Five players from the Giants.

I’m going to try to bang out the rest of this series as quickly as possible, and unfortunately that includes the sad, sad Giants. I’d love to just skip them, but they do have some exciting players like Rich Aurilia, Omar Vizquel, and Jose Castillo. Just kidding…

Tim Lincecum Man crush alert. I love Lincecum. Groundballs and lots and lots of strikeouts. If he just improved his control to 3.5 BB/9, he could post low-3 ERAs annually. Considering last year he allowed around 4 walks per 9, an improvement to 3.5 shouldn’t be asking too much. However, even if his skills remained similar to last year, we’re looking at an ERA in the mid-3’s. Sure, he might not get the run support, but wins are a crapshoot anyway, so pay for the skills and pray for the wins. And for the record, he’s better than Cain, much better. Better K/9, more groundballs, and similar walks allowed. I don’t see how it’s any contest.

Jonathan Sanchez With Noah Lowry out and bad, Sanchez should have the 5th slot in the rotation locked up. He has some (ok, maybe major) control issues and he’s a flyball pitcher, but AT&T obviously helps with the latter. The intriguing thing about Sanchez is his fantastic strikeout rates, which have been consistently over 10 at each minor league stop and was 10.7 in 52 major league innings last year. He probably won’t be posting a pretty WHIP anytime soon, but a low-4 ERA is certainly possible with a bunch of K’s.

Eugenio Velez I’m sure you’ve read about him on some other sites as he brought a stolen base party to spring training. Looking at his minor league record, I noticed that he hit 14 HRs in 460 ABs in single-A in ‘06, but then only 1 HR in 394 ABs between AA and AAA in 2007. What’s the deal with that?! Checking out his other seasons, that 14 HR year sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe he was doubling up on his spinach intake that year, and then decided he didn’t like the taste anymore. Anyway, given the propensity for injury to the plethora of elderly veterans in the middle infield, who I might add are bad as well, and his 54 SBs last year in those same 394 ABs, he’s certainly someone to keep a close eye on if you have the need for speed. He doesn’t really walk much though and he’s going to probably strike out more than you’d expect from a speedy MI with no power, so his average won’t really help. Depending on where he hits in the order, he could end up being just a 1-category guy, but it’s a huge 1 category.

Angel Villalona Probably owned in every keeper league, but if not, either jump on the opportunity and make fun of your leaguemates for sleeping at the wheel, or find a new league who takes their minor league system seriously. If we could believe his birthdate, he was 16 years old for most of last season and somehow still posted a .772 OPS between the Rookie and low-A levels. That’s just ridiculous at that age. He even posted a 79% contact rate, quite impressive for his age, and a .165 ISO. He’s been compared to Manny Ramirez, I believe, and looking at these numbers, I can’t argue with that comparison just yet. AT&T will obviously sap some power, if he isn’t traded for Scott Spiezio (for some veteran leadership of course) before getting the call, but he could be huge. You just might have to wait a couple of years before you can reap the benefits of rostering him, and of course it would probably surprise no one if he was older than we think.

Kevin Correia At the very least, will have a rotation spot as well until Lowry returns. Dramatically improved his GB rate to 45% last year to go along with about a 2:1 K/BB ratio. He’s posted K/9 rates over 7 the last 2 years and BB/9 in the 3.0-3.5 range, so he’s a nice sleeper in AL-Only leagues, as he could put up an ERA in the low 4’s with a WHIP around 1.30-1.35 and decent K totals.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.