First Place Mariners

[Hollyw00d]

I think the mariners as a team have the least "upside" in the division, meaning it will be hard for their pitching to repeat last years performance. On the other hand, it will be difficult for their offense to be as bad as last year. But playing in Safeco, runs are never guaranteed.

A couple injuries to their rotation, and they could be a pretty bad team again.

I feel the angels are kind of in a similar boat as well. I dont think the offense will be as good as last year. I think the loss of Kendrick will hurt, pujols' decline will continue, kole may sophomore slump and DH will be an issue. The bullpen may be as good as last season, but I'm not convinced.

The only area of potential upside is starting pitching, and that has yet to be seen.

If things go right for them, Oakland could reclaim the AL West crown this season

[Ender]

maybe for relievers.  relievers carried the relative weakness of the starting rotation last year for a lot of innings.  the pen ended up being really tired out in the last month of the season.

 

the starting rotation situation this year is much better than last year.  huge upside.  

 

seager had an atrocious first 6 weeks last year. just abysmal. not a single homer until the 20th game. i see some upside for him compared to last year.

 

dh upside compared to last year (.190/.266/.301, 15 home runs) is downright colossal.

 

it's not like ackley and miller can be much worse offensively or defensively than last year. up is the only side possible.

 

zunino just broke 1000 professional plate appearances at the end of last year.  he hit 22 home runs, but hit below .200 average.  lots of potential upside there. 

 

austin jackson had his worst offensive stretch ever with the m's for a few months last year. so yeah, upside there for sure. 

 

it's very interesting to see what others have to say about teams for sure, though.  the pen is the only part of the team that doesn't have potential upside, IMO...well, right field is still the same shit hole it's always been. 

 

i don't necessarily think the m's rate being picked to win the division by so many national writers, but to say they have little upside between now and 2014 compared to other teams in the division doesn't compute too well for me, either.  

 

A full season of Paxton, Walker and Iwakuma will help also .... to say Taijuan Walker has had a decent spring is an understatement.

 

 

You could really claim most teams with a few injuries to their starting rotation will be a bad team ... so that defense is silly in my book.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Ender

[Hollyw00d]

Few teams depend so heavily on the starting rotation as the mariners do

[Ender]

Few teams depend so heavily on the starting rotation as the mariners do

 

If you have a shitty rotation, you're gonna have a shitty team. Look at the Minnesota last year.

 

5th highest run scoring team in the AL (7th in all MLB) .... one of the worst rotations. One of the worst teams.

 

The Mariners also have one of the better defenses in the AL ... so that may mask starting rotation problems.

 

 

 

All this is silly. Let's wait until  the season and see how things pan out.

 

If Mike Trout died tomorrow you guys would be so much worse off than you are today ....

Edited March 26, 2015 by Ender

[ItzTacosYerrp]

If Mike Trout died tomorrow you guys would be so much worse off than you are today ....

What the **** did you just ****ing say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the **** out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my ****ing words. You think you can get away with saying that **** to me over the Internet? Think again, ****er. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re ****ing dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little ****. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your ****ing tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will **** fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re ****ing dead, kiddo.

[Hollyw00d]

I agree, I think the Mariners in a short series would be a nightmare matchup.

[Ender]

What the **** did you just ****ing say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the **** out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my ****ing words. You think you can get away with saying that **** to me over the Internet? Think again, ****er. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re ****ing dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little ****. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your ****ing tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will **** fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re ****ing dead, kiddo.

 

Pls stop with the memes!

[ItzTacosYerrp]

Pls stop with the memes!

"I don’t give a **** who you are or where you live. You can count on me to be there to bring your ****ing life to a hellish end. I’ll put you in so much ****ing pain that it’ll make Jesus being nailed to a cross in the desert look like a ****ing back massage on a tropical island. I don’t give a **** how many reps you have or how tough you are IRL, how well you can fight, or how many ****ing guns you own to protect yourself. I’ll ****ing show up at your house when you aren’t home. I’ll turn all the lights on in your house, leave all the water running, open your fridge door and not close it, and turn your gas stove burners on and let them waste gas. You’re going to start stressing the **** out, your blood pressure will triple, and you’ll have a ****ing heart attack. You’ll go to the hospital for a heart operation, and the last thing you’ll see when you’re being put under in the operating room is me hovering above you, dressed like a doctor. When you wake up after being operated on, wondering what ticking time bomb is in your chest waiting to go off. You’ll recover fully from your heart surgery. And when you walk out the front door of the hospital to go home I’ll run you over with my ****ing car out of no where and kill you. I just want you to know how easily I could ****ing destroy your pathetic excuse of a life, but how I’d rather go to a great ****ng length to make sure your last remaining days are spent in a living, breathing ****ing hell. It’s too late to save yourself, but don’t bother committing suicide either… I’ll ****ing resuscitate you and kill you again myself you b*tch-faced phaggot. Welcome to hell, population: you"

[ten ocho recon scout]

Itztacos is gonna end ender...and hes gonna miss the mariners best season in years

[Ender]

Itztacos is gonna end ender...and hes gonna miss the mariners best season in years

 

Nahhhhh. He is just copying and pasting things!

