the four of us will unpack this a lot more over the next couple of months, but as we head in to christmas the question in giantsland is: has the team done enough this off-season?

in a world where the red sox are acquiring big name players every two days and even middling teams like the nationals are willing to drop 9 figure deals into the laps of hairy corner outfielders, the giants have been buried by the headlines.

what exactly have they done? among other things, they’ve brought back huff for almost 4 times what they paid him last year. resigned burrell for a song (best contract of the off-season?). extended arbitration to a whole lot of guys (including important ones like cody ross, javy lopez, and santiago casilla, and not so important ones like mike fontenot). and, of course, signed miguel tejada to a reasonable one year deal that spawned a bunch of sabean-loves-old-guys jokes around the internet world.

a huge snore with one major caveat: the Giants Won the World Series.

there will be a few more moves here and there. there is some rumbling about bringing back guillermo mota, and maybe edgar renteria (or some other old dude) will help provide depth at SS, but, let’s face it, that’s pretty much it (unless the Giants pull a Phillies-style undercover maneuver and sign Beltre to play third base………..)

two schools of thought emerge:

1) the giants don’t need to do much, they won it all last year with these guys, give em a shot to repeat. (usually this line of thinking is accompanied with some of these logics: the pitching will be better because it is more experienced now…we didn’t get full seasons in 2010 out of posey, ross, burrell, freddy sanchez which will help the offense…hey, we still have mark derosa!…no one in our division is markedly better…etc, etc).

2) the giants are in trouble because they caught lightening a bottle last year, they have a small margin for error with such a poor offense, and if they were ever going to open the vault and GO FOR IT, this was the off-season to do it!!! no one repeats by maintaining the status quo.

there are still about 13 weeks to go before pitchers and catchers report so we don’t have the full picture of what everyone will do this off-season, giants included, but here is my initial response:

no matter what the Giants do this off-season (short of a red sox-esque shopping spree) the absolute key to next season is this:

PABLO SANDOVAL.

if pablo bounces back to anything like his 2009 season this Giants team will have re-acquired a beltre/werth type player by doing nothing. last year at this time people were so enamored by the panda (remember this line: .330/.387/.556) some were beginning to worry if the rubber chickens would make a reappearance at AT&T because of all the IBB he’d be getting. it remains one of life’s greatest mysteries that the 2010 Giants won the WS without pablo in the middle of the action.

2009 pablo means this will be a much, much more effective offense.

two more notes of lesser importance (but still important):

a) it will be interesting to see how the young pitchers rebound from the extra work. don’t freak out if they start slow, i think it is a definite possibility. seeing the big four come back strong and healthy next year is of significant import.

b) the wild card that is brandon belt. as i mentioned in my dynasty post, IF sandoval gets it together (and for the record i think he will have a good season), and IF belt is as good as advertised, then holy shoot the giants have a solid core to their lineup that is young and nasty, and every bit as good as what they could have gotten on the open market (and a whole lot cheaper, which, again brings up the question of value and that will be discussed at some point).

bottom line: no matter what you do in the off-season, you do some gambling. sometimes you bet on high priced vets, sometimes you bet on what got you there, and sometimes you keep an ace up your sleeve, which is what i’m hoping the giants have done with their young corner infielders.

(-SB)