Questions For The San Francisco Giants Heading Into The 2011 Season

Pitchers and catchers report today for the San Francisco Giants in Scottsdale, Arizona. The remainder of the squad returns for Spring Training on Friday and the Giants play their first Spring Training game on February, 25th. The defending champions have a few questions that should be answered over the course of the Spring Training.

1. Can Brandon Belt contribute immediately?

There has been a lot made of Brandon Belt. While Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, and even Matt Cain six years ago received a lot of hype before they joined the majors, I've never seen hype like this before for a Giants prospect. From everything I've read about Belt, you'd think he's the second coming of Albert Pujols. And yes he does have some great minor league numbers, but can he contribute in the majors immediately? And how much can he contribute? And can he play any other positions besides first base for the Giants don't have to play Pat Burrell every day? Belt is the most intriguing plot-line in spring training this season. Every Giants fan will definitely keep a close eye on Belt and pray he'll make the team right away.


2. Can the Giants rotation hold up?

This questions really doesn't concern me, but it does for some people. All the Giants pitchers, except Zito, are in their 20's and never pitched that many innings before I'm not worried about guys like Cain or Bumgarner because they're big strong kids. I'm not worried about Zito because he never gets hurt. I am worried though about Jonathon Sanchez because he faded and imploded badly in his last three starts in the postseason. Will that carry over into this season? Is it time for the Giants to finally trade Sanchez for a bat? Can Zach Wheeler eventually replace Sanchez? I also still worry about Lincecum. Roy Oswalt has proven that little guys can pitch for a while if they stay in shape. Lincecum finally got into shape halfway through last season, but I still worry about his health. His pitching motion is so violent that all you can do is worry about his health. I try not to worry about it too much, but it's always in the back of my mind.

3. Can Pablo Sandoval and Miguel Tejada replace Juan Uribe's production?

For a team that at times was so futile on offense, the loss of Uribe could be huge. Sandoval finally whipped himself into acceptable shape, but he's still a free swinger. Can he get back to his 09 level when he hit 25 home runs? That would be huge for the Giants. As for Tejada, I don't know what to expect. He hit 15 home runs last year, so the Giants will need him to at least hit as many this year along with Sandoval bringing up his production from last season. Maybe down the road during the season the Giants might have to call up Ehire Adrianza or Brandon Crawford to platoon with Tejada at short. This will be an issue all season.

4. What will be the first thing Bruce Bochy does that will anger Giants fans? 

Trick question! Bochy will surely anger Giants fans during the first Spring Training game when he will start Rowand in centerfield over Torres.

5. Can the Giants finally unload the Rowand and Zito contracts this year?

I don't know what it is with the Giants, but unlike most teams they refuse to trade bad contracts and pay for the rest of the deal like other teams will. Hopefully though with Rowand's and Zito's deals nearing the end, the Giants can finally trade both of those guys midseason. Specifically Rowand, who isn't really needed for the Giants in an already crowded outfield.

There's definitely going to be more questions that will need to be answered further down the road, but right now these are the big ones. These are the plot-lines I'll be following for the start the spring training.