How The West Was Won? Not With Joel

Maybe I'm overreacting here, but I don't think I am.  Two years and $16 million dollars for Joel Pineiro?  I know the Angels lost John Lackey to free agency, failed to trade for Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, and whether they were interested or not, also watched serviceable free agent starters Rich Harden, Jason Marquis, Brett Myers, Brad Penny, Andy Pettitte, and Randy Wolf end up elsewhere, too.  With Pineiro, I just think they might have hit the panic button and felt like "doing something" was better than doing nothing at all.

In more than a thousand American League innings spent mostly with Seattle (he made 31 relief appearances with Boston in '07) Pineiro owns a 4.50 career ERA and a record that's 3 games above .500.  He's never been a big strikeout guy, either.  His best season was 151 and that was in 211 2/3 IP back in 2003.  Last year with St. Louis, he punched 105 in a career high 214 IP, and that was when he was facing pitchers!  On the plus side, he was a control freak last year allowing a league-best 1.1 walks per 9 and that translated into an excellent 1.15 WHIP.  But I don't see him repeating that, considering his career walks per 9 is more than twice what he posted a year ago (2.6).

Pineiro now joins an LA rotation that, even with him, just isn't that scary.  Jered Weaver is very good but not a true number one.  Ervin Santana has doubters after an injury-riddled '09.  Scott Kazmir is predictably unpredictable.  And at some point, Joe Saunders' luck has to run out.  The last two seasons he has somehow managed to win 33 games despite logging just 35 quality starts in 62 tries.  Seriously, check out his game log.  It's baffling!  He doesn't pitch deep into games, doesn't strike anybody out, is very hittable, prone to the big fly, and yet he keeps...on...winning!

Here's the reality for Angels fans.  Unlike what they've grown accustomed to recently, this team is, by no means, the consensus AL West favorite entering 2010.  As a matter of fact, there's an outside chance they could finish dead last.  I already covered their pitching.  And offensively, they've lost Chone Figgins and Vlad Guerrero while only bringing in Hideki Matsui, who turns 36 in June.  Torii Hunter turns 35 this July.  Bobby Abreu turns 36 in less than two months.  And while youngsters Kendry Morales and Erick Aybar finally fulfilled their promise last year, Brandon Wood is not a lock to stick around all season at third.  He's been a "can't miss" prospect for what feels like half a decade and in more than 230 plate appearances over three seasons, his strikeout-to-walk ratio is more than 10 to 1, and his career OBP is .222.  Maybe he'll figure it out and hit .260 with 25 bombs, but I'd be surprised.

Elsewhere in the division, Texas finished 6 games above .500 and 10 back of LA and that's with Josh Hamilton playing in just 89 games and Chris Davis finishing with a putrid .284 OBP in 391 ABs.  They've added Vladimir Guerrero.  Rookie Elvis Andrus hit .280 after the All-Star break and finished with 33 steals.  Julio Borbon swiped 19 bags in 157 ABs after being a summer call-up. Nelson Cruz had a break-out year with 33 homeruns in just 462 at bats and Ian Kinsler and Michael Young haven't gone anywhere.  Add Rich Harden, the continued development of promising young arms Scott Feldman, Derek Holland, Brandon McCarthy, and Tommy Hunter plus a full year of Neftali Feliz, and closer insurance in Chris Ray, and "the team that could win if only they could pitch," suddenly can.

Seattle now has arguably the best one-two pitching punch in baseball with King Felix and Cliff Lee.  And after the failed Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson experiments, they seem to be building a lineup to better-suit their big ballpark.  Newbie Casey Kotchman makes sense at first base as does Chone Figgins at third.  And if they can get Milton Bradley to play nice and stay healthy, he's a steal in left.  Jose Lopez, Ichiro, Franklin Gutierrez, and Ken Griffey all return as well.  The M's finished four games above .500 last year and could win a bunch of games by scores of 4-3 or 3-1.

Even Oakland could give LA a scare.  The A's hit the fewest homeruns and owned the lowest slugging percentage in the league in 2009.  They also started a rookie pitcher in more than 70% of their games.  And yet, they finished just 6 games below .500, were outscored by two runs all season, and finished tied for 3rd in the AL in ERA.  They also have the reigning rookie of the year in closer Andrew Bailey who led baseball in OPS against in 2009 (.476).  Newcomers Jake Fox and Kevin Kouzmanoff should provide a little more punch to their lineup along with the re-signed Jack Cust.  Mark Ellis missed more than 50 games a year ago.  And the newly-inked Justin Duchscherer should be physically and emotionally 100% after missing all of 2009 with arm trouble and clinical depression.  Plus, big-time outfield prospect Michael Taylor (a more complete player than the prospect they traded to get him, Brett Wallace) is waiting for a call-up.  I'm not saying the A's are a Wild Card dark horse but it would be foolish to write then off as cellar-dwellers for a second straight year.

The bottom line is this.  Top to bottom, the American League West should be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball (once again) in 2010.  Last year, it was the only division where every team won at least 75 games and between October and now, we've seen last year's runway winner get a little worse and the teams that finished behind them get a lot better.  That, more than anything else, could explain the Pineiro signing.