Last week I took my completed 2011 projections and ran them through the lineup analysis tool (LAT) from Baseball Musings and Saturday, David Pinto did the same thing using the Marcel forecasts.

The Marcel forecasts were, in general, more bearish on the Giants than I was and that can be seen in the lower run forecasts but in general, the results were similar.

The big takeaway from all of this was similar. The Giants lineup will be better than last year, but it has room for more optimization by better utilizing Tejada and Sanchez.

That said, it strikes me that and should be rounding out the bottom of the order. There are too many gaps in this lineup. , Posey and Sandoval all batting one spot higher with Belt sixth would put all the big bats together and make the whole lineup a little more efficient.

Then again, this is a team built around pitching, and this lineup will likely score enough to make that pitching successful.

I think the last line sums things up nicely. The Giants are not a team that is built around scoring a ton of runs but instead on limiting the other team and scoring just enough to win. That way of playing was deemed "torture" but it sure did work and it was the perfect formula for the team. It should make or break them again this season.

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