The Sports Brewery

AL WEST PREVIEW:

Posted on 01. Apr, 2010 at 3:21 am by Goodplaye in Baseball, MLB Baseball, Seattle Mariners

Day 4 of the MLB preview brings us to the AL West. This division seems to be very much up for grabs for 3 of the 4 teams. Right here at the top I’m gonna go ahead and eliminate the Oakland A’s from contention. That said I do really like a couple the their young players but that obviously won’t do much for them as a team. Here’s how they finished last season:

Anaheim: 97-65

Texas: 87-75

Seattle: 85-77

Oakland: 75-87  

As you can see, the Angels pretty much ran away with this division last year. I certainly don’t think that will be the case as I see this one coming right down to the last day or two. It will be very close but I don’t expect to see another celebration like this. Here’s how I see it going down this year.

Seattle 89-73 : It’s easy to jump on the Mariner bandwagon after the off-season acquisitions of Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins among others. I guess you can go ahead and throw me on there as well. This is a team that won 85 games last year and really had no business doing so. The addition of a healthy Lee gives them the best 1-2 starters in baseball. Lee isn’t healthy right now which is a concern especially because this is an issue he has dealt with before and he had a brutal 07 season while doing it. A couple other concerns are at the end of the game with Aardsma and the 4 spot in the order with the people’s favorite, Milton Bradley. Can Aardsma repeat a sensational 09 season? The answer to that remains to be seen but there is really no reason not to think he can (forget about getting lit this spring cause it means nothing). Will Bradley have another meltdown and cause the season to take a turn for the worse? The answer here is YES he will have a meltdown but NO it won’t ruin the season. The mariners struggle to score runs and that will not change. I think they will have just enough offense with Ichiro and Figgins at the top of the order to win some games. I expect a career year from Lopez in the 3 hole and I also really like Guitierrez in CF. I actually think they will be like the Angels from last season. Going first to third on base hits and playing small ball will win them the division.

Anaheim 87-75 : The loss of Lackey will be too much for this team to overcome and there hopefully won’t be another tragic death for the team to rally around. It’s hard to bet against Scioscia but I just don’t see enough talent on this roster. The pitching staff is still very solid but they don’t have a nasty number one guy. Weaver is good, Saunders is a descent lefty, Kazmir is wild and has never really been consistent throughout an entire season, and the health of Ervin Santana is always in question. If Santana does stay healthy I look for him to have all star type numbers. On offense they should be very similar to last season only without Figgins at the top. They have a lot of .300 hitters and then an old guy who can’t run but can get hot and be as dangerous anyone, Matsui. Last year it was Vlad who played that role. This is a nice team and a fantastic organization but I think this one could come down the stretch and I’m just not sure that they can hang with King Felix and Cliff Lee.

Texas 83-79 : Again I see this year being much like the last for the Rangers. One thing I do like is that Vlad had hit in something like 45 straight games against the Rangers and so maybe he’ll have a great comeback season. I look for him to have a 145 game hit streak (that will be every game he plays this season). Umm ok basically it gets hotter than shit in Texas every summer and that is pretty much when the Rangers will start to fade out of contention. They have some really nice players in Nelson Cruz, Michael Young, Kinsler, and Hamilton but those guys can’t provide enough offense to make up for their lack of pitching. Feldman was named the starter for the opener and that isn’t a good sign. He is coming off a good year but he is not a guy that you can ride into the postseason. I do really like the addition of Rich Harden and I think he could have a sneaky good year. Two dudes to keep an eye on from this team are Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus. Feliz throws extremely hard out of the pen and Andrus is a very fast runner with a bright upside at shortstop. Those 2 could have breakout years.

Oakland 72-90 : I don’t have a whole lot to say about the A’s. They are not a good team and they will not win very many games. They do however have a very good farm system that produces a lot of excellent major league players. The problem is that they refuse to pay them and end up losing all of them. Brett Anderson is a great young starter and Andrew Bailey is a great young closer. Actually the pitching for the A’s really isn’t the problem. The problem is that they can’t hit any other teams pitching. I look at their roster and see Eric Chavez who is way past his prime (good fielder though), Jack Cust who K’s more than anybody, and Coco Crisp and Rajai Davis who are fast as hell. That’s about it. I am interested to see how Ben Sheets bounces back from injury and hoping he does quite well because I have him on my fantasy team. I got him as a late round sleeper. Good luck to all you A’s fans out there, you do have cool hats and white cleats that are awesome.

Tags: anaheim angels, MLB Baseball, oakland a's, Seattle Mariners, texas rangers