Written by: Rob Lazlo
Predicted Order of Finish:
Texas Rangers
Los Angeles Angels
Seattle Mariners
Oakland Athletics
TEXAS RANGERS
SEASON OUTLOOK: Ready to take it to the next level.
Last season, the Rangers gave their fans something they hadn’t had in a while - a relevant summer. Hoping to improve upon last year’s 87 wins, the Rangers have added Rich Harden to try to deepen their starting pitching and are hoping new addition Vlad Guerrero can stay healthy to provide bash from the DH position. Even without Vlad, the Rangers’ lineup sports plenty of pop: 2B Ian Kinsler, LF Nelson Cruz and 3B Michael Young are established stars and up and coming 1B Chris Davis could have a breakout year. The Rangers will be looking for breakout seasons from SS Elvis Andrus and CF Julio Borbon as well. What can they get, however, from Guerrero and Josh Hamilton, who played in just 189 games between the two of them last season?
Josh Hamilton
With a lineup likely to produce runs, the Rangers can probably survive with a rotation that features no great pitchers, but does have a couple of good ones (Harden and Scott Feldman). They have to get more from the bottom of that rotation, which has at times shown promise but hasn’t delivered. . .yet.
Hit the jump to continue reading the other AL West teams....
LOS ANGELES ANGELS
SEASON OUTLOOK: Solid playoff contender
The Angels have dominated the AL West for a decade, finish first seven times since 2001 (and finishing 2nd twice in that same stretch). Consequently, it would surprise no one, including me, if that repeat again as AL West champs, but for the first time in a while, it won’t surprise me if they don’t.
The Angels have parted ways with Chone Figgins and oft-injured Vlad Guerrero, which places a great deal of pressure on breakout star 1B Kendry Morales, who will need to do as well as he did in 2008 (.306 avg., 34 HRs). Untested Brandon Wood replaces Figgins at 3B, while the outfield remains solid, but increasingly old (Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu are both north of 35, while Juan Rivera, who will be 32 in July, is the “youngster.”) While the Angels lineup is still productive, it is no longer scary, and that puts more of a burden on their pitching.
Kendry Morales
The Angels pitching staff has reliable starters in Joe Saunders and Jared Weaver, and are looking for rebound years from Ervin Santana and late season addition Scott Kazmir. That seems more likely than expecting a big year from Joel Pineiro who had a career year with St. Louis in 2009 at the age of 31. The Angels bullpen will be a strength this season: closer Brian Fuentes has made everyone forget “K-Rod” and new set up man Fernando Rodney is solid, having saved 37 games for Detroit last season.
Brian Fuentes
SEATTLE MARINERS
SEASON OUTLOOK: Work in progress
The Mariners’ are many people’s pre-season darlings to challenge in the West, and it’s certainly true that the made the biggest offseason splash, acquiring Phillies Ace Cliff Lee and Angels 3B Chone Figgins, but the Mariners don’t look much like contenders to me. New 1B Casey Kotchman won’t come close to replacing the power outage left by Russell Branyan’s departure, and while the Mariners still have Ichiro, who is the Rod Carew of his generation, they don’t seem to have much else. Ken Griffey, Jr. is all but done and new acquisition Milton Bradley is a couple of years and a half dozen scandals removed from being a star player. The prospect of Figgins and Ichiro at the top of the lineup certainly has some spark, but there’s no bang for the buck in the middle of the order, where runs are driven in and games are won.
Chone Figgins
Of course, it’s true that no one’s jumping on Seattle’s bandwagon because of their lineup. The prospect of Lee and Felix Hernandez at the top of Seattle’s rotation is formidable, but it seems like the image of Cliff Lee that’s stuck in everyone’s head is the Cliff Lee of the 2009 postseason, when he was hands down the best pitcher in baseball. Lee is good, and he’ll be very good for Seattle, but his m.o. is not as a dominating stopper. Moreover, there’s not a whole lot to get excited about in the rest of the Seattle pitching staff and with a lineup that will score runs one at a time instead of in bunches, there needs to be.
Cliff Lee
OAKLAND ATHLETICS
SEASON OUTLOOK: Not happening.
The A’s have long since abandoned last year’s experiment of bringing a number of older players to try to mix with their prospects. Gone are Matt Holliday, Adam Kennedy, Orlando Cabrera and Jason Giambi. Instead, the A’s will go with young and in some cases unproven players in their lineup, hoping to grow them into winners as a team. There are some bright spots: catcher Kurt Suzuki is a solid backstop, the addition of 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff from the Padres will help in the infield and LF Rajai Davis is a speedy contact hitter who will be a downright dynamite leadoff hitter if he can learn to draw more walks. Unfortunately, there are more questions than answers in this lineup and the A‘s cannot be thought of as anything other than rebuilding this season.
.
Rajai Davis
Things don’t look a whole lot better for the A’s in the pitching staff either. Every starter in their rotation was under 25 last year, so they’ll be looking for leadership from veterans Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets, signed as a free agent from Milwaukee. The problem: neither of these guys threw so much as one pitch last year due to injury. With questions marks in the lineup and even bigger question marks on the mound, the A’s are headed for a last place finish.
22 year old A’s pitcher Brett Anderson
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