like those. Of course, they’d have to jettison something else of value. Like, oh, a guy who was faster than Bengie Molina rolling uphill, which was a player who was in short supply for the 2003 Giants. I mean, what’s the worst that would happen? One of the slowest players in the league was going to try to score from second on a single and get thrown out to end the playoff series as the fastest person on the 40-man roster watches from the dugout, technically inable to play in the game? Yeah, right.
Ugh.
Postseason rosters: Serious business. Get the obvious names out of the way first:
- Buster Posey
- Aubrey Huff
- Freddy Sanchez
- Juan Uribe
- Pablo Sandoval
- Pat Burrell
- Andres Torres
- Eli Whiteside
- Tim Lincecum
- Jonathan Sanchez
- Madison Bumgarner
- Matt Cain
- Brian Wilson
- Sergio Romo
- Javier Lopez
- Santiago Casilla
Those are the complete locks. I used to think Zito was a lock until I heard Bruce Bochy on KNBR today. Zito's not going to start, so the only way he'd make the team is if he were a reliever. With Lopez and Affeldt, there's no real spot for a LOOGY, and Zito isn't really tough on lefties to begin with.
So that leaves the bubble guys:
Nate Schierholtz
Travis Ishikawa
Edgar Renteria
Aaron Rowand
Mike Fontenot
Cody Ross
Jose GuillenJeremy Affeldt
Guillermo Mota
Chris Ray
Dan Runzler
Ramon Ramirez
Barry Zito
The "bubble guys" comprise a pretty wide category. I don't think there's any way that Guillen or Ramirez aren't on the final roster, for example, but I just didn't want to assume they were going to make the roster.
With Bochy hinting that the Giants are going to go with an 11-man pitching staff, that leaves room for three pitchers and six hitters.
The Braves have good lefties, unlike the 2003 Marlins, so Affeldt will probably be in. Only one of those bench guys is going to be left off, which makes for an interesting decision. Here's my guess, and it's pretty close to what I'd actually do myself if it were up to me:
- Buster Posey
- Aubrey Huff
- Freddy Sanchez
- Juan Uribe
- Pablo Sandoval
- Pat Burrell
- Andres Torres
- Jose Guillen
- Eli Whiteside
- Cody Ross
- Aaron Rowand
- Nate Schierholtz
- Mike Fontenot
- Edgar Renteria
- Tim Lincecum
- Jonathan Sanchez
- Madison Bumgarner
- Matt Cain
- Brian Wilson
- Sergio Romo
- Javier Lopez
- Santiago Casilla
- Jeremy Affeldt
- Ramon Ramirez
- Barry Zito
Zito is the ostensible long man. I'd probably prefer Mota, but that's the only quibble. My guess is that Ishikawa's lefty bat gets passed over for Rowand. That's not the end of the word, but it makes me wish the Giants had a strong lefty pinch-hitter to make the decision easier.
This is much more fun than deciding on the teams we want to root against.