AL West

AL West

1. Rangers
2. A’s
3. Angels
4. Mariners

Well, I think this tiny little division gets the redheaded stepchild award for worst overall division. I am not sure if any of these teams are any good and they definitely sport the absolute worst team in the league in the Mariners. We could be looking at a team taking the division with somewhere in the ballpark of 85 wins. Yikes. Regardless, the Rangers are probably the best. They have quality hitters in Hamilton, Cruz, Kinsler and Michael Young but who knows if Adrian Beltre will be the contract year Beltre (monster) or every other year Beltre (decidedly less monster). Also, even though he is but one man, the loss of Cliff Lee will really sting. All of their pitchers seem pretty average in spite of having good years last year. Case in point: C.J. Wilson had 16 wins last year and yet I was able to draft him in the 22^rd round of my fantasy draft. This is not an encouraging sign. Wild Card: Brandon Webb. A former Cy Young winner with the D-Backs, Webb has been MIA for the last two seasons with injuries. If he can find his old magic, the Rangers rotation won’t be missing Cliff Lee that much and the Rangers should cruise into October.

Ah. The Moneyballers. Now that there is a Brad Pitt as Billy Beane movie in the works there should be a lot of attention on the A’s this fall. And this years A’s team looks like pretty much every other A’s team since the departure of Jason Giambi. Very little power. Good OBP. Aging former star DHing. Good young pitchers. Cavernous stadium where foul balls go to die. In spite of this, I think the moves to get Coco Crisp, DeJesus and Josh Willingham are solid. Willingham, in particular, had a nice season last year and I was kind of surprised to see the Nats dump him. Kurt Suzuki is fine at catcher and their rotation should build on getting a lot of starts last year. It will be bad for them if Andrew Bailey is out for an extended period of time because you never, never ever ever want to have to put the game in Brian Fuentes hands. Wild Card: Hideki Matsui. One more go around for the former Godzilla. Does he have anything left in the tank? Can he better the .278/21/84 he put up for the Angels last year? Is there enough porn in Oakland to satisfy his voracious appetite for adult entertainment? If Matsui can drive in those moneyballers, Oakland may just make the Rangers sweat a little bit.

The Angels are mildly frisky to me only because they seem oh so desperate. They are like a girl in their late 30s making a last shot at the Ring by signing up for e-harmony and going on dates like crazy. The clock is ticking and they may make some questionable decisions in order to get what they want. (With killer analogies like that, I may go from being a 3^rd rate Bill Simmons to a 2^nd rate Bill Simmons. Unfortunately, I am not in love with Kevin Durant or Blake Griffin). The Angels’ questionable decision was basically bailing out the Blue Jays on their awful Vernon Wells contract. Halos basically took on the remainder of Vernon’s contract (something to the tune of 4 yrs, 85 million) for basically nothing. Now I know they were spurned by Carl Crawford, Cliff Lee and any other free agents of note. But this decision is madness. It’s not like you took on all that cash to get Pujols. You’re taking on a guy whose closest baseball-reference.com similar players are Aubrey Huff, Rondell White, and Cliff Floyd. Would you pay any of those guys half of what Vern is making? No shot. Probably not even a 1/4^th.  They do have a nice 1-2 punch with Haren and Weaver but Joel Pinero, Scott Kazir and Elvin Santana don’t scare anyone anymore. That, along with a fairly mediocre power lineup, and it seems like the Halos will be looking at two straight years without the playoffs. Expect to hear a lot of Pujols to the Angels talk next winter. Wild Card: Kendry/s Morales. Any 27 year old guy who (1) breaks his leg during a home plate celebration and (2) changes the spelling of his name seven years after the last S was left off his Angels contract in 2004, because he “just never bothered to tell anyone,” is definitely a wild card. As goes Kendry/s, so go the Angels.

Here it is. The bottom of the barrel. Even with an honest-to-God Ace and one of the best hitters ever, this Mariners team is by far the worst team in the league. So bad, they are giving the fans compost on Opening Day. "Hey, fans, here is a giveaway that personifies our upcoming season. Enjoy."  They should pop the champagne if they win 60 games. This is just a bad team. Triple A quality.  And I like the Smoak Monster as much as the next guy but when he is your best power hitter its gonna be a long season. And, Lord knows, that there will be all kinds of trade talk about King Felix. Might as well just pull the trigger and get a nice package from the Yankees. Maybe pry away Jesus Montero? Because this team really should not play anyone over 25 this season. Time to give the young guys some experience because this team they are fielding isn’t going to do anything. Wild Card: Michael Pineda. This young pitcher is pretty much the Mariners only glimmer of hope after they trade Felix Hernandez. He’s got nasty stuff and should reassure the good people of Seattle that better times (they couldn’t be much worse) are down the road.