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As baseball fans, we love getting worked up about the next big thing. And as someone who follows a Twitter account that alerts me when Bryce Harper is about to come to the plate, I am well aware that I am as guilty of this as anyone.

The problem with this line of thinking is that we sometimes take for granted the older guys because we've been watching them for so long. We really shouldn't. Exhibit A is Carlos Beltran, who put on a show against the Atlanta Braves on Friday and is playing about as well as he ever has at the age of 35.

The switch-hitter went 4-for-5 with two homers, a double, a triple, a walk and 4 RBIs, and even though Atlanta won 9-7 in 12 innings, Beltran was the story. He is now hitting .307/.410/.658 on the young season. No, he's not the basestealing threat he once was, and he's been relegated to right field, but the sweet swing is still there, and the Cardinals are reaping the benefits after signing him to a two-year, $26 million deal last winter that now seems like the steal of the century.

Beltran missed much of the 2009 and 2010 seasons with a variety of injuries while playing for the New York Mets. And even though he posted an .872 OPS with stellar defense and baserunning over the life of the seven-year, $119 million deal he signed with the club before the 2005 season, New York fans never warmed to him due to his aloof nature and the fact that he took a called third strike to end Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. (I've never really understood this, by the way. It was a great pitch and he was fooled. Taking a harmless hack wouldn't have changed anything.)

But ever since the start of last season Beltran has been locked in. He hit .300 with 22 homers for the Mets and San Francisco Giants in 2011, and this year he has taken his game to a level unseen since 2006, when he tied the Mets' franchise record with 41 home runs and posted a .982 OPS. As ESPN Insider contributor Dave Cameron noted on Twitter earlier this evening, he's basically matching Matt Kemp in terms of performance with a fraction of the hype.

St. Louis fans have a reputation for embracing their players in a way that many other fan bases don't, and here's hoping they are fully appreciating the greatness of Beltran in a way that many New York fans never seemed to. Frankly, we all should be appreciating him more because he's one of the best players of this generation.

With two more stolen bases he will become just the eighth player in baseball history with more than 300 homers and 300 steals, and with another couple of seasons of All-Star level production -- which is not out the question considering his current level of play -- he should have a strong Hall of Fame case. However, we know he can't keep up his current production forever, so let's enjoy it while it's here instead of focusing too much on who might be coming next.

