Giants/Phillies Series Preview

Bah. Stop worrying. The Phillies offense is overrated. I wrote a program for my Commodore VIC-20 that simulates what the best possible lineup would be if you combined the Giants and Phillies rosters:

Jimmy Rollins – SS
Shane Victorino – CF
Pablo Sandoval – 3B
Chase Utley – 2B
Ryan Howard – 1B
Jayson Werth – RF
Raul Ibanez – LF
Carlos Ruiz – C

Hmm. That’s weird. Just one Giant. Well, Rollins is hurt, so let me make that adjustment to the code…oh, and I see Ruiz made it over Molina, which means that I’m weighting that "on-base percentage" hokum too much…so I’ll up the RBI factor…and done:

Shane Victorino – CF
Pablo Sandoval – 3B
Chase Utley – 2B
Ryan Howard – 1B
Jayson Werth – RF
Raul Ibanez – LF
Bengie Molina – C
Juan Castro – SS

Stupid VIC-20. When I get my hands on one of those Commodore 64s, the jump from 5 KB of memory to 64 KB will surely favor the Giants a little more. Until then, we’ll just have to take the computer’s word and assume that just about everyone in the Giants’ lineup would be a benchie for Philadelphia, at best. When Freddy Sanchez gets back, I’m sure things will all even out.

Hitter to watch:

As a 32-year-old free agent this offseason, Jayson Werth will probably get a 4/$50M contract. That’s just a guess, so he might get even more. It all depends on whether or not the Giants resign Edgar Renteria to a two- or a three-year deal, and if Aubrey Huff comes back, but the money will be there.

Oh, I’m sorry. You must not have heard. The Giants will spend too much money on Jayson Werth next year, so watch him now while he’s still in his prime. Heck, with the Lincecain window, I don’t even think I’m opposed to overpaying an aging veteran for some short-term offense. What’s the worst that can happen? A Phillies outfielder comes over with 25-homer power only to lose all of his hitting talent in the plane ride east? Yeah, I’d like to see that happen.

Jayson Werth: future Giant. Look over this list and tell me you don’t see it too. I’d hope he maintained something like his current production for at least two years, and plug my nose for the age-related decline.

Pitcher to watch:

You might think that I’d put Roy Halladay here, but you’d be wrong. Halladay has crossed over from the "it’s-so-obvious-that-he’s-going-to-dominate-the-Giants-that-they-will-score-six-runs-off-him-just-to-mess-with-us" zone into the "give-it-up-the-Giants-won’t-hit-it-out-of-the-infield "zone. I don’t want to get too hyperbolic and sensationalistic, so I’ll just say one thing: If Roy Halladay gives up more than two runs to this Giants lineup, he is working with professional gamblers and needs to be banned from baseball for the rest of his life.

No, the pitcher to watch is Jamie Moyer. As I was typing that, Eugenio Velez just swung at a…wait, he just did it again…changeup from Moyer. But if the Giants could get all patient-like with a knuckleballer like Charlie Haeger, maybe they’ll have the right approach to Moyer. It’s so crazy, it just might work!

You can enter the first ever McCovey Chronicles "Which Giants hitter will swing and miss three times on one pitch, Gashouse Gorillas-style" pool in the comments section. I’d say it’s the next logical step in John Bowker’s career, but Moyer is a lefty like Bowker, and such a match up would violate federal law after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Klesko v. Mulholland. So give me five bucks on Andres Torres.

Prediction

The Giants will not score six runs off of Roy Halladay.