SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ — The N.L. West is going to be a tough division. The Dodgers are the defending champions and still have all of that talent and financial muscle we’ve discussed at length. The Diamondbacks, though coming off of a couple of sub-par years, are featuring an increasingly crowded bandwagon this spring due to their abundance of offensive talent and their acquisition of two great starting pitchers.
The Giants, meanwhile, are winners of three World Series championships in the past six years and added two pretty stellar pitchers of their own. Various projection systems don’t see them improving dramatically, however, and they’re not even getting the same sort of hype that other, lesser teams like the Boston Red Sox have gotten on the basis of free agent signings. They certainly haven’t been disrespected in the way athletes often use that term, but people outside of San Francisco aren’t rushing to proclaim them a top choice for 2016 either. I asked some Giants players how that feels.
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“That’s OK. We almost prefer that. We’d rather fly under the radar,” starting pitcher Chris Heston said. “It’s nice if people do call you the favorites. We get excited when people are talking a lot about us. We get fired up. You can’t believe it or buy into it. You still have to do your job, but it’s better to hear that than nothing.”
Hunter Pence is a bit more zen about it all.
“I don’t know. I’m not, like, a media analyst or any of that. All of this is just for fun,” Pence said, referring to preseason chatter. “We play. You guys talk about stuff. We’re all doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” he added with a smile.