See I've always seen the offense as a problem, it's been SO frustrating hearing people say "oh we're in the top whatever in runs scored" yea we scored a ton in blowouts, that skewed the run total to not reflect our offense accurately-we could not manufacture runs when we needed to, we just couldn't. I was pissed when we signed Scherzer, just thought really, another pitcher is the last thing we need. I don't prefer to be pitching first; being pitching first has gotten us a whole lot of nothing so far 
I think our offense needs an immense overhaul; bullpen as well but man, I'm so tired of not getting runs (tonight's game notwithstanding).
Pitching is what got the Giants three World Series titles. In each of their runs their pitching inexplicably dominated and their bullpen gave up zilch. Pitching is what gets the Cards to the NLCS every year. You don't want to have to roll the dice with the bats like the Astros and Orioles, you just want a solid contact-focused lineup that can score you a few run guaranteed and let the pitching do the rest. Drew just choked away 2012 is all, and our bats just found a way to choke last year while striking out constantly. Our offensive approach is just feeding the current strikeout phenomenon and our poor defense/shifts and bullpen are as well. We're going against the grain of the times. Put the bat on the ball, play defense and pitch all nine innings. The Orioles did the latter two last year, and the Giants did all three. Both got further than we did, we only pitched. This year we didn't even do that and you can see where it got us.
The hell with the long ball already, you guys are Major Leaguers, you get the bat head on the ball and it's gonna fly out often enough. Ted Williams had tons of homers as average as his frame was because he had eyes like a hawk and the coordination to put it together. When he entered the war (twice) he became a fighter pilot for craps sake. He hit 30 homers at
41 (
!!!) years old with those skinny ass arms of his. Because, it turns out, baseball bats are made out of pretty solid wood and baseballs have a bouncy cork center, so if you just get the heaviest part of the bat on the ball it's going to go a long ways. And he walked all the damn time because nobody wanted to challenge his eye or bat speed.
You know who else does that? Bryce Harper. I can't believe it but ironically Bryce Harper has become one of our best hitters from a philosophical standpoint. He still seems to swing for the fences too often but if someone convinced him to just make more contact, because he's got so much natural power, he would be unreal. Doesn't matter if the ball is in the second deck, just get it over the fence. Don't make outs, take your free pass if they won't challenge you, take your little single if that's all they're giving you. That's what he's done all year and that's why he's en route to to a batting title, not a home run record. When Rizzo said "We've always seen Harper as an avg hitter first, then a power hitter" I thought he was just bullcrapting.