• Austin Jackson scored a run in each of the Tigers' first six games this season. That was the longest streak by a Detroit batter to start a season since Darrell Evans crossed the plate in each of the first eight contests in 1986. And it's the longest streak by a Tigers leadoff hitter since 1939, when one of Jackson's center field predecessors, Barney McCosky, also scored in the first eight games of the season. In game seven on Friday, however, Jackson was on base only once (he walked in the eighth) and was stranded at third.
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  Duane Burleson/AP PhotoAustin Jackson is having a solid season for the Tigers early on.
  The Red Sox managed to blow a three-run lead in the ninth and a two-run lead in the 11th in losing a wild one to Detroit on Sunday, 13-12. It was the first time Boston had scored a dozen runs and lost since May 31, 1970, when they were on the wrong end of a 22-13 slugfest with the White Sox at Fenway.
• Alfredo Aceves gave up all three ninth-inning runs in Sunday’s game without retiring a batter, making him just the second Red Sox pitcher in the live-ball era to work zero innings pitched in each of his first two appearances of the year. Guido Grilli faced one batter each in the first two games of the 1966 season, and didn't get either of them out.
• The Tigers used eight pitchers in that 13-12, come-from-behind win over the Red Sox. It marked just the second time in 70 years that Detroit had come back to win a game in which their starter surrendered seven-plus runs without getting through the third inning. Omar Olivares was the starter in 1997 when the Tigers rallied to beat Baltimore 11-8.
• On Sunday, the Yankees managed just three hits -- all doubles. That same day, the Twins had just two hits as Jason Hammel posted the longest no-hit bid of the year so far. Both Minnesota knocks were doubles. It's the first time in almost three years that two teams have done that on the same day. But then … the Royals did it against Oakland (three hits, three doubles) on Monday … and the Athletics did it against Kansas City (one hit) on Tuesday.It's the first time since at least 1917 that there have been three straight days where a team had every hit be a double.
• On Sunday, Jeff Samardzija (making just his sixth career start) was afforded the chance at a complete game. He had to be pulled after giving up a two-out homer that pulled the Nationals to within a run. Four days later, Matt Garza was en route to a shutout against Milwaukee, but was pulled after committing a two-out error that allowed the inning to continue. So the Cubs had two pitchers this week leave the game after 8.2 innings pitched.The Cubs hadn't had two pitchers work exactly 8.2 innings in the same season since 1995 (Jaime Navarro and Frank Castillo).
• In Sunday's Cardinals-Brewers game, you could say the teams spread it around. In the 9-3 Milwaukee victory, the 12 runs were charged to eight different pitchers. In fact, every hurler who appeared in the game ended up with at least one earned run on his record.It's the first game in eight seasons where the teams combined to use eight or more pitchers, and every single one of them got charged with at least one earned run. The last time that happened was on Sept. 9, 2004, when the Royals erupted for a 26-5 victory over the Tigers in the first game of a doubleheader.
• James Shields got called for a balk Wednesday on an illegal pickoff throw to third. That was in the bottom of the fifth -- after Justin Verlander had been called for his own balk in the top of the fifth.It was the first MLB game to feature balks by both teams in the same inning since Aug. 16, 2004, when the Rangers' Mickey Callaway and then-Indian CC Sabathia committed them in the fourth inning of a 5-2 Texas win.
• In that same game, Verlander threw eight shutout innings before getting tagged for four runs and the loss in the top of the ninth. He became the first pitcher to throw eight scoreless innings, then surrender four (or more) runs in the ninth to take a loss since Tim Hudson did it for the Braves on Sept. 22, 2005. Hudson allowed a three-run homer to Shane Victorino of the Phillies for most of that damage before Macay McBride had to come in and get the final out.
• In Monday's Yankees-Orioles game, Derek Jeter went a perfect 4-for-4 for the visitors, while Matt Wieters went a perfect 4-for-4 in the home dugout. It was the first game this year to feature two players with four-hit games.Since the start of 2010, there's been only one other MLB game where a player for each team went a perfect 4-for-4 or better -- and it was between the Orioles and Yankees. On July 30, 2011, Vladimir Guerrero’s 4-for-4 was the bright spot for Baltimore as the Yankees -- led by Robinson Cano's 5-for-5 -- demolished them 17-3.
• In Yu Darvish's much-anticipated major league debut on Monday, he allowed five earned runs, four walks, hit a batter, threw one wild pitch -- and won the game because the Rangers spotted him eight runs.He's the first pitcher in the live-ball era to win his major league debut while giving up all of those stats (or worse). Even take away the wild pitch, and only one other hurler has hit five earned runs, four walks, one HBP and a win in his debut. That was the Blue Jays' Matt Williams on Aug. 2, 1983.
• Jeff Gray of the Twins earned the first one-pitch victory of the season on Wednesday. Gray threw his one and only pitch to Peter Bourjos to end the top of the seventh, after which the Twins took the lead in the bottom of the inning. The Twins, conveniently, recorded the last one-pitch win last season, by Matt Capps on Sept. 23.
• Speaking of pitching oddities, the Royals-Athletics game was finally called in the top of the eighth inning on Tuesday after its second rain delay. Aaron Crow, who had pitched the seventh for the Royals, was credited with his first career save. Technically, he does meet the save criteria set forth in the rule book, notably that of being the "finishing pitcher" in a game his team won.The last player to be credited with a save prior to the ninth inning was Tony Sipp of the Indians, who received one in a rain-shortened affair with Tampa Bay on July 23, 2010. That also remains Sipp's only career save.
• On Tuesday, Freddy Garcia of the Yankees famously threw five wild pitches to tie the single-game American League record for such a thing. He was also the first pitcher to throw five-plus wild pitches in an outing of less than five innings. But two of those wild pitches scored runs for Baltimore. Another run scored on an error. That made the Orioles the first team in two years to score four-plus runs with one or fewer RBI. (The one RBI they did get came on a home run.)For the Orioles, it was just the second time since moving to Baltimore that they scored four runs on one or zero RBI. The other was in their inaugural year: On June 27, 1954, they scored three times on errors by the Athletics before finally walking off on an RBI single in the bottom of the 11th.
• Oakland "walked off" in unusual fashion on Wednesday when Jonathan Broxton plunked Yoenis Cespedes and Jonny Gomes to force in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th. It was the first game to end with back-to-back hit batters since Sept. 2, 1966, when Stu Miller of the Orioles hit Al Weis and Tommie Agee of the White Sox in the bottom of the 11th. (I admit that Elias found this a lot quicker than I would have.) However, Gomes became the first Athletics batter to get hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in extra innings since at least 1947. (It had never happened in the Baseball Reference "play index" era.) It's also noteworthy that Oakland scored its two runs in the 12th without a base hit. The three runners ahead of Cespedes reached on two walks and an error.
• Before Friday, there had been 36 double-digit strikeout games by teams this week (including seven games where both teams did it) but not one by a single pitcher. Max Scherzer's 11-strikeout outing on Friday afternoon broke that string.
• In Wednesday's 17-8 eruption between the Giants and Rockies, there were four pitchers (Tim Lincecum, Jeremy Guthrie, Guillermo Mota, Jeremy Affeldt)who all gave up at least six hits and at least five runs. It's the first time that that has happened since July 17, 1998, when Seattle dropped an 18-5 score on the Royals at the Kingdome.(It is also very intriguing that, in that game, both teams posted a seven-run inning. Except I don't know of a good way to search line scores.)
  
  By the way, on their next two games on Thursday and Friday, the Giants promptly had two pitchers (Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain)carry no-hit bids into the sixth inning. The only team to have bids in consecutive games last season was also the Giants. That happened on May 8 and 10 by Ryan Vogelsong and Lincecum.
• The Orioles and Blue Jays combined to hit seven home runs in Baltimore's 7-5 victory on Friday. All were solo shots. It's the first game with seven-plus home runs that were all solo since a July 20, 2010 game at Camden Yards between the Rays and Orioles.
• There's always one guy left out.In the 10-9 "pitchers’ duel" between the Twins and Angels on Thursday, 17 of the 18 starters recorded at least one base hit. Howard Kendrick was the lone collar, going 0-for-4 plus a walk.
  
  It's the first nine-inning game this season to have 17 different starters record a base hit. There were three games last season where all 18 did.
• Minnesota got a four-hit game from Denard Span and three-hit games from Joe Mauer, Josh Willingham and Danny Valencia. It's the first time the Twins have had four players with three hits, including at least one with four, since they dropped a 20-1 score on the White Sox on May 21, 2009.

Last year, You Can't Predict Baseball came up with bold predictions for the year. We had a lot of fun coming up with them, and then laughing at how hilariously wrong they were at the end of the year. This year, we're bringing these predictions to SweetSpot, along with explanations for some of them. Keep in mind, these predictions are supposed to be bold, but not insane -- even we know the Orioles aren't going to the playoffs in 2012.

Los Angeles Angels: Kendrys Morales stays healthy all year.

Houston Astros: Bud Norris is top five in K/9 in the NL. We figured something good had to happen to the Astros, right? Norris actually has a pretty nice career K/9.

Oakland Athletics: Yoenis Cespedes is their starting center fielder by Memorial Day.

Toronto Blue Jays: Brandon Morrow makes the jump to elite starting pitcher. He's struck out more than 10 batters per 9 innings two years running, though his ERAs have remained ugly. We think this is the year his results finally match the stuff, especially considering his declining walk rate.

Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran has more wins than Tim Hudson.

