the Giants may be better next year, but i don't know if Sabean, who i'm generally a fan of, deserves too much credit yet.

besides the return of Bonds and Benitez and the potential improvement of Niekro, Feliz, Lowry and Cain, you point to the addition of Kline, Worrell and Morris. assuming Morris is healthy, he's a solid addition, but Kline is a middle-aged reliever coming off a 4.28 ERA and 1.46 WHIP, and Worrell is a 38 (!) year old reliever who finished strong with Arizona last year but still finished with a 4.07 ERA and 1.46 WHIP. adding 1.46 WHIPs to your bullpen isn't usually recommended, and there isn't much upside to either of these relievers at this stage in their careers.

what about losing JT Snow? yes, he's not the biggest slugger at 1B, but Niekro hit .206 against RHP last year, and Mark Sweeney is nothing but a pinch hitter. what about continued aging from Durham, Alou, Vizquel, Matheny and even Bonds? despite Feliz's potential, he still had a horrendous OBP of .295. it seems like Sabean still needs to fill some big holes at the corners, and a solid backup to Alou and Bonds would be welcome, too.

luckily, there's still plenty of time to improve the team, so we'll see if Sabean really does step up this offseason...

"Though every GM tries to improve the state of their team each off-season"

It should be "his team" instead of "their team."

Nice article....
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Sportscolumn.com's Resident Asshole

Brad not Brian Hennessey. The Giants have potentially improved this winter. There are way too many ifs and maybes to qualify as the most improved team in the NL. Look at the New York Mets. Even the Los Angeles Dodgers have improved iimmensly by getting rid of Milton Bradley and gaining Bill Mueller and Rafael Furcal. Anyway, I'm not saying the Giants haven't improved because they have, but Bonds and Alou are questionable health-wise, Feliz is extremely overrated, Kline and Worrell are old, Benitez's health is a question mark, Durham and Niekro's productions is very questionable, Randy Winn hasn't played an entire season in SF yet so don't get too excited over his 2nd half last year, Hennessey and Cain are still young and the bullpen is still shaky, and they've still got Edgardo Alfonzo at third base. Right now the only locks on the team I see are Noah Lowry, Matt Morris, Omar Vizquel, and Mike Matheny (because Schmidt has recent injury history too). I think the Giants are way too questionable to make a playoff berth, but in the NL West, you never know. An 80 win season  may put them in!
J.D.

Did you realize you put the Marlins on there as a choice? Just wondering because they are pretty much...done.
J.D.