David - What you neglect to mention is the lack of middle relief on this team and an inability to score runs.

Pitching-wise, the loss of Sherrill is going to be huge. On top of that, Morrow's arm is bothering him. Sherrill was a huge part of that bullpen last year - and the coaches still over-used Putz.

Hitting-wsie, we let a very reliable Jose Guillen go during the off-season (Brad Wilkerson?) and we haven't done anything about a rapidly declining Richie Sexson (not that we can w/ that contract). This team will struggle mightily to score runs for our pitching staff. Even if Felix and Bedard are at the top of their games, they're going to have a hard time getting the support they need to win.

Lastly, McLaren coaches a very different game than Scioscia (sp?), allowing for a lot of free swinging, and that's where we'll get beat.

I think the issue is two fold.

1. the Angels simply have better pitching depth and upsides on their youth. and yes that's with Felix Hernandez considered. you can look now that the Angels are misisng their 1/2 starter and they're rotation still looks at least decent. if the M's lost Felix and Bedard their rotation would probably make you want to puke.

2. the M's offesne is just dreadful. their better hitters are all pretty old and all their non- Ichiro! vets are either declining . looks like they'll start declining. or bombed (hello Richie Sexson). outside of the obvious alien Ichiro! do they even have *1* guy that's significantly above average for their position?

they have some guys that's somewhat above average player in Beltre and Ibanez (though the former probably has more value in the glove than the bat while the other loses value with the glove and is already well into his mid 30s) while everyone else is between average (Johima) to bad ( Lopez ) to atrocious (aka Richie Sexson) . it looks like their already average offesnse last year will only take more steps backward. and to add injury to insult. they weren't even much of a fielding team last year and they sport 3 contact guys in their rotation!

My pick is the LA Anaheim Angles to win the AL west. Granted the Angles are injured with Lackey probably going to start the season on the DL. However I dont think the Mariners are as good as they look on paper. King Felix and Bedard can be a dominant one two punch but the 2 of them need to be healthy. I also think the Mariners have a very weak offense as well, with Sexson and Beltre still not showing any signs of turning a corner. I like the Angles offense and they always find ways to manufacture runs, and with Torri Hunter in that lineup now i think the Angles are the clear cut favorite to win the AL west.

tori hunter played in a bandbox he is over rated. garland is not that good ether. the king will take the thrown as the unquestioned ace. wilkerson/sexson will probably strike out 250 times if they both have a full season (unexeptable) but can be replaced (clement/wlad). lopez could go ether way (chen) but the problems on this team could be managed if only the F.O. knew how. if you took all the players (major/minor) from both organisations and switched them california would explode and seattle would be left in ruins. it's not the mariners fault, it's their org

The Angels are being conservative with Escobar and Lackey. But hey, anything can happen, the King might even take the "thrown". David, I just hope you spend years making fun of whatever name Lew Wolff sells his team out for in 2010.

Funny numbers, the run diffs for last year's AL West:

+91, -19, -17, -28.

One of these numbers is not like the others. Yeah, you guessed the Angels had the +91. The other three teams were completely interchangeable. Seattle just got ridiculously lucky....for a while.

So have any of the so-so three improved enough to contend with the class of the division? Or have the Angels worsened so much that they will fall back to the blah trio?

Bedard is the only big change, so Seattle should to improve to a slightly better-than-average team. If Texas had kept Texeira, they might have something besides the middle defense.

But I don't see anybody improving enough to make a run at the Angels, who should not be much worse than last year. LAnaheim was more than a hundred runs better than anybody else in the division. Things haven't changed that much.

This dogmatic belief in the idea that pythag is an accurate measure of "luck" drives me insane. At some point people have to realise that an inability to quantify something doesn't make it irrelevant.

Regardless, there are legitimate reasons to question the Mariners' chances. The offence certainly isn't great, but nor is it the catastrophe which some people seem to think it is. The only substantive change between this year and last is the loss of Guillen and Guillen was neither good enough, nor is Wilkerson bad enough, to justify a huge drop off in offensive predictions for 2008. In fact, if we're talking about luck, Sexson had a ridiculously low Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and could be expected to regress to the mean this year.

Again, the bullpen is cause for some concern, but it's an exaggeration to say that it's significantly worse than it was last year. Sherrill was the only significant loss and whilst, unlike Guillen, he was outstanding, losing him doesn't suddenly make the bullpen a weakness. The bullpen is the one area where Seattle has a depth of young talent and whilst Sherrill won't be replaced, the drop off won't be a catastrophe either.

For me, the defence is the biggest problem with the team and it's as much a problem of philosophy as it is of talent. Raul Ibanez and Richie Sexson are amongst the worst fielders in the league at their position and given the construction of the M's rotation, defensive frailties have the potential to derail much of the improvements brought from acquiring Bedard and Silva.

LAAAAA '07 OPS+ 100 and SEA '07 OPS+104. Any discussion that starts with Seattle's offence not being as good as LAAAAA should be tossed out on its surface. Now if you want to get into Seattle regressing and LAAAAA surpassing them then we can have that argument.

Personally, I thought it was a push prior to Lackey and Escobar getting hurt. Now, I give the edge to Seattle depending on how their injuries (which there will surely be during the season) shake out.

Arte's Angels aren't going away. I attribute this to a case of acute sheepism.

Thank you bilbo! The OPS+ numbers are nearly identical, with a slight edge going to the M's for last year. The biggest reason for the Pythag run differential was the absolute train wreck outings of Ramirez and Weaver for a big part of last year. When they lost, they lost BIG! Substitute two replacement level pitchers for them last year and you have something a lot closer to the Halos in run diff. I am sooooooooo sick and tired of people saying that due to Pythag, the M's 88 wins were a mirage. NONSENSE! Barring a catastrophic injury hitting the M's, they WILL win the West - going away......

i dig this prodection! I think the Mariners get a 7-10 game lead early in the seoson,with John Lacky and Kelpahm Escabar injard for the first part of the seoson the mariners will take the AL West by 4 games over the Angels smart blog =]