San Francisco Giants

For all those sportscasters in the Bay Area, nothing needs to be said about the Mark DeRosa signing other than he inked a deal with the Giants. Once you mention that, just move on to Sharks and Warriors highlights because this signing was only more of the same from the genius that is Brian Sabean.

In desperate need of some offense, the San Francisco Giants added a bat last night.

According to SI.com’s Jon Heyman via Twitter , the Giants have signed Mark DeRosa to a two-year, $12 million contract. DeRosa is expected to play third base for the Giants in 2010.

I’ll get to the Giants' part of this in a second, but for DeRosa and his camp, this has to be considered a loss. I know it’s hard to fathom someone losing when they just made $12 million, but it is.

It had been a long time coming since the San Francisco Giants had a winning season.

One of the best pitching staffs around overcame major deficiencies on offense, and for the first time since 2004, the Giants found themselves above the .500 mark when the season came to an end.

Tim Dierkes of MLBTraderumors.com is reporting that the Giants are close to a deal with utility man Mark DeRosa.

Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal tweeted around 12:45 Monday afternoon that DeRosa and the Giants were nearing a two-year agreement worth $12 million. 

The San Francisco Giants clearly need some offensive help from the free-agent market but re-thinking the way they evaluate their own home-grown talent would help boost their offense from within.

For instance, while the Giants have a plethora of inconsistent young talent including players who may or may not develop into everyday starters, Nate Schierholtz doesn't belong amongst that group.

Throughout the past couple years Giants fans have grouped together such players like John Bowker, Eugenio Velez, Fred Lewis, Travis Ishikawa and Schierholtz in the same category.

The Aughts began with the San Francisco Giants on top of Major League Baseball, almost literally. They finished with the best record in baseball in 2000, came six agonizing outs away from the World Series in 2002, and made it back to the postseason in 2003.

They were strong contenders in 2001, 2004, and 2005 (although I'm being liberal with "strong" on that last one).

Then came the Darkness. Or maybe it was a Fog.

Los Gigantes slid into baseball obscurity, toiling in the cellar of the Show's weakest division.

Say what you want about San Francisco GM Brian Sabean (I'm personally not a fan), but the man can build a defense.

The Giants were the fourth-best defensive team of 2009 according to UZR, behind the Mariners and Rays (by quite a bit), and just falling behind the Reds.

In particular, San Francisco's fielders showed incredible range, saving about 60 runs with range alone, according to the team's UZR breakdown. They were actually below-average at the other three components (arm, double plays, and errors), but only slightly, so the defense saved about 51 runs overall.

Recent baseball wisdom has held that having two great pitchers is the path to postseason success.  This must have been what the Yankees were thinking as they acquired C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett a year ago. 

I’m sure it also crossed the minds of the Seattle Mariners’ management and fans as they just got Cliff Lee to go with Felix Hernandez in their planned rotation for next year.

Brian Sabean and the San Francisco Giants went into the 2009 offseason with a relatively short, but particularly important to-do list.

The deadline for offering arbitration has passed. The winter meetings are over. Free agents are coming off the market.

And what have the Giants done? Aside from being involved in a juicy rumor involving Dan Uggla and signing minor league pitcher Eric Hacker, San Francisco has only seen their players leave.

This just in, San Francisco Giants General Manager Brian Sabean is gun-shy. Over a year ago, the Giants GM signed shortstop Edgar Renteria to a two-year 18 million dollar deal before the free-agent market fully developed.

Numerous other quality free-agents were left unsigned deep into January and even February. Players like Bobby Abreu and Orlando Hudson had excellent seasons despite signing after the new year.

Unfortunately for Sabean and the Giants, Renteria performed at a rate where he didn't even deserve half of his contract.