With all the offseason reviews completed, we're asking a few questions of every team. The AL West is on the hot seat this time.
- Did the Angels overpay Bobby Abreu and Fernando Rodney? Can Joel Pineiro adequately replace John Lackey?
- The A's guaranteed $17.5MM to three players who barely played last year in Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, and Coco Crisp. Were these signings too risky? Will left-side infield Plan Bs Kevin Kouzmanoff and Cliff Pennington provide sufficient production, after Adrian Beltre and Marco Scutaro chose to sign elsewhere?
- Could the $5.8MM the Mariners spent on Ken Griffey Jr. and Casey Kotchman have gone toward a more productive bat or two? Did the Ms sell high on Brandon Morrow, and should they have added another veteran starter?
- Similar to the A's, the Rangers committed $19MM to three high-variance players in Rich Harden, Vladimir Guerrero, and Colby Lewis. Will at least two of the three play to their upside?
The first question is ridiculous. Bobby Abreu proved his worth last year first of all, both what he did on the field and off (Figgins, Aybar, Izturiz, Napoli and now hopefully Wood all benefit from Abreu’s philosophy). Second, Pineiro is not there to replace Lackey. He is there to replace Palmer/O’Sullivan/Ortega/Bell or whoever was thrown into the fifth spot. The question is can Santana, Kazmir or Weaver replace John Lackey. Come on now man.
The Angels don’t need Pineiro to replace Lackey. Pineiro is their 5th starter. Weaver, Kazmir, Santana, Saunders and Pineiro. Pretty solid rotation .
Are we tired of explaining that to people yet? I hope Piniero actually does have a better year than Lackey so we can cram it in all these people’s faces.
This might actually happen… if Lackey’s arm falls off his body.
Or if Lackey keeps his arm and they just pitch the same as last season…..
Lackey: 176.1 IP, 3.83 ERA, 11-8, 139 K, 1.27 Whip, 47 BB, 75, ER
Pineiro: 214.0 IP, 3.49 ERA, 15-12, 105 K, 1.14 Whip, 27 BB, 83 ER.
Pretty solid rotation? I think not. Weaver (apparently their Ace) only won 16 games last year. Santana and Saunders and Piniero are health risks and Kazmir still has to re-prove himself after having a down year the last couple of years. Don’t tell me that the Angels have a pretty solid rotation.
I think the only way this debate will be solved is to look back in October. 15-12 and 11-8 makes no difference. But Lackey is healthy now. Piniero has to prove he can repeat 2009. But then again, the Angels had 3/5 of their rotation out to start 2009, 2 of the 3 came back, and the rotation ended up being one of the best at full strength in August and September; Lackey wasn’t was probably the least consistent during that stretch. And they won 97 games…
Pinero is not replacing Lackey, Pinero is replacing the career minor leaguers that kept rolling through the #5 spots all year long because of injuries and the death of Nick Adenhart, Kazmir is almost like an offseason move. He was a great pitcher since the trading deadline and it is him that the Angels are asking to replace Lackey—as other have stated… Also loosing Figgins isn’t a huge loss, he had a career year and got paid for it and good for him, however speed starts to slip as you get older.
The M’s are totally wasting Figgy’s value by putting him at 2nd.
I mean if Lopez can become a semi average defender at 3rd, I suppose it will work out.
but Figgins dosent have the Power to play 3rd either. Even if Figgins plays perfect defense, he still isnt a prototypical 3rd baseman. Neither is Lopez. Everybody keeps saying the Mariners are so much better this year, they are, but they arent good enough to beat the Angels or even the Rangers, in my opinion.
What is prototypical 3rd baseman? In fact, what’s the difference? Who cares? The Angels won 97 games with Figgins there. And 3B is as shallow as its been in years. It just happened to be a power position, for the most part, since the 1950s. Whether any position is a power position is relative to trends. As long as your offense gets enough run production, it doesn’t matter what position the power comes from. Are we going to move Ian Kinsler from 2B now?
The Angels had better options for the MI thna Figgins, so Figgins had no other place to play. 3rd base has been a hole since Glaus left. The Angels didnt win with Figgins there, they won despite Figgins being there. Brandon Wood fits the “prototype” much more if he hits like advertised.If a “trend” lasts 50+ years, it becomes the norm. The great thing about Kinsler is the fact that he is putting up those numbers from 2nd. Its what made guys like Jeff Kent so valuable. Besides, why would you have Kinsler play third when you have Michael Young?
The Harden move in Texas can be the move of the year… high upside and didn’t have to commit a lot and he has something to prove. We could look back at the end of the season and say that was the best move.
Also if Texas is out of it he would be a great trade bait to a contending team, smart of Texas
I agree that at the end of the season this could look like a great signing, either from the season he has or his trade value midway. Of course spring training stats don’t really mean much, but if his 8.87 ERA this spring continues on through the season then the 7.5 million guaranteed could hurt but probably was worth the risk for his upside.
