Polaroid
I need a tittle
- Since
- Jan 21, 2010
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- 2,890
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Los Angeles Angels
In the last six years the Angels have been AL West winners five times, the only other time they finished second. In four of those five seasons they won the division by at least six games and you have to go back to 2003 for the last time they won less than 89 games. But if John Lackey leaving for Boston wasn't bad enough they also lost Chone Figgins, Vladimir Guerrero and Darren Oliver to divisional rivals Figgins to the Mariners and Guerrero/Oliver to the Rangers. Although they are not suddenly a bad team, they are certainly missing star quality and the only thing they have close to a franchise player is Kendry Morales and the Angels must be praying that his 2009 season was no fluke especially when the core of their remaining offense (Bobby Abreu, Tori Hunter, and Hideki Matsui) have an average age of 35.
Seattle Mariners
The offseason was pretty good defensively for the Mariners as they re-signed Erik Bedard for 2010 (with a mutual option for 2011) and managed to get the services of 2008 Cy Young winner Cliff Lee for 2010 without giving up their better prospects. Coupled with Felix Hernandez, who despite embarking on his sixth season for the Mariners is only 23 year old, that makes a 1-2-3 rotation that any club would be proud of. However, the Mariners are in danger of being out of the running before the season has started as both Lee and Bedard are expected to be on the DL come opening day. For Lee it is expected to be a minor setback, for Bedard the length of recovery is still uncertain and a mid-May return is currently the most likely outcome.
Texas Rangers
The Texas Rangers have arguably the best farm system in baseball in fact their farm system is so good that they only have five players in their 40 man roster who are in their thirties. And at some point in the near future they are going to be serious contenders in the AL West and in MLB as a whole. This year won't be the year they are a lock to dominate the West but if they can get breakout seasons from some of their young starting pitchers like Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland, prise Rich Harden away from the DL and keep Vlad Guerrero productive then the Rangers could make a lot of noise in the division and the playoffs.
Oakland Athletics
It sure seems like a long time since 2003's Moneyball where Billy Beane told all about how to assemble a competitive baseball team on a small budget using a sabermetric approach. After four 90+ (and two 100+) win seasons between 2000-2003 they have only managed one division title and two 90+ seasons since the last of those being in 2006. It's not as if the Athletics are doing something wrong or doing something different, it's that most of the other clubs are using the same approach. What was once an advantage where the Athletics could take their pick of the undervalued players on the free agent market, they now find themselves bidding against half of MLB for the same players. While they are not a premier team they certainly have the potential to be in the mix in 2010 with a healthy Ben Sheets, a $10 million acquisition in the offseason, and a healthy Justin Duchscherer - two pitchers who are well above league average but who also have seen more than their fair share of the DL in their careers.
It should be noted that the Athletics are a +759 underdog at Pinnacle yet are joint favorites for the divisional when looking at the PECOTA predictions. Either the market has got it vastly wrong or whoever did the Oakland statistics had too much crack pipe when they crunched their numbers.
It should also be noted that the Angels are near the bottom of most MLB prediction systems yet are the clear favourite at the sportsbooks.
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