Spring Training is only three weeks away

Oh yeah, baseball. :^) According to the Giants' official website, Felipe Alou might look into batting Bonds 3rd and Alou 4th. But the condition that led Bonds to decide that he wanted to bat 4th is that he was getting tired walking so much. It won't lessen much with Alou batting behind him, it will only lessen once Bonds starts to show that he is a mere mortal and no longer a hitting machine. In which case, we're screwed.

Even with Kent hitting behind him, he was still walked a lot in 2002. So I would bet that after the spring training fling of batting 3rd, Bonds will pull Felipe aside and say, "It's still not working for me, I'm batting fourth."

And frankly (and that's what this Blog is for :^), I probably prefer it that way now that we have Alou. Alfonzo is at heart a 3rd hitter, he's an RBI machine. With his lessened power, his main value is his high OBP due to his ability to draw walks plus his ability to put the ball into play and not strikeout much. About 70-80% of the time, with Durham and Vizquel batting 1-2, the #3 batter will come up with at least a runner on base; with his lessened power, he will get a single or walk a lot more often than anybody else, making it two runner on and one out or bases loaded for Barry.

If the pitcher avoids Barry, that basically leaves the bases loaded for Alou to then bat. Then you have Snow and Grissom following him, both better hitters with runners on than bases empty. Plus it could be even better if we bat Snow 3rd vs. RHP and flipping Alfonzo to 6th. I think we will have a higher octane offense in 2005 than 2004 and we were 2nd in runs in 2004. I expect the Cards to fall back offensively too, with no real replacement for losing JDDrew.