Biggest Offseason Acquisition: Not applicable
Potential Fatal Flaw: Many more than you’d think from a World Series Champion
Ceiling: NL Wild Card
Floor: Not in the playoffs
Overall: This is not a criticism of the 2012 World Series Champion Giants, but it’s worth remembering, always, that the team that wins a championship is not necessarily the best team.
Major League teams play 162 games to enter a fairly random, small sample-filled tournament. The Giants were the third best team in the National League in the 162-game season. History will show though that the Giants were the “best team” in baseball because they won the tournament after the six-month slog.
The point of this diatribe is that the San Francisco Giants think of themselves as the best team from 2012. So good, in fact, that they did not sign a single consequential free agent this offseason. The Giants did not try to improve, potentially because they don’t think there’s room to improve. They’ll come to find that their thinking is wrong.
Offensively, the Giants are led by the great Buster Posey. Posey is a terrific catcher and a terrific hitter. He’s one of the brightest stars in baseball. And the Giants will need him to win the NL MVP again, or at least play like the NL MVP, if they are going to make a run at the NL West.
Now, the Giants did, in fact, sign a free agent this offseason. That is to say, they re-signed a free agent. That free agent is a 36-year old second baseman with a career .731 OPS. They signed this player, Marco Scutaro, to a 3 year, $20 million deal. Because that’s what you do when 36-year old second basemen with career .731 OPSs win the NLCS MVP (Fyi, Scutaro was 7-for-36 in the other two postseason series last year).
San Francisco also didn’t see it logical to sign a free agent starting pitcher. No, they’re going to go into this season with Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito in their starting rotation, even though they posted 67 and 84 ERA+s respectively in the 2012 regular season. Or, if you like old fashioned ERA, 5.18 and 4.15.
But Lincecum and Zito were saviors in the postseason, so surely they’ll just pitch this regular season like they did last postseason. Surely not like they did during the regular season. Oh, it’s worth noting that Lincecum was a postseason savior while pitching in an entirely different role out of the bullpen.
The 2010 San Francisco Giants won the World Series. That offseason, they didn’t sign a consequential free agent and, despite winning 86 games, missed the 2011 postseason.
I see a repeat happening in 2013. Complacency, especially flawed complacency, rarely benefits anyone. The Giants played in an NL West that was down last year. The Dodgers, Padres and Diamondbacks are all better teams coming into 2013. A few fewer wins in the 162 game season won’t get San Francisco to the postseason in 2013.
Predicted Finish: 84-78
Mid-Atlantic Bias 
bonne année à san francisco