Actually David, I've been looking at the AL West in a lot of detail as well, and frankly, I'm coming to the same conclusion. A lot of it will rest on how the Ms bats fare (they go either way), but the Angels really aren't that great of a team.

The other surprise is that the Beane might have sold off one year too soon. The A's might have been the West's best team in '07 (they were if you go by BaseRuns for example).

Matthew - I agree with what you say about the strength of the division, and implied as much in the THT annual.

But while "going for it" would have been a defensible move for the A's this year, so too was rebuilding. The Angels weren't that great and won't be this year either, but they have serious upside with guys like Napoli and Kendrick (and Kotchman and Wood).

And the A's have serious downside with an injured Chavez, soon-to-be injured Harden, etc.

The Angels are burning money though, and will be saddled with old players/bad contracts soon. The M's mistakenly think they're good and are sacrificing their future, and they'll likely fall apart in the next few years.

The 2-3 year rebuilding window for the A's makes sense from that perspective.

Sal,

I agree, I was just really intrigued to see the A's "true talent" level was as high as it was. But it does make a lot of sense for them to sell off now (and as an added bonus avoid any PR flack for it because of their 07 record), and build for 2010 when the stadium opens and crowds might actually come to root on a winner.

The AL West is posing all sorts of prediction problems for me though. The Angel pitchers (all due for regression), the Mariner hitters (could be really bad), The A's health (plus what does Cust do?) and the Rangers in general (I think they're bad). Ugh

If Bedard and Hernandez perform the M's should contend - they have holes but nobody in that division is that good