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Home to the reigning World Series champions, the NL West ended up being a two-horse race in 2010, with the Padres just missing out at the last.\u00c2\u00a0 The Giants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 subsequent postseason success should be a great incentive to their division rivals, both in terms of showing what is possible and in making the rest just that little more determined to knock the Giants back down.<\/p>\n
2010 standings<\/strong> (Team, win-loss record)<\/p>\n 1. San Francisco Giants. 92-70 * World Series champions The 2010\/11 Offseason<\/strong><\/p>\n The Giants inched past the Padres to set them on course to a World Series championship in 2010 and they look well-placed to get back to the postseason again in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0 They haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done a great deal over the offseason; their main efforts have involved keeping hitters Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell and Cody Ross.\u00c2\u00a0 However, their challengers have not taken significant strides forward to chase the Giants down.<\/p>\n In the Padres\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 case, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gone the other way by losing their best player.\u00c2\u00a0 First baseman Adrian Gonzalez was traded to the Boston Red Sox for a host of prospects, which should be good news for the future but is liable to see the Padres drop back a bit in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rockies invested heavily in signing young stars Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to multi-year contracts and brought back free-agent starting pitcher Jorge de la Rosa.\u00c2\u00a0 These are all good moves that will help to keep the team in contention for the foreseeable future, but they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t obviously make the 2011 Rockies a tougher proposition compared to the 2010 team.<\/p>\n The Dodgers are still in limbo as a result of their owners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bitter divorce proceedings and they had a quiet offseason as a result, although they retain enough talented players to potentially get into the division race if things fall right.\u00c2\u00a0 In contrast, the D-Backs continued down the rebuilding road by trading third baseman Mark Reynolds to the Baltimore Orioles and allowing Adam LaRoche and one-time ace Brandon Webb to depart as free agents.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Returning stars<\/strong><\/p>\n Without wishing to downplay their batting heroes, San Francisco\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s World Series triumph lived up to the age-old theory that quality pitching often proves to be the difference-maker.\u00c2\u00a0 The Giants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 staff will once again catch the eye, led by two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and the extrovert closer Brian Wilson.\u00c2\u00a0 Catcher Buster Posey may be coming off his rookie year, but he already looks the type of talent who can lead a team, while the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Pablo Sandoval has lost some weight over the offseason and will look to bounce back from what was personally a disappointing year in 2010.<\/p>\n The Rockies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 hopes, both now and in the future, revolve around their three young stars: starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez, shortstop Troy Tulowizki and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez.\u00c2\u00a0 The exciting young pitching talent in the NL West continues with the Padres\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Mat Latos, who was outstanding in his first full season last year.\u00c2\u00a0 Heath Bell\u00c2\u00a0is one of the best closers in the business and he plays an important role as a veteran of the Padres’ pitching staff, something that new recruits Jason Bartlett and Orlando Hudson will look to do on the\u00c2\u00a0postition-player side too.<\/p>\n In Los Angeles, their crop of young talent has reached the stage where they now need to turn promise and potential into a playoff run.\u00c2\u00a0 James Loney, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp all need to produce in 2011, with Kemp in particular coming off what was for him a below-par year.\u00c2\u00a0 Clayton Kershaw has established himself as one of the best young starters around alongside Chad Billingsley, while closer Jonathan Broxton needs to restore his confidence (and the Dodgers’ confidence in him) after a nervy second half to 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 Hard-throwing reliever Kenley Jansen is one to keep an eye on from a European perspective.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the Netherlands’ catcher in the 2009 World Baseball Classic before the Dodgers turned his\u00c2\u00a0rocket-arm over to pitching, to stunning immediate effect.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n As for the Diamondbacks, they are hoping that Ian Kennedy and Dan Hudson can build on their promising 2010 seasons in the rotation.\u00c2\u00a0 The team was let down badly by a historically terrible bullpen and closer J.J. Putz has been recruited\u00c2\u00a0as part of the process of building a\u00c2\u00a0group of relievers that provide relief rather than panic and misery.\u00c2\u00a0 Right-fielder Justin Upton has all of the tools to be a star and this\u00c2\u00a0might just be\u00c2\u00a0the year he takes a big step forward, while centre-fielder Chris Young and second baseman Kelly Johnson will provide plenty of power in the lineup<\/p>\n Managers<\/strong><\/p>\n Kurt Gibson took over in Arizona on an interim basis midway through the 2010 season and he is now in charge on a full-time basis.\u00c2\u00a0 In L.A., Don Mattingly steps out from Joe Torre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shadow following the latter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s retirement.\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce Bochy (Giants), Jim Tracy (Rockies) and Bud Black (Padres) all return for another season.<\/p>\n Contenders?<\/strong><\/p>\n Should be: Giants, Rockies<\/p>\n Could be: Padres, Dodgers,<\/p>\n Won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be: D-Backs<\/p>\n The Giants will be at the front of the battle. From there it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a case of whether the Rockies can make up ground from 2010 and if the Padres can cover for the loss of Gonzalez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the start of the 2011 MLB season approaching fast, our preview series rounds up the offseason moves and introduces the teams to newcomers to the sport. We begin in the home of the reigning World Series champions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[404,136,133,132,553,135,134],"class_list":["post-10403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-2011-mlb-preview","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb-2","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-san-francisco-giants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10403"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10432,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10403\/revisions\/10432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>2. San Diego Padres. 90-72
\n3. Colorado Rockies. 83-79
\n4. Los Angeles Dodgers. 80-82
\n5. Arizona Diamondbacks. 65-97<\/p>\n