A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #11

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up today: The San Francisco Giants

Well, there's no reason to sugar coat it: without Bonds, the Giants aren't even mildly intriguing. The only team in the entirety of the major leagues that could possibly be described as out of contention on April 30th, would likely be Baltimore, and the Orioles don't even play in the National League.

The Giants do have a couple young arms in Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, and you (of course) can't ignore that they have a Molina catching, but that's it. I mean, their shortstop is Omar Vizquel, who is a little past his prime.

It could be argued that the Giants' front office hasn't been able to see past Bonds--there is little other way to explain it, but one hopes that when the fans stop coming, because Bonds isn't there any more and the team is still losing, the FO will finally realize what sort of mess their team is in.

Threat level to the Yankees: Green, Proceed Normally.

Yeah, umm. If the Yankees and the Giants play each other this year, we would probably be having a conversation about the oddest year in baseball, ever.

Honestly, the Rays are a bigger threat.