AL West Thread

[ThaSaltCracka]

I figured I would start this thread just to talk about the AL West probably the most competitve division in baseball right now, <ahem> excluding the M's....

anyways, why not discuss something about the west, choose whichever question you want and run with it.

1. Who will win the west?
I am thinking Texas will win it, unless Anaheim gets healthy real fast and their SP improves to average or if Oakland's SP improves to its stellar level again.

2. What trades will happen? Zito? Half the M's team?

3. Is Bobby Crosby the ROY?

4. Anything else?

Humor me people and run with this.... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[elwoodblues]

Just as an indication of how out of touch with baseball I am, I read the subject of the post and wondered "Who is Al West?"

[andyfox]

What's with Kenny Rogers? Just think how embarrassing it will be if the wins the Cy Young award.

Zito, as I posted before, has, along with Derek Lowe, Mussinaitis: a fast ball that is 3-4 MPH slower than it once was along with an inability to keep his bread-and-butter pitch (Zito: lollipop curve; Lowe: sinker; Mussina: knuckle/curve) down in key situations.

[daryn]

i think texas will fall flat. you gotta think the A's will win the west.. but maybe anaheim..

wow you're right, it is a pretty competitive division!

[J.R.]

I think the NL east is the most competitive division, but...

Texas has no starting pitching (other than rogers and drese) which should wear on their bullpen, which has pitched pretty well. I like the return of chavez for the A's, but they need zito, redman and hardin to pitch better- 2 out of 5 won't carry this team. This should be the Angels division to lose as they are only 4 out after all of the injuries they sustained early on. How/why is Colon so bad?

[TheRake]

[ QUOTE ]
i think texas will fall flat

[/ QUOTE ]

I fear you might be right. It sure has been fun watching my Rangers this year though. They have been really hit hard with injuries and have still managed to keep pace with the "contenders" in the west. M. Young, Soriano, and Blalock have been absolutely devistating opposing pitchers and whenever they lose a couple games Kenny Rogers has been right there to stop the bleeding. The Bullpen has been outstanding as well. If they can get to the 7th with a lead they close the deal more times than not. Right now they look like a team that can win the division, but they are young and it remains to be seen how they will handle the pressure down the stretch. Regardless of what happens, baseball has become fun again here in North Texas and for now that is enough.

TheRake

[TheRake]

[ QUOTE ]
Texas has no starting pitching (other than rogers and drese) which should wear on their bullpen, which has pitched pretty well.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has been the mark of a John Hart(GM) team. He likes young players that can hit and hard throwing bullpen guys. Before I moved to Texas I lived in Northeast Ohio and this team looks much like the Cleveland teams of the mid 90's

TheRake

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Zito, as I posted before, has, along with Derek Lowe, Mussinaitis: a fast ball that is 3-4 MPH slower than it once was along with an inability to keep his bread-and-butter pitch (Zito: lollipop curve; Lowe: sinker; Mussina: knuckle/curve) down in key situations.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your right about that.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
How/why is Colon so bad?

[/ QUOTE ]
How is he bad? 26 homers in 17 starts is probably a good place to start. I figured as much with him moving from Comiskey(pitcher friendly park) to Anaheim. I still think this is Texas division to lose. There offense has been amazing and their pitching not too bad.

[ QUOTE ]
I like the return of chavez for the A's, but they need zito, redman and hardin to pitch better- 2 out of 5 won't carry this team

[/ QUOTE ] Chavez has been a bit of a disapointment this year, but maybe it was because of the injury. If he heats up it would be bad for the rest of the west. BTW Hudson is currently battling a injury as well. The A's are an interesting team though, it seems like they have a lot of young guys, and sometimes young players run out of steam near the end of the season because they are not use to the 162 game season.

[J.R.]

How is he bad? 26 homers in 17 starts is probably a good place to start. I figured as much with him moving from Comiskey(pitcher friendly park) to Anaheim.

I meant "how" in the sense that he is good, how can he be ptiching so bad (his era is near 7.00). He has always given up homers (never like this), but he pitched in Jacobs field for 6 seasons, which isn't a bad place to hit. Maybe all those innings the past 6 years are catching up to him, btu the As have spent a lot of money and the expectattions are high, which favors a team like the As and especially the rangers, who without A-rod were expected to do little.

[craig r]

what i found strange is that as of last week you could get texas to win the division at tradesports for a little better than 4:1. there is no way that they have only a 20% of winning the division. of course now it has went up a bit, but i still don't think it has went to the right price.

craig

[ThaSaltCracka]

Does anyone think Zito will be traded?

[Boris]

Zito will not be traded. He not been as effective as his cy young year but he was pretty good after the all-star break last year and he usually pitches very well in big games. Beane will not trade Zito until next year and then only if he continues to slump.

[Boris]

The A's will win the division. Their only glaring weak spot is the bullpen and that is getting better with the addition of Dotel and some pitchers from the triple A team. Oakland would have a good lead in the division right now if their bullpen was even average in the first half of the year.

Well actually the infield defense is kind of a liability also. That should improve when Chavez comes back. Crosby is a great bat but his defense is very, very shaky. In this respect Crosby is a big downgrade from Tejada. Crosby is a shoe-in for ROY but only becuase Lew Ford is barely disqualified as a rookie.

