Carlos Gonzalez followed suit, receiving an $80 million, seven-year contract this offseason that runs through 2017 and covers what would have been his first three years of free agency.
Tulowitzki, who missed 33 games with a broken wrist, was an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger award and his first career Gold Glove. Gonzalez was the NL batting champion with a .336 average and hit 34 home runs with 117 RBIs in his first full big league season.
And ace Ubaldo Jimenez leads a talented rotation after he won 19 games last season and started the All-Star game.
All this young talent surrounded by veterans like Giambi and Todd Helton, a lifetime Colorado star ready to rebound from a down year.
"The Giants have what every team wants, to win the World Series. They should be the favorites," Tulowitzki said. "They backed it up last year and they have a lot of returning players, the pitching staff especially."
San Francisco Giants
The Giants still look an awful lot like they did last fall, when this bunch of castoffs and misfits surprised everybody by getting by the mighty Phillies in the NL championship series and then handling the Texas Rangers in five games to win the World Series.
General manager Brian Sabean kept nearly his entire roster intact for what he hopes is another deep October run, losing World Series MVP shortstop Edgar Renteria and also utility infielder Juan Uribe to the rival Dodgers. But San Francisco signed veteran shortstop Miguel Tejada, plenty familiar with Bay Area baseball after winning the 2002 AL MVP for the Oakland Athletics.
"We probably do have a target on our back but that's a good thing. Let's go out and defend this championship," Bochy said.
A late 10-game losing streak did in the Padres last season — and they know full well they should have been a playoff team with 90 wins. San Diego had an NL-best 76-49 record on Aug. 25 and had a chance until the season's final day, when it lost at San Francisco.
The Padres look much different going into 2011, having traded away All-Star slugger Adrian Gonzalez to Boston in a mass exodus of players and boosted the lineup with a handful of new faces. The team must make up for Gonzalez's production after he hit .298 with 31 homers and 101 RBIs last season.
Closer Heath Bell's 47 saves were one shy of the majors-best 48 by San Francisco's Brian Wilson.
"The last thing on my mind after last year was being satisfied. You're that close and then you don't make it," pitcher Clayton Richard said. "We'll take what we can from last year and look forward."
Los Angeles Dodgers
Don Mattingly has been waiting for his chance to be a manager, and the former Yankees star takes over in place of Torre for a team that went 80-82 last season.
The Dodgers signed Uribe away from the Giants in one of their bigger moves of the winter after he produced career bests of 24 home runs and 85 RBIs in his second season with San Francisco.
GM Ned Colletti insisted the divorce of Los Angeles owners Frank and Jamie McCourt wouldn't affect offseason spending, and the Dodgers committed more than $80 million in signings over the winter — including a three-year, $21 million contract for Uribe.
Arizona Diamondbacks
New Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers doesn't sugar coat his team's chances as Kirk Gibson begins his first full season as manager. Towers has turned around franchises during his days in San Diego, and he is now running a club that struck out 1,517 times last season and finished in last place in the West for the second straight season.