Milwaukee Brewers: Rickie Weeks leads the team in home runs. He was fourth on the team last year, with 20. In front of him were Corey Hart with 26, Ryan Braun with 33, and Prince Fielder with 38. Fielder is gone, and for this prediction we'll assume Braun will miss a third of the year due to a suspension. It's not too bold to think Weeks could pass Hart in 2012.

St. Louis Cardinals: Carlos Beltran outproduces Albert Pujols from last year. Albert Pujols was great last year, but not quite best-player-of-his-generation Albert Pujols. If healthy, it's not absurd to think of Beltran outproducing Pujols' 5.1 WAR in 2011.

Chicago Cubs: Matt Garza isn't their best pitcher. It'll be Ryan Dempster, who had great peripherals but bad results last year.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Aaron Hill will be good again. He was great with them in limited time, and Arizona's park is quite hitter-friendly.

Los Angeles Dodgers: James Loney will be a top-three first baseman in the National League. Many thanks to Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness for somewhat alerting us to this one. We just decided to take it semi-absurdly far.

San Francisco Giants: Madison Bumgarner is their best pitcher. In terms of ERA, he already wasn't very far behind Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, and his K/BB ratio eclipsed theirs by quite a bit.

Cleveland Indians: They'll have the best pitching in the American League Central. We're banking on Ubaldo Jimenez, making a major comeback to something closer to what he was in 2010, and the rest of the staff displaying the good that they did in 2011. We're also counting on the Tigers' starters not being very impressive behind Justin Verlander, which is bold but not quite insane, and the pitching of the White Sox, Twins and Royals not being able to keep up with Cleveland's.

Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero catches 100-plus games. The Mariners probably aren't going to compete, so why not try and play him where he'll accrue the most value?

Miami Marlins: Despite all their new acquisitions and the hype, they still finish fourth in the NL East. When you think about it, this one isn't so crazy. If Josh Johnson isn't healthy and maybe even if he is their pitching still trails that of Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta; even with Heath Bell, we don't think their bullpen is as good, either. Their offense might be better than some of those teams', but the Marlins were quite a bit below league average offensively last year and we're not sure how much Jose Reyes is going to make up for that.

New York Mets: Mike Pelfrey is the worst starter in the NL. Pelfrey's been pretty terrible two of the past three years, and now they're moving the fences in at Citi Field. He was far better in his huge home stadium, but we're guessing with the moved-in walls he'll be significantly worse at Citi. Here at YCPB, we actually don't think the Mets are going to be quite as dire as many are saying, even if they do come in last place in the NL East - but Pelfrey won't be a bright spot.

Washington Nationals: Stephen Strasburg has a 17-strikeout game.

Baltimore Orioles: Matt Wieters is the best catcher in the AL. A lot of people are so obsessed with Wieters not matching the hype that they didn't notice he became a plus offensive performer last year, to go along with very good defense. His taking the next step isn't that bold as predictions go, especially if Joe Mauer has to move off catcher.

San Diego Padres: Luke Gregerson is a top-three closer in the NL.

Philadelphia Phillies: Cole Hamels is their best starter. And this isn't meant to be a slight to Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, but considering their ages and the fact that Hamels is pretty darn good himself, plus a possible boost from a contract year...

Pittsburgh Pirates: Charlie Morton is their All-Star.

Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish isn't their best starter -- but he's still good. And we think he'll be pretty good, we just think Derek Holland will become more consistently good, or Matt Harrison will put up numbers like his 2011.

Tampa Bay Rays: James Shields will have no complete games. Predicting someone to have no complete games might not seem bold, but it is when it's a guy who was known as "Complete Game James" last season. Shields did have 11 complete games in 2011, an almost unheard-of number these days, but he had no complete games in 2009 or 2010.

Boston Red Sox: No one hits 30 home runs. This might seem crazy when you consider their great offensive numbers last year, but only one player on their team hit 30 home runs and it was Jacoby Ellsbury with 32.

Cincinnati Reds: Brandon Phillips is the best second baseman in the NL.

Colorado Rockies: Jamie Moyer will have the best HR/9 on the staff.

Kansas City Royals: They reach .500. While their pitching won't be great, their offense will take a big step forward this year. Combined with the rest of their division being the Tigers and some dumpster fires, it's not that difficult to see it happening.

Detroit Tigers: They score fewer runs than they did in 2011. Yes, that’s even with Fielder. It's not improbable that Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila and Delmon Young regress quite a bit from their numbers with Detroit last year, and that Prince Fielder's production "only" makes up for the offensive loss of Victor Martinez in 2012. They'll still have a very good offense, though.

Minnesota Twins: Joe Mauer hits 15 home runs.

Chicago White Sox: Robin Ventura gets ejected more times than Ozzie Guillen. Look at the state of the White Sox. We'd get ejected too.

New York Yankees: Hiroki Kuroda leads the team in ERA.

You Can't Predict Baseball is an affiliate of the SweetSpot network.

I don’t actually remember the first baseball game I attended, but in the spring of 1973 my father assures me we went to see a local high school phenom named Floyd Bannister, who would go 15-0 with an 0.00 ERA and three years later become the first pick in the draft by the Astros.

The first major league game I saw in person was Mariners versus Red Sox, Kingdome, May 1977. Must have been backpack night or tote bag night because the attendance totaled more than 52,000, and back then the Mariners drew that many fans only on Opening Day or for promotional giveaways. Jim Rice and Carlton Fisk hit home runs and, of course, the Mariners lost.

While I suffered through endless defeats, I witnessed plenty of exciting moments, like Ruppert Jones hitting an inside-the-park home run against the Yankees that first season that propelled everybody into a “Rupe! Rupe! Rupe!” chant at the top of our lungs. Or bat night in 1981, when Tom Paciorek beat the Yankees for the second night in a row with a ninth-inning home run and we started banging our bats against the metal bleachers in a deafening celebration. I was there with my father when Gaylord Perry won his 300th game and later that season when Perry was ejected for the only time in his career for throwing a spitball (Boston’s Rick Miller swung and missed a pitch by about two feet and charged the mound, leading to an impressive melee).