I agree though that at some point you have to think Texas is for real. It took ESPN half the season to realize that Texas has the best infield in baseball. Duh. The only question mark at the beginning of the year was Michael Young at SS. People keep harping about how bad the starting pitching sucks but the team just keeps on winning.

As for trades I can only speak for Oakland. I would not be surprised if Karros is traded for a back-up outfielder or maybe Karros and a prospect for a releiver. No one is talking about it but the A's could get very good value by trading Mark Ellis. He has become somewhat expendable with the outstanding play of rookie Marco Scutaro.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I still think Texas is the team to beat. The A's, IMO, have been overperforming offensively, but maybe they will keep it up. The bullpen is alright, buy I don't know if Dotel was that much of an upgrade. Rhodes has been staying constant with his performance last year.

[ QUOTE ]
Crosby is a great bat but his defense is very, very shaky. In this respect Crosby is a big downgrade from Tejada.

[/ QUOTE ] I saw the highlights from a game this year in which Crosby went 0-4 with 3k's and 2 errors.... talk about a bad game, but other than that he has less errors than Tejada(11-16 I think) and offensively he has been alright. I don't know if he can keep it up though. .277 is right on the cusp of good and bad.......

Trades...
See I read on ESPN that one of the "three" will be traded, and more than likely it will be Zito because he throws the least hardest. Apparently Beane likes hard throwing guys in short series, couple with the fact that eventually this threesome will be broken up. Don't be surprised if Zito gets traded.

[Boris]

Defense is very hard to evaluate by looking at statistics. Errors are a good example. In general, when a player in a skill position like SS has a low number of errors it means they are slow to the ball. This is definetly true for Crosby. Also I have seen many times where Crosby will hold onto the ball instead of trying to make a close play at first and many times flat out not get to balls that Tejada would have fielded.

Our good buddy Andy Fox made a post a few weeks back trashing Tejada's defense, batting and base running skills. I think Andy got stuck on the 405 that day and sucked too much carbon monoxide. Tejada's defense and batting are outstanding. I agree he doesn't know how to run the bases.

[J.R.]

Miggy 13 errors, 422 chances
Crosby 11 errors, 363 chances

[Boris]

.

[J.R.]

I was trying to give the same argument as you, in that while they both have the same fielding percentage one of them has contributed many more outs to his teams cause. Miggy rocks (although he has played more innings)

[ThaSaltCracka]

You think Crosby is gonna get the ROY? Mauer hasn't played as much but his numbers thus far are pretty good. Are there any other rookies standing out this year in the AL?

[J.R.]

lew ford

[ThaSaltCracka]

I didn't realize he was a rookie, his numbers are better than Crosby's too.

Ford .315, 9, 42...... 37 K's
Crosby .2733, 11, 35.... 72 k's

Don't be surprised if Crosby gets it though simply because of the hype surrounding him.

[Boris]

Lew Ford is ineligible for the ROY. He had something 2 days to many in the big leagues last year for him to be qualified as a rookie this year. Otherwise he would be a shoe-in.

[Uston]

You could say the same thing about Victor Martinez and he's having a far better season than Lew Ford.

[DonWaade]

[ QUOTE ]
figured as much with him moving from Comiskey(pitcher friendly park) to Anaheim.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont mean to nit pick, but Comiskey is anything but a "pitchers park." This year it leads the entire MLB in HR allowed. Thats right, ahead of Coors, and Ameriquest.

[DonWaade]

[ QUOTE ]
Crosby is a shoe-in for ROY but only becuase Lew Ford is barely disqualified as a rookie.

[/ QUOTE ]

Watch out of Joe Mauer. If he can stay off the DL

[J.R.]

Amended ROY Daniel Cabrerra. He's a rookie (I'm sure) who'd be leading the league in ERA with a just few more innings pitched. He has better stuff than his 1.09 K/BB, but his control is a little lacking. He got called up from double A because the Orioles needed a healthy arm to throw a game on May 13th. He was expected to go back down to double A, but he tossed a shutout for 6 innings and has been in the rotation ever since. IF he keeps pitching well, (a big if as teams get a second look at him later on in the season and his young arm throws more pitches), it be hard not to give him ROY, although the same could be said about Mauer and his terrific, albeit short, season so far.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Dont mean to nit pick, but Comiskey is anything but a "pitchers park." This year it leads the entire MLB in HR allowed. Thats right, ahead of Coors, and Ameriquest.

[/ QUOTE ] Maybe thats because the White Sox have so many big bats, I dunno.... I have just heard that Comiskey (or SBC or wtf its called) is actually a fairly windy park in which a lot of balls die in the OF, not to mention its fairly cold there at the begining and the end of the season.

[DonWaade]

I read that it is not so windy anymore due to the new roof that has been added to LF, LCF which I guess is where the prevailing winds come from.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
AL West probably the most competitve division in baseball right now,

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought at first it must have been a typo, and clearly you meant to type NL West...but then I go on to read about the M's and the A's and the Rangers and realize that you ARE talking abou the AL.

i guess a half/game separating three teams with all three teams sharing almost equal time in 1st, 2nd and 3rd no longer qualifies as "competitive". /images/graemlins/tongue.gif