This is probably going to be a 3 team race in a 4 team division for the division title. Oakland, Texas, and Los Angeles Angels all have potential to win this division. However, LA Angels and Oakland are the front runners with Texas being the darkhorse.
Oakland's key to winning this division will be their pitching staff. Barry Zito, Rich Harden will anchor a solid 5 man starting rotation which finishes with E. Loaiza, D. Haren and J. Blanton. Rich Harden will be the key in this starting rotation, when healthy, he can potentially emerge as the ace for this ball club. The offence will not be strong, which means not only must starting pitching be solid, the bullpen must be able to hold off oppoenents and bridge the innings between the starter and Hudson Street. After coming off an very impressive second half of the season, Hudson Street must retain his top form.
Reigning CY Young winner Bartolo Colon (also the best smelling player in the league..harharhar) will need to maintain his performance from last season to anchor this pitching staff. J. Lackey is starting to emerge as a solid number two pitcher behind Colon, with a young, E. Santana slowly developing into a top tier starting pitcher. The Angels will again be a favourite to win the division, and there haven't been any reason to write them off to repeat as the winners. The bridge between the starters and one of the best closers (F. Rodriguez) will again be anchored by S. Shields. Vlad Guerrero will need to remain healthy to keep the offensive production for the Angels.
Signing Kevin Millwood and Adam Eaton this off-season, the Texas Rangers hope this will help push them to a division title this season. While they will continue to have one of the brightest youngstars in the game (M. Texieira, M. Young, H. Blalock), their pitching has not improved enough to overtake and win the division. After trading away A. Soriano, it remains to be seen who will replace him at 2B. While the offence will not fail to score runs, the downfall of the Rangers will come from losing high scoring games.
A year after exploding in stats, A. Beltre was a huge letdown to say the least. Ichiro also experienced his first decline in production, and the pitching staff just keeps getting older. Predictions will be consistent in picking Seattle to finish last again in this division. With an aging pitching staff (althought F. Hernandez is going to be the ace of the future for years to come), as well as an inconsistent offence, it will be another season before Seattle will return to the playoff picture
Prediction:
Oakland Athletics
Los Angeles Angels
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners
Thursday, March 30, 2006
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