I’ve seen Mark Langston two-hit the Tigers, compelling Sparky Anderson to call him the best young left-hander he’d seen since Sandy Koufax. I loved Langston and his high leg kick, but the Mariners couldn’t afford him and he was later traded for a tall, gangly rookie named Randy Johnson, and I was there in the upper deck when Johnson beat the Angels (and Langston) in the 1995 tiebreaker to put the Mariners into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

I’ve sat in primo box seats at Fenway Park (thanks, Rob), watching Pedro Martinez strike out 17 Devil Rays … and lose 1-0 because Steve Trachsel pitched a three-hit shutout. I’ve seen Clemens throw a bat at Piazza, squinting from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, not sure I saw what I thought I saw. I’ve seen Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius hit bottom-of-the-ninth homers to tie World Series games, and I definitely couldn’t believe what I saw.

I’m just one fan, with my own chamber of baseball memories. You have your own, but we all keep going to the ballpark or watching on television or checking updates on our phones for the same reasons: We still love the games. We want to know who wins, who loses, hope for a game-winning home run or a young left-hander who throws 95 and makes us believe he’s the next Koufax.

So with the 2011 season soon upon us, I can’t wait for the games to begin, to see more memories formed.

To see what Buster Posey and the Giants will do for an encore.

To see whether Jason Heyward will explode in his sophomore campaign.

To see Carl Crawford going first to home on an Adrian Gonzalez double off the Monster.

To see if the Rays can again shock the baseball world and win the AL East for the third time in four seasons.

To see Cardinals fans give Albert Pujols a five-minute standing ovation the first time he steps to the plate.

To see Joey Votto deliver more big hits for Reds. (Note: I have a man crush on Joey Votto.)

To see Troy Tulowitzki range deep in the hole and rob a batter of a sure single. And then blast a 425-foot home run later in the inning.

To see Joe Mauer spray line drives all over the field.

To see Justin Verlander and Josh Johnson blow away hitters.

To see the artistry of Roy Halladay.

To see Yankees fans panic if Derek Jeter starts the season 1-for-14.

I can’t wait to see the late game on Opening Day: Tim Lincecum versus Clayton Kershaw, the little righty with the funky motion and two Cy Young Awards versus the big lefty who could win one this season.

If our memories of games are a tangled web of neurons, well, that’s kind of how baseball works, too. Langston was drafted in the second round with a pick acquired from the Rangers after they signed Bill Stein as a free agent. The Mariners picked Stein in the expansion draft from the White Sox, who had acquired him for Jerry DaVanon, who had been traded for Roger Repoz, who was acquired for Jack Sanford, who came up on the unlucky end of a 1-0 loss for the Giants in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. The Giants didn’t win a World Series in San Francisco until 2010, led by their ace Lincecum, who grew up in the suburbs of Seattle -- maybe the first game he ever saw featured Mark Langston -- using a pitching motion his father taught him, a motion modeled on the delivery of Sandy Koufax.

The SweetSpot blog will be here all season, writing about and discussing and analyzing the web that is a baseball season. Join myself and other contributors as we discuss the news, have some fun and give you a chance to interact. Mostly, we’ll be watching a lot of games, as the moments of 2011 unveil themselves.

I can’t wait. How many hours until the first pitch?

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter at @dschoenfield. Follow the SweetSpot blog at @espn_sweet_spot.

Pablo Sandoval is having a nice start to the spring. He’s punched extra-base hits all over Arizona and smashed two home runs in 13 at-bats. We all know that that’s not important, but it’s damned hard to ignore, even for those of us who know better. Coupled with his offseason weight loss, I can dimly start to see a few people begin to make the connection between the two things.

At some point last season, Sandoval crossed that miserable and subjective line from “big-boned” and “husky” to “chunky” and “fatty fat fat fat.” While his waistline increased, his batting average decreased. And for a certain number of people, that’s the whole story. Got too fat, couldn’t hit anymore.

If you buy this simple story, it should be pretty easy to believe that Sandoval is heading back to repeat his excellent 2009 season. Reports vary on the extent of his weight loss, but it is certainly more than 20 pounds, so he’s approximately gone from Giant Panda to Red Panda. If you believe the fatness was responsible for the lack of hitting, then getting less fat should bring the hitting back, right?

Yeah, except who actually knows what caused Sandoval’s drop-off? His numbers were actually all pretty similar except for big drops in power and BABIP. It isn’t too hard to find examples of great hitters with boilers, and Sandoval certainly wasn't skinny in 2009 when there was nothing he couldn't hit. Plus, I just can’t quite wrap my head around the cause. How does extra weight stop you from driving and squaring up the ball?

The San Jose Mercury News’ Giants beat writer, Andrew Baggerly, has a theory that’s as good as any other, that the extra weight impacted Sandoval’s defense, which, in turn, made him press at the plate. I don’t know if this theory is correct, but it sounds pretty plausible to me. Or, it could have been a mental issue unrelated to his weight gain.

And that’s the problem. We can't really know what caused the terrible season, and it could come and go as it pleases, especially if the problem was mainly mental. If Sandoval were a 10-year veteran, we would be pretty well-assured that he has the mental fortitude to pull himself back up after a down season. But he’s a 24-year-old kid who rode a rocket to the big leagues and found success probably before he knew how to deal with it.

The projection systems all foresee a bounce-back year. Undoubtedly, if you had 100 seasons worth of young hitters with two seasons like Sandoval’s 2009 and 2010, the weighted average would be similar to the ZiPS projection of .295/.346/.475. But we have no idea if, say, the hitters who got really sad and lost confidence hit worse than that. In other words, projections are just that. But you knew that; it’s just that in this case, we have a player who may have more things that can trip him up than normal.

The weight loss is great. Apart from being good for his health, at the very least, it really should help Sandoval stick at third, important to both his fantasy and actual baseball value. But it’s just too easy to say better fitness translates into better hitting.

Otis Anderson writes for Bay City Ball, which is part of the SweetSpot blog network.

