eastbaybaseball

The AL West looks to be more competitive than just a one-horse race last season as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim cruised to another divisional title. However, this season will be different. Every team besides the Angels have improved drastically.  Although the Angels have added Bobby Abreu and re-signed Juan Rivera to fill their voids in the outfield, they will still miss the big bats of first baseman Mark Teixeira and outfielder Garrett Anderson.  The loss of Jon Garland should also hurt their rotation and it will be up to a young guy like Dustin Moseley or Nick Adenhart to step up unless Kelvim Escobar returns to full strength and is healthy. And they filled their major hole with the loss of their closer K-Rod and brings in ex-Rockies closer Brian Fuentes to take the reign in the late innings.  Otherwise, the 2009 Angels doesn’t look any better than last year’s squad and the Rangers have improved their offense and bullpen, the Athletics have added some offensive punch and have a strong nucleus in their bullpen and the Mariners have added some pieces and one major one that should help their strong starting rotation get some wins, help team morale and bring some excitement to Seattle with the signing of Ken Griffey Jr. The 2009 Angels look as follows:

Projected Rotation:

SP1 John Lackey RHP

SP2 Joe Saunders LHP

SP3  Ervin Santana RHP

SP4 Jerrod Weaver RHP

SP5 Dustin Moseley RHP

-  Kelvim Escobar RHP

CL Brian Fuentes

Projected Lineup:

1 Chone Figgins 3B

2 Howie Kendrick 2B

3 Bobby Abreu RF

4 Vladimir Guerrero DH

5 Torrie Hunter CF

6 Juan Rivers LF

7 Kendry Morales 1B

8 Mike Napoli C

9 Maicer Izturis or Erick Aybar SS

Bench 

Erick Aybar or Maicer Izturis IF

Jeff Mathis C

Robb Quinlan 1B/3B

Reggie Willits OF

Gary Matthews Jr. OF