Couple more questions for the Angels :
*Will Brandon Wood finally live up to his potential ?
*Will Scioscia play Mike Napoli everyday ?
Plus, its going to be interesting how the Mariners will play this year.
I agree. I won’t count the M’s in as winning it all yet as they still need to prove that heavy defense and limited offense will work, and we need Rowland-Smith, Snell, Fister, Vargas, or Bedard or all five to step up and make a solid move with their consistency and dominance.
But I am liking what I see so far.
Napoli isn’t going to play everyday.
I agree. I won’t count the M’s in as winning it all yet as they still need to prove that heavy defense and limited offense will work, and we need Rowland-Smith, Snell, Fister, Vargas, or Bedard or all five to step up and make a solid move with their consistency and dominance.
But I am liking what I see so far.
Napoli wont play everyday.. ever heard of Jeff Mathis?
I agree. I won’t count the M’s in as winning it all yet as they still need to prove that heavy defense and limited offense will work, and we need Rowland-Smith, Snell, Fister, Vargas, or Bedard or all five to step up and make a solid move with their consistency and dominance.
But I am liking what I see so far.
How about you guys correct the column itself by stating that Adrian Beltre didn’t play with the A’s last year but the Mariners? You guys should correct that.
No, no. I don’t think thats what Tim meant. The A’s were serious bidders on both Beltre and Scutaro though they missed out on both. I think thats what Tim meant.
What they meant by that is the A’s missed out on signing both Scutaro and Beltre to the Red Sox, as both players were rumored to sign with Oakland at one point over the offseason
How about you guys correct the problem in the column itself by pointing out that Adrian Beltre didn’t play for the A’s last year but the Mariners. That should be fixed.
Q-Did the Angels overpay Bobby Abreu?
A-HELL NO! Abreu has proved his worth time and time again. The man is a great player and earns every dollar he makes. .300 career batting average, .400 career OBP, over 100 RBI’s year after year, nearly 100 runs scored every year, in the top of the league in walks, can steal bases with the best of them, works counts better than anybody in baseball, can still hit 15-20 Homers a season, still got a cannon for a right arm….When are you folks going to stop undersetimating Bobby Abreu?
Answers:
Angels – They absolutely overpaid on both Rodney and Abreu. Enough to really worry about? Not really. 2/$18 for Abreu isn’t much of an overpay considering that Damon got 1/$8. I would say in both deals they spent about $1-$2m more per year than they needed to. On a $110m payroll that’s really insignificant. As for Lackey – the better question is whether the 2010 rotation will be better than the 2009 rotation was. A full year of Kazmir could easily be as good as Lackey was in 09. Pineiro will most certainly be better than O’Sullivan, Palmer, Ortega was last year. Santana is healthy. I see no reason why the rotation will be worse in 2010.
A’s: The Dutch signing was solid. Crisp – not so much. Sheets is either going to look genius or stupid depending on his health. I’m leaning towards stupid. Can’t believe he scored $10m. The plan B’s will not be nearly as good as the plan A’s. They also don’t cost draft picks or gobs of money. I don’t see the A’s contending so these plan B moves are actually pretty smart.
M’s: Could have done much better than Kotchman and Griffey (although I don’t get the feeling that the M’s were working off a tight budget as is). They sold low on Morrow. They also needed to add a bat to their lineup. Bradley could be that guy – most likely he isn’t. The M’s are going to miss Branyan’s HR capabilities. There isn’t a single guy in that lineup that would worry me as an opposing pitcher. That said, their defense should be spectacular and Lee/Hernandez is pretty darn solid 1/2.
Rangers: Will ultimately be disappointed in Guerrero. He is toast. 120 games max with an OPS around 800. Not awful but definitely not what you expect when talking about Vlad. Lewis is a wildcard. Anything you get out of him should be viewed as a positive.Harden – who knows. Big time risk. With how good the Rangers were I’m surprised they didn’t target safer moves. Adding another 5-7 wins (combined) through safe transactions seems like the better play than signing a group of guys who might add 1-2 wins or 7-10 wins. Too much risk for me.
“There isn’t a single guy in that lineup that would worry me as an opposing pitcher.”
one word for you: ICHIRO!!!!!!!
uh, i’m guessing that since he’s a relative newcomer, coming over from the Japanese league without a lot of hype and all that, maybe you hadn’t heard of him
Ichiro, Bradley, Figgins… um, uh, they have Cliff Lee? Oh, hes hurt? They have Erik Bedard.. oh he wont be back till the AS break. They have King Felix!! And its a good thing, because 2 lead off men, and no power means a 3rd place finish in the division.