Guessing the 25-Man Roster for the Giants in the NLDS

As I started to write this, my knee hit my desk, and the little Kirk Rueter bobblehead doll that lives atop my World Series brick fell to the ground. This is obviously an omen, and I'm sorry if you spent money on playoff tickets. Oh, Woody. Why?

Anywho, this isn't a screed as to what the 25-man roster should look like, though I suppose it could turn into one by the end. It's an exploration, as I have no idea if there's really any room for controversy. We've done this sort of thing before …

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.

Remember, Guillen started the last three games of the season. Those were important games. He was the starter. And then … man, that all still seems hard to believe. Hell, maybe Guillen would have gone off in the playoffs. Maybe we'd all have Jose Guillen bobbleheads and shirts now.

Probably not.

Okay, so the guess at what the 25-man roster will be. Let's start with the locks.

1. Buster Posey
2. Matt Cain
3. Tim Lincecum
4. Madison Bumgarner
5. Barry Zito
6. Ryan Vogelsong
7. Brandon Belt
8. Marco Scutaro
9. Brandon Crawford
10. Joaquin Arias
11. Pablo Sandoval
12. Gregor Blanco
13. Angel Pagan
14. Hunter Pence
15. Sergio Romo
16. Santiago Casilla
17. Javier Lopez
18. Jeremy Affeldt
19. Hector Sanchez

The locks fill up fast. And then you get to the locks that are locks but you don't want to call them locks even though they're locks.

20. Jose Mijares
21. Xavier Nady
22. Ryan Theriot

The Giants want a right-handed-hitting outfielder, and while I think Justin Christian is still more versatile -- quiet, you -- he didn't exactly make a strong case with his sweet .125/.197/.143 line. Nady it is.

So far we have a nine-man staff with a five-man bullpen. That'll need to be bumped up, so I'll wager there are two more relief spots coming out of the following candidates:

Clay Hensley
Brad Penny
George Kontos
Guillermo Mota

I'd like to think that Kontos had it locked up before he struck out Matt Kemp, but I guess I should just be glad that he has a shot, regardless of how he did it. Mota has been terrible … but so have Hensley and Penny. That last spot is a real turd -- I wish someone like Heath Hembree or Brett Bochy found their way onto the roster in August and blew everyone away. For now, though, I'll peg Kontos and Mota.

23. George Kontos
24. Guillermo Mota

That leaves one more bench spot. Emmanuel Burriss is forever lurking. Brett Pill turned out not to be the long-term answer at first -- weird -- but he has a slight chance. A third catcher like Eli Whiteside would let Bochy use Hector Sanchez as his pinch-hitter, extraordinaire, which would be hilarious. But I think the end-of-the-season usage gives us a pretty good idea of what they'll do.

25. Aubrey Huff

This gets tricky in the postseason, as there's no Francisco Peguero to caddy for Huff, and Huff really does run like he's trying to shoplift a toilet from Home Depot now.

This seems like a 25-man roster without any surprises. Maybe Hensley makes it over Mota. That's it, that's the only area I'm not quite sure about. So this is it, folks. Your 2012 playoff roster.

Yeah.