San Francisco Giants Must Rebuild

Things looked up for the San Francisco Giants in 2007. Unfortunately, it was the team looking up from last place at its National League West competitors.

The Giants finished the season with a 71-91 record, marking their third straight losing campaign. The team's National league pennant and nearly World Series championship season in 2002 was five years ago on the calendar but now seems more like 15 years ago.

There's no doubt that San Francisco will look much different in 2008. The question is how much different? For one thing, Barry Bonds will not be back now that his chase to become the game's all-time home run king has come and gone. The 43-year old Bonds might still have a team to play for but it won't be San Francisco, where he was the face of the franchise since 1993.

There also figures to be players other than Bonds that do not fit into the Giants plans as well. Even with Bonds, the Giants offense was nothing to write home about as the team scored just 683 runs, the second fewest in Major League Baseball.

If the Giants are to acquire a marquee player to replace Bonds, the question becomes will it be via trade or free agency? Minnesota's Torii Hunter and Atlanta's Andruw Jones will be free agents as might New York Yankees' star Alex Rodriguez. However, do the Giants want to tie up a good chunk of payroll into one player as they did with Bonds?

That philosophy was fine when Bonds was in his prime, as Rodriguez currently is, but did not make sense when Bonds' skills were declining. It's also possible that the Giants might trade one of their young players to acquire a star. The most marketable player to trade in acquiring that player would appear to be left-handed pitcher Noah Lowry, who was a 14 game winner for San Francisco in 2007.

As of now, Rajai Davis will likely be the center-fielder while Dave Roberts would fit in as the left-fielder unless the Giants opt to sign Jones or Hunter. Roberts, however, is still living off his timely stolen base as a Boston Red Sox player from 2004. That stolen base in Game 4, with Boston trailing the New York Yankees 3-0 in the ALCS, allowed the Sox to rally to beat New York and then win the World Series.

Second baseman Ray Durham and his $7.5-million dollar contract face an iffy status for 2008 along with Rich Aurilia. With Daniel Ortmeier, Nate Schierholtz and Fred Lewis, the Giants have three youngsters to start with depending on any new faces for the outfield and first base. Even if Durham returns, Kevin Frandsen will likely get every opportunity to win the second base job.

With Lowry, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito, the Giants have a solid four-man rotation as well as a potentially solid closer in Bryan Wilson but the team could use some middle relief help to bridge the gap.

Shortstop Omar Vizquel, 40, also faces an uncertain future. As great as Vizquel still is with the glove, his skills as a hitter have sharply declined. Vizquel was a .295 hitter in 2007 compared to .246 this past season.

"Rebuilding" is definitely the buzz word for the current Giants. They already have a solid starting rotation, but better team speed and defense would be the first place toward becoming a solid team again as San Francisco was 39-55 in games decided by one run.