However, we might want to take a

Missing something? Or is it a bug with the new SB Nation layout?

someone with a greater knowledge of the GIants system can fill in the details about their internal options

Aye, there’s the rub. Internal options were definitely few. Frandsen, Burriss- these guys project a lot worse than Sanchez (a few might disagree, but this is the consensus opinion as far as I’ve seen), and while we could theoretically re-sign Uribe, and give him second base, I would rather we put Uribe at shortstop and consider Renteria a sunk cost. That will never happen, Uribe may well sign somewhere else, and Uribe probably isn’t really that great anyway, so I’m pleased about this deal. Second base is simply not a high value offense position for a lot of teams, so average-to-slightly-below-average offense with average-to-slightly-above-average defense, well, that works for me.

Finally, as far as younger, further away options at second, well, the Giants don’t really have much good stuff in the pipeline that I’m aware of. It’s kind of scary, like a number of other positions. Giants position player depth right now is pretty sad.

I did a piece about Sanchez on my own site, figuring the Marlins could put him at third base, where he apparently was very good. Alas, I came to about the same conclusion, with better defense. Then again, given what the Fans seem to think about his arm, I think a more pessimistic defensive view may have been in order. I did this before the trade deadline, so the FSR for this year wasn’t available.

All that to say that I agree.

What most Giants fans don’t get (and all non-Giants fans) is that with great pitching, you don’t need a great offense to win a division. In fact, if they just had an average offense, then their pitching is good enough to win a division. Use Pythag and just try it out, you’ll see it in a table.

In addition, a THT study found that being good at preventing runs results in your team not needing to score as many runs in order to win the same number of games. That also comes into play as well.

Thus, the Giants only need to focus on improving certain positions offensively just to average production in order to greatly improve their chances of winning. Last season, 2B was a black hole of offensive production. Sanchez, even the non-2006 Sanchez overall, would be a huge improvement over the low .600 OPS that they got from 2B last season.

RF was also a hole (Winn) but Schierholtz looks to be about average offensively, based on his MLEs from AAA. Bowker hopefully can continue his improvement in AAA into the majors and provide average offense from LF, where we got below average production. And Posey, at some point, should be able to provide at least average offense from C, which we did not get from Molina last season. Lastly, Renteria’s elbow had an asteroid-sized object taken out, and hopefully his swing will be much better in 2010 and he can provide at least average production there at SS (people are dreaming if they think Uribe is going to repeat his performance). 1B is below average but 3B is 1B worthy, so each is the average of the other. And Rowand has been about average CF offensively.

And while Sanchez is injury prone, Frandsen has been a good enough hitter in the minors that he can play for 2-3 weeks and not hold back the offense or defense that much taking over there.

That’s the whole ballclub, approximately average if we can get prospects hitting as well as they did in AAA-MLE and vets (Renteria, Sanchez, Rowand) to what they can hit when healthy. If we can get an average offense (4.5 RS) with our pitching staying the same or better (3.7 RA), the Giants should win mid-90’s games. That should be good enough to win the division, or at least make the playoffs via the wildcard.

It should not take much to get an Alderson type. Pitchers who cannot strike out over 5 K/9 in AA are usually dime a dozen, particularly when they don’t have any above average skills that suggest that things will get better for him in the majors. Meanwhile, the Giants got a major league average 2B when they had nobody in the minors who look like they can do that regularly for them over the next two seasons.

However, I would offer up Nick Noonan as a future 2B who might be able to take over once Sanchez is gone. He’s been a disappointment up to now, but he had a great two month end of the season where he was walking a whole lot more and showing the discipline that he was known for when he was drafted but hadn’t shown until now.

People (and I include myself) forget that he’s only 20 years old. When he started the season, he was a 19 year old facing pitchers who have 4-6 years of experience in college and/or pros, while he only had one year in the pros. That experience factor really worked against him until late in the season when he started figuring things out. I’m greatly encouraged about him now, not to the point where I would put him back up on that hyped prospect pedestal that he was on when he was drafted, but I think he’s at least on track for being a MLB starter again, while I would have doubted that previously.