While you wrote a nice article, I have some quibbles with some of your assertions.

First, I don't see why you say that Schmidt and Bonds are not likely to return.  Schmidt just recently said that he has narrowed it down to Seattle and SF as his places to go to and Sabean had said that he will try to resign Schmidt.  And, really, Bonds has no other team to return to, his reputation is beyond trashed, and his ego will trump his outrage of a lowered salary, and he should return to play somewhere.  SF is the only place where he is accepted, and given his sensitivity, I don't see how he does not at least give SF a good chance in signing him.

Second, you cannot say the lineup is made up of veterans mainly because there's only two regulars set in stone right now, Vizquel and Winn.  So we don't know how the lineup will look like right now exactly, Sabean could pull off some trades to add young regulars (as he did in 1997 when he picked up Kent, Snow, and others to start) or could give chances to Linden, Niekro, Frandsen, and Alfonzo, to start - while not "difference makers" as you put it, if they are playing, it won't be a veteran lineup necessarily.

And I totally agree that Vizquel will probably not repeat his good season (he seems to alternate performances the past few seasons plus his age), but that will be counterbalanced by Winn returning to his previous performance level, which, while not great, is still much better than he did in 2006, when he had a down year, probably due to his injured knee.

I would disagree that Alou would be easy to replace, look at his ranking in the recent Type A/B/C ratings by Elias, he's a top hitter when playing, that won't be easy to replace, even when taking into account Finley's lousy stats playing in Alou's place.

And at the same time you knock the Giants young players, you assume that the D-backs young players will come through again.  Their baby-backs have been touted for so many years now and haven't amounted to much, so I think you need to caveat their 2007 performance as much as you do the Giants.

I wouldn't call the Padres exactly established either.  They are relying on young players such as Barfield, Gonzalez, and Young to repeat their good performances in 2006 plus will find out what type of player they have in Khalil Greene, a perpetually injured and underperforming SS or the SS that started out so nicely in his first season (it doesn't look good to me).  Meanwhile they have vets who are getting old playing key roles in Piazza, Giles (where has his power gone?), and Roberts.  And still needs a 3B.  Plus Peavy had a thoroughly disappointing season, he's still pretty young but you have to wonder what happened there.

And as much as I was disappointed by the Giants hiring Bochy, at least he got the Padres to perform well enough in 2006 to win the division, I didn't think they had the talent, I was more worried about the Dodgers.

And Colorado, really?  They are full of young players!  If you are going to piss all over the Giants young starters, you really need to do the same to the Rockies, particularly because of the park/location they play in.

What I do agree with is that he could be setting up for 3 difficult seasons with the Giants.  But that's two more seasons than the Padres was offering him, so I don't blame him for that.  

Plus I think he is probably getting more say into his personnel than 95% of managers in the history of the game, that is something hard to pass up.  With a lineup full of blanks, he gets to give his opinion to Sabean of who he would like to see on the team and who he would not and craft together a team he would like to see, with $45M or so to spend.  As Sabean noted before the first interview with anyone, he wanted to get the manager in place before the free agent period starts so that the manager can provide input into the personnel discussion.

So I don't blame him for taking a guaranteed $4M more in salary plus the chance to craft a roster in a way that most managers will never get to do.  A

nd, as much as you astutely point out how young pitchers do backtrack sometimes (just view the Giants previous big 3 of Foppert, Ainsworth and Williams), there's still Tim Lincecum roaring up the farm system, soon to join the major league club in the next season, plus Hennessey and Correia as backup, and a number of other young pitchers who could take the place of any starting pitcher who falters in subsequent years, Sabean has been cranking out good pitchers each draft, despite his poor draft position in previous years.  Good young pitching up to their wazoo is the Giants main hope for the future, and I think that's a good way to build another competitive team.

There's nothing like making a splash with your first ever post!

1. I said Schmidt and Bonds are unlikely to return because I don't really believe they will be a part of the 2007 Giants. I don't have solid evidence to back that up so it may be ignorant editorialization on my part. I can live with that. This was an opinion piece.