The Giants have re-signed Pat Burrell, and early reports suggest it's a team-friendly deal.

This speaks well of the Giants, who apparently have created a friendly environment. This speaks well of Burrell, who's apparently going to take a significant pay cut -- he made $8 million this year -- and must know that he'll continue to be yanked from the game almost every time the Giants have a lead after the sixth or seventh inning.

So this is a day when everyone should feel pretty good about themselves.

Tomorrow, though, the Giants will still have some tough questions to answer. Internally, anyway. Burrell and Aubrey Huff are back in the fold. But will they be as good next year as they were this year? Will Andres Torres?

I admire the Giants for (presumably) not matching the Dodgers' offer for Juan Uribe, and Miguel Tejada makes for a perfectly acceptable place-holder. The Giants didn't really get better at shortstop, though. And at some point this winter they need to get better, somewhere.

They do get a little better with a full season of Buster Posey behind the plate. They do get a little better, probably, when super-prospect Brandon Belt joins the lineup at some point next spring. But the re-signing of Huff does make it a little bit tougher to get Belt into the lineup, and the re-signing of Burrell might mean Carl Crawford isn't even on the Giants' radar screen.

They can say that Barry Zito's and Aaron Rowand's and Mark DeRosa's contracts are irrelevant all they like. But it's hard to look at all those dollars and not imagine what the Giants could do if they had them.

How, if at all, does the Giants' championship affect the Athletics' proposed move to San Jose? From the Mercury News:

The Giants have insisted South Bay fans and corporate sponsors are crucial to their bottom line. Many San Jose boosters say those fears would be offset by the number of East Bay fans who would likely drive a shorter distance across the Bay Bridge to attend Giants games instead of hiking south.

At Sunday's game, Selig told a Bay Area News Group columnist that a decision on the A's would be coming "hopefully in the near future."

At least one expert Monday said the claim that an A's move to San Jose would hurt the Giants' bottom line might be difficult to prove after the San Francisco team's handsome postseason profits -- as well as the prospect of an even larger boost from ticket sales and sponsorships next year.

"To the extent that the commissioner's office would be concerned about the Giants' financial well-being if the A's were allowed to move to San Jose," said Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economist and baseball expert, "that concern would by allayed given the success the Giants have had."

To which Craig responds:

Setting aside the fact that Zimbalist has been disqualified as an expert in ballpark development cases because, to put it delicately, he’s often full of crap, on what planet does this make any sense?

The Giants just won a World Series and made a bunch of money with no other team in their territory. Wouldn’t it be more logical to say that a team cutting into their territory and thus their profits would hamper the kind of success they just experienced while their territory rights remained inviolate? Or even if that wasn’t the case, why wouldn’t the response be that, no matter how successful the team is, they’d always be more successful if they had San Jose to themselves?

Craig's underlying analysis is probably correct, but I think he's being a bit rough on Zimbalist. Essentially, the paragraph before Zimbalist's quote sets him up as saying something -- a team in San Jose wouldn't hurt the Giants' bottom line -- that he doesn't actually say.

What he says is that the Giants' success takes some financial pressure off the organization, which I think is undoubtedly true. Their championship is going to pay immediate dividends, and additional dividends for some years. He also says that the Giants' success may allay some concerns about the franchise's financial future, should the A's relocate to San Jose.

But this is worth mentioning only if anyone (who matters) actually has such concerns. Before the World Series, were the Giants concerned about going out of business? Hardly. Were any of the owners concerned about the Giants' bottom line? Har-dy-har-har.

According to Craig, "this is ultimately a business dispute. The kind that no amount of baseball success is going to resolve on its own."

Yes, but it's also a political dispute. To alter the Giants' "territory," Major League Baseball needs two things: some confidence that the Giants won't sue MLB for $200 million and win; and enough votes from the owners of the 29 other teams. You know how the A's are voting. And I can guarantee that the other 28 teams aren't going to give a second's thought to the welfare of the A's or the Giants. They'll be thinking about themselves.

And if you can figure out which way those 28 teams will go, you're probably the smartest man in the room.

When the Giants won the National League West, my mind flashed back to something that Craig Wright wrote, right around Opening Day. When the Giants won the World Series, I asked Craig if I could reprint a portion of that essay. He said yes. Remember, this is from last April ...

But what I don't understand is why everyone seems to discount the chances of the San Francisco Giants. Sports Illustrated has them third; ESPN Magazine has them 4th and gives them only a 3% chance to win the division. None of the 12 experts at Baseball Prospectus picked the Giants, and overall they also have them in 4th place behind Arizona. I personally think that's nuts.

My feeling is that this is really a three-team race, and that with just a small break here and there the Giants could top the Dodgers, who are my favorite. Look at all the opportunities that point toward improvement for San Francisco ...

--snip--

The Giants won 88 games in 2009 with a pretty crummy lineup, and I count five likely upgrades and no significant downgrades on offense. And it could be six offensive upgrades when top catching prospect Buster Posey comes up later in the year.

Fine, Craig. I would be really impressed if you'd predicted that the Padres would win 90 games.

No, I kid Craig because I love him. He was absolutely right about the Giants having a huge opportunity to improve their lineup, and they did that at nearly every spot where the opportunities existed (while coping with a massive decline at third base, courtesy of the Panda).

Even without knowing that Aubrey Huff would erupt as he did, Craig reasoned that while the Giants hadn't made any high-profile moves to bolster their offense, they had made (or would make) enough low-profile moves to make a difference. And he was right. The Giants added roughly six offensive wins, which was (in the event) exactly how many they needed. And then in October the pitchers took over.

Craig would be the first to admit that he doesn't have all the answers. What he does have is a sharp and original mind, and there are few people who think about baseball like he does. The latest edition of his newsletter is all about the Giants, and I can't recommend a subscription highly enough. A number of Giants fans have claimed that they'll never read me again, which makes me sad. But if they're migrating to Craig Wright, I'll be a lot less sad.

