Mike Celizic

Don’t even bother asking whether Barry Zito is worth $126 million, because that’s a question only the future can answer. The only relevant question for a fan to ask is what he can do for the Giants next year.

The answer to that one is: a lot. Already, just the news of Zito’s signing has dragged the epicenter of baseball talk across the continent from the East Coast to San Francisco. After losing staff ace Jason Schmidt, who moved down I-5 to Los Angeles as a free agent, the Giants have added a younger ace who pitches from the left side — a major advantage in AT&T Park. They’ve made themselves contenders again.

It’s been a long time since the Giants last won the World Series in 1954. They’ve come close a couple of times, but ever since they moved to the West Coast almost 50 years ago, they’ve been chasing the Dodgers, just as they once did in New York City.

You can fault Giants management for not getting the job done, but you can’t say they’re not trying. The commitment of so much time and so many years to Zito is proof that the team wants to win and is willing to pay the price to compete.

But as much as Zito does, it’s not enough. The rest of the starting rotation remains mediocre and the bullpen is still anchored by Armando Benitez, the Colin Montgomerie of major league closers.

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Benitez, who was hurt much of last year, can be an outstanding regular-season closer, maybe even the best in the league. But he can not be relied on to save the games that truly matter. He’s never done it in the past and it’s too much to expect him to do it now.

So the bullpen remains a serious problem. So, too, despite the addition of Zito, does the starting rotation. The Giants can hope that Matt Morris, who was 10-15 last year, will be a little closer to the ace he once was in St. Louis.

The big hope would be that 22-year-old Matt Cain, who was 13-12 with a 4.12 ERA in his first full season last year, will step up a notch and become a big-time starter. If he does, the team’s perceived pitching problems could go away entirely.

The rotation last year gave up an average of 4.63 earned runs a game, which exactly matched the number of runs the offense scored. The Giants were in contention for most of the season in a weak NL West, but faded at the end, finishing 11.5 games behind the Dodgers, who themselves were just six games clear of .500.

The bottom line is that the Giants’ work is not done now that Zito is aboard. The team needs to continue to work to upgrade the rotation and the bullpen.

The other question is the offense. It would seem that there isn’t enough firepower in the lineup to allow anyone to dream about winning the World Series.

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The offense continues to feature Barry Bonds, whose production slumped precipitously during the first half of last season as he was recovering from the knee surgery that kept him out for almost all of 2005. What Bonds has left is unknown, and it’s possible that an indictment on perjury charges could remove him from the game, but all anyone can do at the moment is assume he’ll play and continue to get on base a lot, hit his home runs and mess with the heads of opposing managers and pitchers. If he’s healthy, he could be extremely dangerous.

But San Francisco still needs more pop behind him. The 4.63 runs per game was eighth in the 16-team National League last year, and the team’s .259 batting average was ranked 12th.

The numbers say this isn’t a modern version of Murders Row that the Giants are rolling out. The team has improved at catcher with the addition of Bengie Molina and at first with Rich Aurilia. Randy Winn is a consistent all-around player, and Ray Durham continues to provide power at second base. Lance Niekro could blossom as an offensive force.

But every team has holes and every fan has questions. That’s true whether the team is in Kansas City or Boston or New York. The one question Giants’ fans don’t have to ask is whether management is committed to winning now.

The team answered that one when it committed $126 million over seven years to the one pitcher it thinks can make a difference. At some point, whether three years from now or six years, it’s almost guaranteed there will be reason to question the wisdom of such a long contract for the game’s most fragile position. But now is not the time for that. Now is the time for Giants fans to appreciate the risks the team is willing to take to win — not seven years hence, but right now.

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