That being said, I do think that somebody is likely to outbid the Giants for Schmidt. He might have said that he's narroowed his list down to 2 teams, but I think that would be a really silly thing to do on his part since the Dodgers and Snakes might be willing to write out some big checks for the next few years. Also, I know he's a west coast guy, but if I were him I'd at least listen when a team like the Rangers, Cards, Astros, Reds, or Braves called me.

As for Bonds, you'll have to wait for a later date to see my opinions on where he'd fit. That isn't to say that any of my opinions WILL happen, just that I see quite a few possibilities out there as long as he's not tied to getting 3 years or more.

On your second point, I am going off of the current roster, which actually has 3 definite players "set in stone", being Alfonzo, Vizquel, and Winn. That's a lot of holes to fill though through free agency and trades. And I'm underwealmed by the in-house options. This is not a particularly deep free agent class and even if it were, from all the noise that the Giants have been making about how they are going to have to watch payroll, I have a hard time thinking that they're going to splurge and get a laundry list of front line talent, or even well above average replacements. I suppose that they could go all out and wind up with Sheffield, Bonds, Sexson, and Aramis in the heart of the order, but I think that pushes wishful thinking a bit far for my taste.

As to compare and contrast, you're right in pointing out that San Diego and Colorado are far from sure bets, but I'll go a little ways towards defending them.

With San Diego , they have a similar problem in that most of their best players are aging. Giles is no spring chicken. OTOH, while Adrian Gonzalez's 2006 was unexpected, it isn't that far out of line from his minor league track record to think that it's a fluke. All that way REALLY surprising was the power and I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt to a guy who is still young, has a long history of hitting for average and drawing a fair amount of walks, and who did so in a park that is hostile to flying things. Peavy was much better than his ERA, as witnessed by his K/BB and K/IP ratios. He was only a touch worse than previous. My biggest worry with him is actually health. I'm not in love with Barfield or Greene, but they're competent and I like Greene's glove. And Cameron should have several good years left. Their farm system is likewise a bit thin at the upper levels.

With the Rox, they had perfectly acceptable pitching this season and I'm willing to suspend disbelief until we figure out exactly what was going on with Coors field being reborn as a "pitcher's park" or something close to it. they also have a competent lineup core (maybe better than that) in Hawpe/Atkins/Holliday, and I'm a big fan of Iannetta and Tulowitzki.

Any criticism of Arizona seems a little tone deaf to me since their young players were their best performers. They would have had a better record had they played Quentin and Drew more. I really, really like almost that entire team, at least the position players, going forward. The pitching is a little more iffy long term after you get past Webb, but Webb's one hell of a start since there's no other pitcher in baseball that I'd rather have for the next 5 years (other than some guy named Johan) than Brandon Webb. And personally I'd much rather have Quentin, Drew, Tracy, Jackson, Young, Montero, and one elite starting pitcher than Winn, Vizquel, Alfonzo, Cain, Lincecum, and 45 million bucks.

It also bears mentioning that this team only won 76 games while San Diego won 11 more than that so if they decline by 5 games, they're still a middle of the road team while if the Giants decline by 5 games, they're picking 7th in the draft. The arrow on the Diamondbacks is facing up not down and barring some major moves, I see the Giants going the opposite direction, maybe slow at first, continuing their slide down from 100 games in 2003. Maybe it will be more abrupt if they have as many free agent defections as I have attributed to them and if the pitchers don't work out while Winn doesn't recover and Vizquel decides to act his age.

Note that since I started writing this, the Padres traded Barfield for Kouzmanoff. It's interesting. It doesn't dramatically change my prognosis. It does make me wonder what their long term plans at 2B are.

I should do more team breakdowns. Maybe I can get angry fans from every team looking for my blood. Good for traffic numbers.

I do think that Bonds would like to make a move to DH. and I think that he should. But I do think that the Giants will want him back. He is a big draw and that translates to dollars for the Giants. You might be right however, in saying that his pride might keep him from accepting a much smaller contract from the Giants than he is used to.