Reacting to a quote from a Giants executive -- "We've shown 'Moneyball' is a bunch of garbage." -- Mike Silva has this:

Paul DePodesta did say his definition of “Moneyball” is finding undervalued players. I believe two key contributors, Juan Uribe and Andres Torres, might fall into that category. Again, I believe incorporating aspects of advanced statistical analysis into decision making is essential to survive in the modern game.

Remember, the MLB playoffs is a tournament. You get there and anything can happen regardless of Moneyball.

Some of the key elements in the Oakland team memorialized as (and in) "Moneyball" were (1) a fantastic home-grown rotation, (2) a relatively cheap but quite effective closer, (3) a cheap but quite productive first baseman who nobody else really wanted and (4) a cheap, veteran left fielder who'd recently struggled as a DH in the American League East.

Looking at the 2010 Giants, let's see ... check, check, check, and check.

One big difference between the 2002 Athletics and the 2010 Giants ... the A's had very little money to spend (hence "Moneyball") while the Giants had a fairly large amount of money to spend.

Except the way things worked out, the Giants that won the World Series on the field didn't actually make a great deal of money.

The Giants opened this season with a payroll approaching $100 million. But by the end of September, fully $30 million of that payroll -- the portion allocated to Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand -- was essentially dead money. Zito didn't pitch in the playoffs and Rowand, on the bench for much of the season, went 3 for 11 in the tournament. Essentially, the team that won the World Series was a $70 million team. Which would have ranked somewhere near the bottom among National League payrolls.

The Giants won the World Series. The Moneyball Athletics still haven't won a postseason series. In 2001 and 2002, the Moneyball Athletics won 205 games. In 2009 and 2010, the (supposedly) anti-Moneyball Giants won 190 games.

I understand that there's been a great deal of pent-up frustration within the Giants organization. Jerks like me have compared Brian Sabean to Billy Beane, and found Sabean wanting. Maybe that wasn't fair. Sabean's certainly got his ring, and Beane certainly doesn't. But considering how much money the Giants have flushed down the toilet these past few seasons, if I worked for them I probably wouldn't raise that particular subject too often.

Now that he's won a World Series, is Brian Sabean's next order of business to trade his highest-paid player?

Barry Zito has fallen to fifth in the San Francisco Giants' starting rotation, but General Manager Brian Sabean said he has no plans to trade the left-hander this winter.

--snip--

"We like Barry's contribution as far as the innings he pitches and the starts he makes," Sabean said before Game 5 of the World Series on Monday. "Part of Barry's problem is that we haven't been able to score for him."

--snip--

In his final 12 games, he went 1-8 with a 6.14 ERA. The Giants started him in their next-to-last gaem of the regular season, when they would have clinched the National League West with a victory; he walked home two runs and lasted three innings.

Signing Barry Zito for $126 million was just incredibly foolish. Everybody (except the Giants) thought it was incredibly foolish at the time, and everybody (except the Giants) was right.

But everything the Giants have done with Zito since then has been exactly right.

With one or two very brief exceptions, the Giants have sent Zito the mound every five or six days and hoped for the best, which is exactly what they should have done because he's been (roughly) a league-average starting pitcher, and that's almost always been better than whatever other option might have been available to the Giants.

That will probably remain the case in 2011. Apparently there's some talk about turning Dan Runzler into a starter, but we're at the very beginning of that conversation; Runzler has been a reliever throughout his professional career.

In the mean time, it makes ultimate sense for Sabean to express his confidence in Zito. Anything else would only hurt his player's feelings and depress his player's already negligible (and perhaps non-existent) trade value. Forget about the money. Barry Zito's one of the best No. 5 starters you'll ever find.

Remember when Cliff Lee was unbeatable? Seems like a vague memory now ...

While Lee matched Tim Lincecum on the scoreboard for the first six innings of Game 6, he wasn't really matching him.

In the second inning, Pat Burrell lined one of Lee's pitches into deep left field (where it was caught).

In the third inning, Freddy Sanchez lined one of Lee's pitches up the middle, and Lee somehow snagged the ball on its way into center field.

In the fourth inning, Buster Posey lined one of Lee's pitches into the right-field corner, just a foot or two foul.

In the sixth inning, Posey lined one of Lee's pitches deep into right-center field, where Nelson Cruz was able to flag it down.

You give up enough line drives, and eventually some of them are going to start falling in for singles and doubles. Which is what happened in the seventh inning, when three Giants hit Lee's pitches hard; one went for a ground-ball single, one for a line-drive single, and one for a fly-ball home run.

And with those three swings -- and particularly the last of them -- Game 5 and the entire World Series felt essentially over. Which it was. Because Lincecum -- as he was in 2008 and 2009, and in April and September of 2010 -- was simply too good to lose.

Yes, the Giants' dominance in this World Series did surprise most of us. But there have been far, far bigger surprises:

In 2006, the 83-78 Cardinals beat the 95-67 Tigers in five games.

In 2003, the 91-71 Marlins beat the 101-61 Yankees in six games.

In 1995, the 90-54 Braves beat the 100-44 Indians in six games.

In 1990, the 91-71 Reds beat the 103-59 Athletics in four games.

In 1988, the 94-67 Dodgers beat the 104-58 Athletics in five games.

In 1974, the 90-72 A's beat the 102-60 Dodgers in five games.

In 1969, the 100-62 Mets beat the 109-53 Orioles in five games.

And perhaps most famously, in 1954 the 97-57 Giants swept the 111-43 Indians.

In most or all of those cases, the eventual winners entered the World Series as big underdogs. In every case, what had come before quickly seemed irrelevant to the proceedings. Sometimes the winners benefited from more than the usual good luck (the '69 Mets come to mind). Sometimes the losers just flat-out beat themselves (the '06 Tigers come to mind). Usually, the winners just flat-out outplayed the losers.

Which was pretty obviously the case in 2010. In retrospect, the Giants shouldn't have been big underdogs against the Rangers ... and in retrospect, it's not clear that they were big underdogs. While it's true that most of the pundits predicted a Rangers victory, the predictions were mild: Rangers in six games, mostly, or seven. One computer simulation showed the Rangers with a 54 percent chance of winning ... which meant the Giants had a 46 percent chance of winning.

