Roll Call

Aaron Rowand	Ryan Garko
Aubrey Huff	Jose Castillo
Miguel Tejada	Dave Roberts
Freddy Sanchez	Ryan Klesko
Carlos Beltran	Mark Sweeney
Mark DeRosa	Steve Finley
Benji Molina	Moises Alou
Edgar Renteria	Omar Vizquel
Juan Uribe	Jose Viscaiano
Jose Guillen	Eliezer Alfonso
Rich Aurilia	Mike Matheny
Randy Winn	Barry Bonds

The average baseball career is 6 years; a generation if you will. 2011 marks the end of the generation from 2006 to 2011. Those 24 players were all signed as free agents or traded for by the Giants to be starters, and each of them was paid $ Millions to do so. Other than Bonds, can you find a player there who was not over-the-hill and/or beat-up when the Giants signed/re-signed them?

Just to point out the obvious, these are Giants rankings in On Base Percentage, Slugging, OPS and Runs scored during those years followed by their pitching rankings below.

2006 - 28/22/25 - Runs Scored - 24th 
2007 - 27/30/30 - Runs Scored - 29th
2008 - 24/28/28 - Runs Scored - 29th
2009 - 30/28/30 - Runs Scored - 26th
2010 - 19/13/17 - Runs Scored - 17th
2011 - 29/27/28 - Runs Scored - 29th

During this same period, Giants pitching rankings in ERA, Runs Allowed and OPS against.

2006 - 9/15/10
2007 - 9/6/10
2008 - 17/17/17
2009 - 2/1/2
2010 - 1/2/2
2011 - 2/2/1

The disconnect between hitting and pitching is dumbfounding. This disparity makes it impossible to believe that the same people responsible for building this pitching staff are the same people responsible for consistently assembling one of the worst hitting teams in the Major Leagues, year in and year out.


Whether it's as a pitcher who has his pockets picked every time he goes to the mound, or a position player who is on welfare while picking the pitchers' pockets, it is no fun managing/coaching a team like this. Remember, this is a pitching staff that has had the carcass of Barry Zito and his $126 Million contract run out to the mound every fifth day for the past four years to overcome while posting those numbers. That doesn't make it any easier to swallow if you're one of the guys doing all the lifting.


This is not a healthy situation for the long term. This is Marilyn Monroe's face on Roseanne Barr's body.