After the Giants disappointing extra inning loss to the lowly Houston Astros on Sunday that capped a week of home splits against inferior teams, Bruce Bochy had a fascinating lament: We are on the edge so much, which he followed with a discussion of how mistakes can have a huge effect on the chances for his team to win. His general point is pretty indisputably correct and the offense has been regarded as a major culprit since the Giants have three of the four starters with the worst run support in the NL this season. Another has been injuries- before the game on Sunday, Bochy said he was buffaloed by the remarkable run of hurt players the team has had to work through. Again, the manager has an excellent point since the team has been ravaged by both short-term and long-term injuries, particularly since Buster Posey went out. Keeping all that in mind, now seems like the time to really spend some time going into trying to figure out how this team was going to win games at full strength beyond the pitching. Considering the fact that the Giants do not spend a gigantic amount on the rotation or the bullpen beyond Barry Zito (thanks to numerous guys being cost-controlled), management had plenty of money to throw out to fill a cogent roster along with prospects in development and the possibility of moving long-term players for short-term ones, as the team ended up doing. Here are the fundamental flaws with how the team was constructed: 1. Lack of power Only four players in the Giants Opening Day lineup had 20 home run seasons in the last five years (Huff, Burrell, Tejada, and Sandoval) and nearly all of those came closer to the distant end of that range. Of the guys who have not had 20 dinger years, Buster Posey and Andres Torres each had their first 15+ bomb seaons in what was likely an outlier for both in different directions (Posey with fewer than he will eventually have, Torres with more). As a functional strategy, this makes some since because their home park is not conducive to homer hitting, yet this compounds the problem when discussing the below factors. 2. Lack of speed While stolen bases are just one way of measuring speed, they tell the story of the Giants pretty well. Other than Torres, the best steal total for an Opening Day starter in the previous five seasons was seven by Aubrey Huff and Miguel Tejada. While not predictive in and of itself, this remarkable stat shows just how little team speed the ideal (Cody Ross started the season on the DL and would add a soaring high of nine to the illustrious figure). At this point, the picture seems pretty clear: a team that does not hit for power and does not run well must get a lot of hits and get them at the same time since slower teams cannot even push the issue on gap hits and potential sacrifices. 3. Horrible plate discipline I get to throw out a few of my favorite representative Giants stats for 2011 here: - The team is dead last in O-Swing %, meaning that they swing at the most pitches out of the strike zone (33.4% of them). The Giants were last in this measure last year as well. - Despite swinging at the most pitches out of the strike zone in the bigs, the team is only seventh in total swing % because they take more strikes than 11 other teams. - The Giants see the second-least pitches in the strike zone in all of baseball (behind only the Phillies). I wonder why… 4. Poor team defense To be fair, this factor has been shaped dramatically more by injuries. Andres Torres, Freddy Sanchez and Buster Posey are strong defensive players that have not been replaced on either end of the field. However, the personnel decisions over the course of the year have exacerbated this pre-existing problem. The decision to bring in Orlando Cabrera was done for offensive reasons (heh) and has appeared to have a meaningful negative defensive effect, particularly compared to Brandon Crawford who was the other option. Carlos Beltran has also been a terrible fit for right field at AT&T Park since the Giants basically need a second CF in right due to the intense lateral space to cover due to Triples Alley. Beltran has less than ideal mobility at present and that forces the Giants to make the choice to cover the alley or the line better and there have been numerous hits down the line that someone like the displaced and now injured Nate Schierholtz could have handled. This makes it even harder on the pitchers, as the boot by Orlando Cabrera showed on Monday. What those factors combined mean: In short, it proves hard to figure out how the brass of the constructed their quote/un-quote offense and larger team around their still-fantastic pitching staff. Instead of acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of what they had committed to in 2011 going into last off-season, the decisions were made to keep players who had obviously out of the ordinary seasons in 2010 (or even just small snippets of 2010). Adding in Jeff Keppinger at minimal cost did not hurt, but making the decision over the course of the season to trade promising prospects for aging rentals Carlos Beltran and Orlando Cabrera did not particularly help any of these three flaws at the current point in their careers. The persistent concern has to be that no single player can fix these problems and even bringing Posey and Sanchez back goes only part of the way. The lack of remotely competent replacements for either guy this season raises problems as well considering the payroll. Is there a way out? Absolutely. However, it will take time as well as proactive and capable management that can make the hard evaluations and decisions instead of consistently rash, flawed moves. Feel free to e-mail Daniel at Daniel.Leroux@realgm.com or follow him at twitter.com/DannyLeroux