And it's probably worth mentioning that the Giants actually won more games than the Rangers during the regular season (and finished with a better run differential).

It's fair to be surprised that the Giants won in five games. Historically, most World Series have lasted longer than five games. It's fair to be slightly surprised that the Giants won the World Series at all, because most of the numbers suggested that the Rangers were the slightly better team.

Anyone who is shocked by the 2010 World Series hasn't been paying attention, over the years. The Giants were a very good team that played better than another very good team over the course of five games. If they play another five games next week, everything might be different.

They're not going to play another five games. This one's over. The great majority of Giants fans have never seen their team win a World Series. No Giants fan has seen their team win a World Series since moving to California more than a half-century ago.

Now they've got one. And as anyone who followed the Royals in '85 or the Twins in '87 or the Reds in '90 or the Cardinals in '06 will tell you, the only thing that matters is getting one. All the rest is details.

Meanwhile, as a baseball fan (as opposed to a Giants fan), it's really easy to enjoy this team's success. The Giants wear classic uniforms in a beautiful ballpark. Their roster is studded with fascinating players like Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval and Brian Wilson. Their manager was forced to make any number of tough decisions down the stretch and into the postseason, and nearly all of them worked brilliantly.

This one's for the fans who love the Giants, mostly. But there's plenty left over for the rest of us, too.

Tim Kawakami on a Game 7 decision the Giants really hope they don't have to make:

After losing 4-2 on Saturday, the Giants must beat Texas in two of the next three games, or else the series will reach Game 7, when [Jonathan] Sanchez is scheduled to start again.

And if it gets there, Game 7 could be one of the more panicked, chaotic, unpredictable events in Giants franchise history.

--snip--

"I made a good pitch to the first baseman, and he got it," Sanchez said. "That's not a bad pitch."

But pitching coach Dave Righetti bluntly conceded that he is concerned about Sanchez's dropping velocity and that the team must consider other options if the series gets to Game 7.

"Damn right, absolutely," Righetti said. "I'm sure it'll come up. You're not talking about 1 or 2 mph. He's pitching at 88."

Who would be the candidates to start Game 7 if not Sanchez? One is Bumgarner, who would be on three days' rest. Or, manager Bruce Bochy could turn it into a bullpen game and start Guillermo Mota or let Lincecum start and pitch the first few innings on two days' rest.

That would be chaos. And it all starts with the struggles of Sanchez, who was hitting 93 mph a few months ago.

Asked directly if he was fatigued, Sanchez said, no, he felt fine.They always say they feel fine. That's Chapter 3, Paragraph 6, Sub-Paragraph 11 in the "How to Be a He-Man Baseball Player Handbook," which has been just slightly revised in the last century or so (they did throw in that section about viewing childbirth actually enhancing once's macho-ness, and they took out the part about starting pitchers going the distance).

Anyway, I think Kawakami's ideas are too radical. Not too radical to actually work; about that, I wouldn't hazard a guess. But too radical to actually try. I just don't see Bruce Bochy going so far outside the playbook in the single largest baseball game that's been played in some years.*

* There hasn't been a Game 7 in the World Series since 2002 ... when another Giants manager relied on another shaky starting pitcher, and lost.

So I will propose something that's hardly radical. First, stick with Sanchez in Game 7. For better or worse, that die has already been cast. You can't start Bumgarner on short rest unless he gets knocked out of Game 4 early ... and if he gets knocked out of Game 4 early, you wouldn't have much confidence in him anyway. You could start Lincecum, but the guy's not Randy Johnson. And even if you get three innings out of him, you still have to find six more innings elsewhere. Which doesn't sound like much fun.

Sanchez isn't throwing as hard as usual, but it's not like he was terrible in Game 3. He couldn't put Mitch Moreland away. Seven or eight times out of 10, he will. Especially at home (which is where he'll be in Game 7). Send him out there and hope for the best ... with one codicil. Tell him before the game that after five innings, you're coming to get him, no matter how well he's pitched.

Hey, if he's got a five-run lead after five innings, you can always modify the plan. But if you tell him beforehand that you're looking for only five good innings, maybe he can buck up just a bit and add a little giddy-up to that fastball.

Or maybe Sanchez is just hurt, and there just isn't any more giddy-up available.

Game 3 wasn't about the breaks (unless you count Mitch Moreland hitting a home run against a left-handed pitcher).

Game 3 wasn't about the managers (though it would have been, if Buster Posey had been able to do something against Darren O'Day).

Game 3 was about the pitchers.

Colby Lewis out-pitched Jonathan Sanchez. Simple as that. And this should have surprised absolutely nobody.

During the regular season, Sanchez went 13-7 with a 3.07 ERA. Meanwhile, Lewis went 12-13 with a 3.72 ERA.

Granted, if that's all you knew, you would be excused for thinking the Giants entered Game 3 with a solid edge on the mound.

But we know so much more. We know that the ERA in the American League is slightly higher than the ERA in the National League (largely because pitchers don't "hit" in American League games). We know that Lewis' team plays in a hitter-friendly ballpark, while Sanchez's team plays in a pitcher-friendly ballpark.

If you've already somehow added all of that up, you know that Lewis's ERA was roughly 16 percent better than league average, and that Sanchez's ERA was roughly 33 percent better than league average.

Still a solid edge for the Giants, you might ... Ah, but we know still so much more. We know that Sanchez struck out roughly twice as many hitters as he walked this season, which is pretty good ... except Lewis struck out three times as many hitters as he walked. We know that Sanchez gave up 21 home runs in 193 innings this season, which is pretty good ... except Lewis gave up exactly as many homers in slightly more innings while facing slightly better hitters.

We know, most of all, that pitchers are most able to control three things: strikeouts, walks, and home runs ... and that in 2010, Lewis was superior to Sanchez in each of those categories. Lewis, in almost every way except the two ways we by which measured pitchers for so many years, out pitched Sanchez in 2010. Considering that the Rangers finished fourth in the American League in scoring and the Giants finished ninth in the National League, we simply had no reason to think the Giants would beat the Rangers in Game 3.

