Giants and A's, redefined

<p>For the Giants and A’s, this season is all about new definitions. Who are they going to be?</p><p>The Giants went through years when they were defined by Barry Bonds. They were the team that had Bonds. They were the team that held onto him because he was baseball’s greatest player and people paid to see him hit home runs and he was dramatic and notorious. </p><p>After Giants management didn’t want him anymore — no management anywhere wants him — the Giants became the post-Bonds team. They were defined as the team that used to have Bonds and had him no longer. The question became: What will they do without Bonds?</p><p>Last year, we saw what they did without Bonds — nothing.</p><p>So when general manager Brian Sabean reassembled his team this season, he did one crucial thing. He eliminated Bonds from the equation. The Giants, over the last few years, had picked up old players on the cheap to play alongside Bonds and keep the Bonds Era going. Sabean has let most of those players go.</p><p>This is no longer Bonds’ team, no longer the team that used to be Bonds’ team. For better or worse, this team simply is the Giants. I believe it’s for the better.</p><p>The Giants are not powerful scary hitters as they were in the Bonds and Jeff Kent days. And they no longer are awful wimpy hitters — post-Bonds in 2008. They are a pitching team. That is their definition — pitching. No one knows for sure right now, but they may have the best starting pitching in the National League.</p><p>This is quite a new definition. They also are a young team in key places — Pablo Sandoval at third and Travis Ishikawa at first and with youth you get uncertainty. Can these young guys hit for power? The Giants desperately need power and Sabean told me in a confident tone Sandoval and Ishikawa have more power than people realize. He hopes Aaron Rowand, who faded in the second half of 2008, also will hit the long ball, or any ball. We’ll see.</p><p>But the point is obvious. The Giants will win — if they win — with pitching, with that tremendous starting rotation and a lights-out closer in Brian Wilson and, at last, talented setup men in Jeremy Affeldt and Bob Howry to get them to the closer. It is essential for their hitting to surpass current expectations — too much youth, not enough home runs. We’ll see about that, too.</p><p>The National League West is a weak division and it will be a two-team race, Dodgers and Giants. Although the Dodgers have Manny Ramirez, the hitter the Giants needed, L.A. has questionable pitching and I’m predicting the new and improved non-Bonds Giants will win the division with Bruce Bochy as Manager of the Year in the National League.</p><p>When you’re dealing in new definitions you need to go all the way.</p><p>The A’s, for their part, need to escape their own past definition. Last year, they were defined as awful. There is no nicer way to put it. Toward the end, they put a Triple-A lineup on the field and, I’m serious about this, they were unwatchable. That was their definition — a bunch of unwatchable boring unknowns. No team wants that definition.</p><p>To his credit, general manager Billy Beane did the right thing. He cleverly signed big-name veterans — Matt Holliday, Nomar Garciaparra, Orlando Cabrera and, what a brainstorm, Jason Giambi — the essence of what the A’s used to be (no steroid remarks, please). Forget for a moment whether these players actually will play well — Holliday will. They are famous. They are known. They will attract fans to the Coliseum as long as the A’s contend — I believe they will contend.</p><p>Going for name brands was a stroke of genius on Beane’s part, especially after the bargain-basement product he tried to sell last season. But this going after names is only part of the new A’s deal, and now things really get interesting.</p><p>Two-fifths of the starting rotation is so young you’d call it the Kiddy Corps. Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson were born the same year as my kid, 1988, and when I met them in spring I wanted to ask if they’d done their homework. I wanted to remind them to clean their rooms and take out the trash.</p><p>They are brilliant prospects — seem to be — and because staff ace Justin Duchscherer is hurt and won’t be pitching anytime soon, the A’s need them before they are ripe. The rest of the starting rotation is not that young, but still really young. So the A’s have a double definition. They are a team of exciting veterans surrounding and shielding a bunch of up-and-coming pitchers. </p><p>Which means the A’s have a complex and fascinating definition. They are old/young; experienced/inexperienced; sure/unsure. If they can forge one team out of this dual team, they will be good. No matter what, they will be a blast to watch, a delightful change from a year ago.</p><p>I say they win the American League West. Everyone is picking the Angels but one big-league manager recently told me the Angels are an old and fading lineup and that includes Vladimir Guerrero. The manager said the A’s have more talent than the Angels. Last time I looked, three of the Angels starting pitchers wouldn’t, in fact, be starting the season. You’d rather have promising young pitchers than no pitchers at all. </p><p>You bet I’m picking the A’s and Giants to win their divisions.</p><p>This is the year brave new definitions prevail.</p><p>For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.</p>