World Series Champions the Giants are, said Yoda. It certainly has a ring to it, huh?
No, not that ring...a fancier one, with diamonds, made out of something better than Sterling Silver. Although that one is on sale...
That being the case, the Giants now have the task of "defending" their World Series championship, which to me is one of the largest pieces of hyperbole in sports. Defending? If any champion of any sport were truly defending their championship, they wouldn't have to play any regular games -- they could just wait to see which challenger rose from the ashes, then proceed to smite said challenger with whatever blunt object they had at hand.
Like, say, Charlie Sheen.
Nay, the Giants will simply be trying to win enough games to qualify for the postseason, where they will then hope to win two series against other National League qualifiers, after which they'll hope to defeat the AL "challenger" in another series.
They will be doing this with as close to a copy/paste roster of last year's postseason team as any I can remember. While the pragmatic part of me can't help but the think the Giants were very lucky last year, there is a piece of simple, yet elegant logic that supports keeping the roster as intact as possible:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Truthfully, the Giants were very lucky last year, but baseball luck is different than football luck. In both sports, a single crazy play can result in a win a team wouldn't have otherwise had, but whereas in football the impact of that is 1/16, or 6.25%, in baseball it's 1/162, or roughly .62%.
In baseball, there's just too much season for your luck to hold for very long. So, we must admit there was a copious amount of skill involved as well. While there's a truckload of analysis that can be done to roughly figure out the 2011 Giants' chances at another World Series, there isn't much doubt that they indeed have a chance -- about as good of a chance at just about any other NL team.
May they continue to have more luck/skill...luckill...skuck?
The only difference between the lucky and the skillful is that the skillful get lucky more often.
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You have to have enough skill to put you in a position where luck can help, too -- if you're down 10 runs or 4 touchdowns, luck can only help you so much, no? =)
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