Speaking of non-surprises, I'm not sure that Lewis's season should have been considered a huge surprise. He did enter the season with a 6.71 career ERA in the majors. But even if we ignore his two brilliant seasons in Japan -- during which he went 26-17 with a 2.82 ERA and a Cliff Lee-like strikeout-to-walk ratio -- there have always been reasons to like Lewis.

He has always thrown reasonably hard (roughly as hard as Jonathan Sanchez, in case you didn't know). And before going to Japan, he'd shown a fair amount of promise in the minor leagues. When he was only 23, Lewis earned a rotation slot with the Rangers following two impressive Triple-A stints. Four years later -- having been waived by the Rangers, gone unsigned by the Tigers, and released by the Nationals, Lewis joined the Athletics. He spent roughly half of that season (2007) in the big club's bullpen, didn't pitch well. He spent the other half of that season with Triple-A Sacramento and pitched brilliantly: 1.88 ERA, strikeout-to-walk ratio better than 4.

After which the A's waived him to the Royals, who released him a month later. Having been employed (however sometimes briefly) by five teams in slightly more than three years, Lewis next signed with the Carp of Hiroshima. You know everything since.

What Bruce Bochy knows is that he couldn't have done anything about Lewis in Game 3. Bochy's only real option was getting Travis Ishikawa into the lineup rather than Pablo Sandoval (who took the collar in three at-bats). But even if we mostly ignore those players' respective histories (which favor Sandoval) it's not likely that Ishikawa accounts for three runs that Panda doesn't.

Bochy wasn't out-managed in Game 3; his team was out-hit and out-pitched.

Game 7 might be a different story. Game 7, if it happens, figures to be a rematch of Game 4, Sanchez versus Colby Lewis. And for all the propitious moves that Bochy has made in October, making Sanchez his No. 3 starter might not be one of them.

Since his fantastic start against the Braves in the Division Series, Sanchez has started three games and pitched 12-1/3 innings. If this World Series goes the distance, Sanchez will start two games while Madison Bumgarner -- who pitched better than Sanchez during the regular season, and has pitched better than Sanchez in the postseason -- will have started just once.

If this World Series goes the distance and the Giants lose, all of Bochy's moves might be forgotten because the Giants might have lost because Bochy didn't trust the rookie's numbers.

At this point it doesn't even seem real important, but Bruce Bochy still hasn't laid out his DH plans for these next three (or two) games:

The Giants will start Pablo Sandoval at designated hitter for Game 3 of the World Series today, but manager Bruce Bochy said he plans to employ more than one player in that slot before the club returns home.

Bochy has hinted strongly that first baseman Travis Ishikawa will get a start in Texas -- probably in Game 4, with Aubrey Huff moving to DH. It would be a prime chance for Ishikawa, who is 2 for 7 off the bench and finished seventh in the NL with a .319 average as a pinch hitter.

Because of those exploits, Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery gave Ishikawa a nickname that stuck earlier this season.

"He's Smoky," said Flannery, a reference to famed pinch hitter Forrest Harrill "Smoky" Burgess. "My uncle Hal Smith played on the Pirates with him, told me all about him. He's a lot like Ishi, too. Off the field, he didn't cuss, smoke or drink -- a very spiritual man.

"And 50 years ago, this guy had huge pinch hits."

Burgess held the major league record for pinch hits before Manny Mota passed him in 1979. Lenny Harris holds the record now.

One, it's not immediately apparent why Sandoval would start Game 3 but not Game 4. In both, the Giants will face a right-handed starting pitcher. Panda, a switch-hitter, has fared better against right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers; in fact, he has fared substantially better against right-handed pitchers than Ishikawa.

But in case you haven't been paying attention, Bruce Bochy is a certifiable genius. If he benches Panda in favor of Smoky in Game 4, you should just assume he's got a perfectly wonderful reason.

Or not. I'm really not inside Bochy's head. Mostly, I just wanted an excuse to mention my delight with a story about the 2010 World Series hinges on a reference to a little fat guy who, half a century ago, was baseball's most famous bench player. Only in this game, my friends. Only in this game.

In retrospect, maybe we should have seen this one coming ...

San Francisco Giants outfielder Jose Guillen, left off the team's postseason roster, is linked to a federal investigation into shipments of performance-enhancing drugs, The New York Times reported on its website Thursday night.

The story, citing several unidentified lawyers, said federal authorities told Major League Baseball they were looking into shipments of human growth hormone, allegedly sent to Guillen's wife in the Bay Area.

That was just before the postseason began, The Times said. Guillen was left off the Giants' roster for all three rounds because of a nagging neck injury, according to manager Bruce Bochy. According to The Times, the Giants were told to leave Guillen off the roster by Major League Baseball.

--snip--

Looking for more offense, the Giants acquired Guillen from the Kansas City Royals in a trade on Aug. 13. He batted .266 with three homers and 15 RBIs in 42 games for the NL West champions.

Cody Ross joined the Giants on August 22. He batted .288 with three homers and seven RBIs in 33 games for the NL West champions.

In the last week of the season, with the Giants still fighting for their lives, Guillen started five games and Ross started once.

I don't know if we'll ever know exactly why Cody Ross made the postseason roster and Jose Guillen didn't. They say it's because Guillen's neck was sore. But somehow it wasn't too sore for Guillen to start 15 of the Giants' 16 games.

Maybe the decision was based purely on Guillen's performance, and his injury. But the Giants would not be where they are right now if Cody Ross hadn't been handed the job in right field in the Giants' Division Series. And it now seems at least plausible that Ross wouldn't have been handed the job if Guillen hadn't gotten busted for drugs.

Among the bizarre incidents marking what might be the San Francisco Giants' first world championship, beating the stuffing out of Cliff Lee in Game 1 might have just been bumped to No. 2 on the list.