San Francisco Giants Dynasty

The most recent baseball dynasty belongs to the San Fran Giants of the early 2010s! The Giants won 3 World Series in five years, the first team to do so since the late 90s Yankees won three in a row. Unfortunately (as you can see in the previous 2012 Giants post on this blog), from a Showdown perspective, none of the individual World Series teams are that impressive as a group. My friends and I have joked for a while that Bochy must have a knack for "rolling well" in October. So for the Giants, as one of the real dynasties of my lifetime, I thought they deserved a team that collected the best players from their great run! I decided to start the dynasty a year prior to their first WS, as 2009 was when many of their best guys really got going and the team had its first plus .500 season since Bonds departed in 2004. So I looked from 2009 thru 2014 (when they won their 3rd WS) and the result of looking for the best players from that era resulted in the following squad! They're just under 6000 points overall (which makes sense for a super team like this), making them hypothetically much better than your standard Showdown team, but definitely not invincible nor unplayable against the other World Series teams we've unveiled. Personally, I can't wait to put this rotation up against the 2015 Blue Jays lineup! Ok, enough prattling -- it's time to roll out the Dynasty Giants!

Buster Posey took home the MVP in 2012 with this extremely valuable catcher card and led the Giants to a World Series title!

Lineup: As a super compilation of the Giants best players from 2009 thru 2014, it's not a surprise that their lineup is deep. However, they lack a real power threat at any point of the lineup, really demonstrating how the Giants relied more on timely and consistent hitting than the long ball during their dynastic run. I've got Melky leading off due to his high on-base and decent speed, with MVP Posey (their best hitter) in the second slot. Another OB 10 is in the three hole, although I honestly forgot Beltran was even with the Giants before starting this exercise. Fan favorite Pablo "PANDA" Sandoval cleans up, probably providing the best power with his OB 9, HR at 18 chart. 2010 Aubrey Huff, another player I forgot about but was a major offensive threat for the first Giants title team, gives a great option for the fifth spot. Really, there's very little drop off or difference from the first to fifth hitter! Hunter "Riley Simpson" Pence, one of my friends and I's all time favorite baseball players, brings a dangerous OB 8 chart and a lot of speed to the six hole. I was very tempted to make him the leadoff man, but went with the safer OB 10 approach instead. There's a big drop off from Hunter though, with an albeit solid OB 8 Pagan hitting seventh, the slick fielding Crawford with a solid OB 7 card for a SS eighth, and the OB 9 (and other potential leadoff guy) Scutaro turning the order around. Honestly, this is a lineup that's not as scary as teams like the 2015 Blue Jays, 2016 Cubs, 2009 Yankees, or 2017 Astros.... but is probably deeper than any of them and really solid. Of course, when you've got pitching like the Dynasty Giants, all you need is a couple of runs and that should be easy for this collection of hitters!

Rotation: Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgardner have all been top notch aces for the Giants over their dynasty's reign. The first of the three to bust out was Tim, who probably did so the best, winning two Cy Youngs while putting together these extremely useful card in 09. Matt Cain was the workhorse in 2012 and has a worthy #1 starter card. The third ace -- who's still at this ridiculously high level -- is Madison Bumgardner, who closed out the 2014 World Series in memorable fashion. He earned a Control 6 with 1-15 outs without a double that year. The surprise to me was Vogelsong, who was an absolute stud in 2011. He gives up a double and "only" has IP 6, but he's a FOURTH over 500 point pitcher. Now, rather than give another Tier 1 RP to the Giants (they had a lot of individual relievers have great seasons during this run), I went with another memorable Giants pitcher: Barry Zito. Zito was definitely a disappointment compared to what they expected when they signed him away from the A's, but I still remember him out-pitching the Cardinals in the 2012 NLCS and he was a key contributor for all three WS title teams.

Bullpen: With their dominating starting staff (and Zito as a long reliever for Showdown purposes, I suppose), the Giants have an absolutely freaky three relievers for their bullpen. Brian Wilson and his crazy beard were all the rage in 2010, but his high K/rate and low ERA/WHIP help him earn this awesome, Pedro-like closer card. He's supported by two other Tier 1 pitchers, as Sergio Romo brings higher control and Casilla's 1-18 outs with a Control 4 spells doom for any bottom of the order. Clearly, the Giants had a lot of good relievers, but these are the best of the bunch!

Overall: Obviously this is the most loaded group of cards on a single team we've put out so far, but it deserves to be for baseball's most-recent dynasty! The pitching staff is unbelievable, demonstrating (a) how great the aces that carried the Giants to 3 titles were and (b) how fortunate they've been with some of their bullpen guys. The lineup is good but still middle of the road for teams we've introduced so far. It is amazing that they've only produced four OB 10 cards and there's not a truly great power hitter among them. However, there's depth and speed, and with the starting pitching staff, enough there! If you're printing off our teams and playing them against each other, this team should be the #1 pick to win the most games, but it's not overpowering to a point of unfairness. The best match-ups would be against the World Series Rangers or 2015 Blue Jays (who've got such a dominate offense).