Fantasy Baseball 2013: SF Giants Hitting & Pitching Projections

Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey will be big fantasy players this year.

Photo by Flickr user Chase N.

San Francisco Giants — Predicted Finish: First Place, NL West

Fittingly, we wrap up our team previews with the defending champions, a team near and dear to my heart.

The Giants will enter 2013 knowing that the best they can do is match their 2012 season. Fortunately for the fans of San Francisco, the team looks nearly identical to the one that claimed the World Series in 2012.

Giants Offense

Crackerjack Fantasy Options: Posey and Sandoval are the obvious ones, followed by Pence. Pagan, Scutaro, Belt, and even Crawford will all bring value if you have a team where their weaknesses are covered. In pretty much all of those cases, the weakness will be the lack of the long ball. But they all bring unique strengths that will contribute to your team.

Giants Pitching:

Crackerjack Fantasy Options: Cain, Bumgarner, and Vogelsong are certain starters. Romo is a must-have reliever. Also, even if Bruce Bochy continues the closer by committee, Romo will bring solid numbers in ERA and WHIP, with an out-of-this-world strikeout-to-walk ratio. 

I’ve given my thoughts on Tim Lincecum before, and I’ll have more to say a little later. I know that Zito was clutch at the end of last season, but I wouldn’t roster him. He doesn’t strike out enough hitters, walks too many guys, and there will be a few starts where he redefines the word bad. The problem is that they don’t come exclusively against the good teams.

The Giants play in the best pitching park in the league, boast four consecutive winning seasons along with two out of three World Series wins. So, every pitcher has value, but I wouldn’t even go to Zito in a spot start.

Fantasy Star: Posey

The only real concern with Posey was how well he’d recover from the ugly injury he suffered in 2012. After his MVP year in 2012, that shouldn’t be a concern anymore.

Posey provides phenomenal numbers for pretty much any position. When you factor in that he’s a catcher, it’s hard to top. He’s not the only good player on this team, but nobody touches his overall fantasy value.

Fantasy Bust: Pence

There are a few things to look at here, so let’s start with the positive.

While Pence couldn’t even crack .220 as a Giant last year, his power numbers didn’t really drop off. Notably, he drove in 45 runs in 59 games with San Francisco, a pace that would work out to right around 120 if he was there for a full year. He also didn’t benefit a lot from Melky Cabrera much, as Pence was only a Giant for about two weeks before Cabrera’s suspension. So, he’s a run producer.

Now for the negatives.

1. Pence is a .259 career hitter at AT&T Park, where he’ll play half his games. That in and of itself is bad, but not necessarily “bust-worthy”. Here’s what is. Couple that with a .213 career mark at Dodger Stadium, .206 at Petco Park, and .252 at Coors Field (a classic sign of swinging for the fences), and you have poor history in the road stadiums he’ll be occupying the most. His .356 career mark at Chase Field makes things a little better, but he’ll be playing well over 100 games in parks where his numbers are pretty poor.
2. Even in Houston and Philadelphia, he’s never been an elite power hitter. Pence has never gone beyond 25 homers in a year. Granted he’s never gone under 17 either, but when you have a hitter that could well struggle with average, you want to see 30 or more bombs off of his bat. That’s highly unlikely.
3. Barring some injuries, Pence will likely bat fifth in the Giants order. That’s not the end of the world, but he won’t have a chance to be driven in by the team’s best hitters. So, runs could well be limited.
4. While Pence runs reasonably well, he’s fallen short of 10 steals each of the last two seasons. That’s not exactly a category that gets better with age.

As a fan of the Giants, I like Pence as the team’s right fielder just fine. But as a fantasy owner, it’s hard to look past the fact that you can only really rely on one stat to be good. You can get by with that at most positions, but not the outfield.

Fantasy Sleepers: Lincecum, Crawford

Briefly on Lincecum. He’s a two-time Cy Young Award winner, but is coming off of a dismal year and although he’s never been hurt, he’s faces questions about how durable he can be all throughout his career. Going into free agency, I can’t imagine anyone looking all that fondly at a soon-to-be 30-year-old pitcher coming off of two bad years. Translation: The incentive will be there.

Pitchers have bad years. It’s when they’re strung together that you need to worry. We saw in the postseason how good he still is and I’d bet that Lincecum has worked very hard all offseason trying to fix the flaws that were there in 2012. Also, as bad as that season was, he still averaged more than one strikeout per inning. He’s worth a shot.

Crawford is an interesting one. He’s not a great hitter, but showed drastic improvement as 2012 wore on. Also, his glove is so strong that he’ll unquestionably be the team’s shortstop. I see his offensive as similar to Angel Pagan. If he realizes that AT&T Park is made for left-handed gap hitters and doesn’t focus on the home run ball, he can fill out the stats pretty well. I won’t tell you that I’d draft him to your team, but if he starts well I’d grab him quickly.

More National League West Previews

• Colorado Rockies
• San Diego Padres
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Los Angeles Dodgers