The Saints needed 43 seasons to win their first Super Bowl. In baseball, five clubs have endured longer droughts without celebrating a World Series championship.

For the first time since Barry Bonds left town, the Giants had their eyes on a playoff spot last year, giving the Rockies a fight to the finish.

Kevin Goldstein : That's kind of the secret sauce in many ways. Ranking prospect combines two things - predicting a player's ultimate ceiling and crossing that with a players chances of actually reaching that ceiling.

The 35-year-old Molina can earn an additional $1.5 million in performance bonuses based on games started.

It wasn't a scheduling oversight that prevented Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee from appearing together at Safeco Field last week.

Former Penn State pitcher Craig Clark will be one of 22 non-roster invitees heading to San Francisco Giants' Spring Training in February, as announced by the club on Thursday.

Merkin Valdez's injury-marred tenure with the Giants officially ended Wednesday, when the club traded the right-hander to the Toronto Blue Jays for cash considerations.

What's your best guesstimate of how the Giants will do? Some said the team overachieved in 2009, and such efforts usually fall back the following year.

Randy Johnson retired Tuesday. Though it was expected, his announcement brought home the fact that no longer will we see that tall, gangly frame on the mound, glove covering his face, with a sidearm delivery that made left-handed hitters find religion and a slider so good that it had its own name, "Mr. Snappy." Giants fans were the last to cheer ...

Future Hall of Famer and five-time Cy Young Award winner Randy Johnson, one of the most dominant pitchers of all time, will announce his retirement from Major League Baseball after 22 seasons Tuesday night.

Good teams start with good starting pitching. And after trading for Javier Vazquez and re-signing Andy Pettitte, the New York Yankees have more of it than any other team.

My resolution is to stop swinging at sliders thrown two feet off the plate. Hopefully, this resolution will be contagious.

For a long time everyone looked at the Giantsa TM Matt Cain as a pitcher with all the potential in the world, though he was blessed with the worst luck in baseball.A How else could you explain win totals of 7 and 8 in 2007 and 2008 despite ERAs under 4.00?A All that changed in 2009, when Cain seemingly put it all together to post the following ...

What a December haul: Mark DeRosa, signed to play an unknown position; Juan Uribe, coming next; the immortal Kiko Calero, offered up as a tease possibility.

Say what you want about San Francisco GM Brian Sabean , but the man can build a defense.

Since details of these kinds of deals are rarely made public, we don't know how serious the Giants were in their pursuit of first baseman Nick Johnson, or how serious he was about them.

The best measure of the health of Rockies pitcher Jeff Francis' left shoulder isn't in how he is throwing.

With Christmas about a week away and Major League Baseball's winter meetings in the rearview mirror, it's a perfect time to see what juicy acquisitions might be possible for your favorite baseball team.

Why didn't the Giants go harder after Brad Penny? We have Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Barry Zito as staples of the starting rotation; Jonathan Sanchez, who I hope is on the outs; and Madison Bumgarner, who is not quite ready but will soon be.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo starts in center field and bats leadoff on opening day in L.A. against the Dodgers.