[Hubs]

The Pundits seem to point out all of the Halos shortcomings, while pointing out that if everything goes right, the Mariners will take the division. 

 

The Mariners have a lot to like, they've definitely made improvements from last year's team.

 

But so did the Angels. People forget how shaky the Angels were until June 1. They reconstructed a shaky bullpen by midseason, had two outfielders go down with injuries. They somehow managed to go 10 over in the first 80 games, but the second half, even with losing Richards 2/3 of the way into the season, and Skaggs as well, they finished 34 games over.

 

How did they do this? Was it smoke a mirrors or was it a really good team playing exceptionally well?

 

The Angels won the division last season with zero production from the DH spot in the first half. They tried to solve that with Matt Joyce, and CJ Cron looks great this spring.

 

They had depth issues in their rotation, acquired two young starters. 

 

The only piece that is going to hurt that they lost is Kendrick. 

 

I still think they've got the division by 5 or 6 games.

[tdawg87]

"I don’t give a **** who you are or where you live. You can count on me to be there to bring your ****ing life to a hellish end. I’ll put you in so much ****ing pain that it’ll make Jesus being nailed to a cross in the desert look like a ****ing back massage on a tropical island. I don’t give a **** how many reps you have or how tough you are IRL, how well you can fight, or how many ****ing guns you own to protect yourself. I’ll ****ing show up at your house when you aren’t home. I’ll turn all the lights on in your house, leave all the water running, open your fridge door and not close it, and turn your gas stove burners on and let them waste gas. You’re going to start stressing the **** out, your blood pressure will triple, and you’ll have a ****ing heart attack. You’ll go to the hospital for a heart operation, and the last thing you’ll see when you’re being put under in the operating room is me hovering above you, dressed like a doctor. When you wake up after being operated on, wondering what ticking time bomb is in your chest waiting to go off. You’ll recover fully from your heart surgery. And when you walk out the front door of the hospital to go home I’ll run you over with my ****ing car out of no where and kill you. I just want you to know how easily I could ****ing destroy your pathetic excuse of a life, but how I’d rather go to a great ****ng length to make sure your last remaining days are spent in a living, breathing ****ing hell. It’s too late to save yourself, but don’t bother committing suicide either… I’ll ****ing resuscitate you and kill you again myself you b*tch-faced phaggot. Welcome to hell, population: you"

I actually haven't seen this one before. I lol'd.

[floplag]

The funny part in all this to me is that it assumes everything will go perfect for them again, and that at the same time we apparently will tank.

 

It isnt that the Ms will be bad or anything, i think they will be improved.  Im more afraid of them than i am the A's, but thats not the point.   Cruz will do well, he wont fall off the planet, but id wager he doesnt hit 40 again.

 

Last year we were 10 game better than them.  Even if everything break right for them again, lets say they add 5 wins and get into the mid 90s.. it still assumes we will fall back at least 5 for them to overtake us.

 

Now, considering that we will have full seasons from our starting staff, a full season with Street, and even without that we had almost twice thier run differential.. how does that make sense that we would fall back?

 

I get the Howie factor, we will lose a little on offense potentially but the pitching should be much improved.

 

So while i get how the Ms should be better, why is there this general assumption that we should be worse?

[Hollyw00d]

I dont think there's any assumption the pitching will be improved.

Richards performed like an ace last year, will he repeat that?

Weaver is a year older, and every year he has declined to the point where he is average at best.

Who knows what we get out of Wilson, but it probably wont be good.

It would really surprise me if shoemaker repeats what he did last year.

The rest are kids or guys who have some experience but haven't been very good.

The pitching has real potential to take a large step back this year

[Hollyw00d]

And while you think a lot went right for Seattle last year, which it did, maybe even more went right for us last year. At the beginning of the season, most "experts" and a lot of people on this board didn't think we would have a winning record

[disarcina]

Great SI has Seattle M's on the cover - and pick them for first place in the AL West losing to the Cleveland Indians for the AL title.

 

great stuff.

 

now we're a lock.

 

as for Seattle -- yeah, they've made some major moves (so have the SD Padres and SI has them finishing THIRD, 12 games back, in the NL West) but they're Seattle. Their big moves and F/A signings never seem to work out for them (really, Cano was the first big F/A signing I can think of that has thrived in Seattle -- most of them go bust up there -- I remember Adrian Beltre was hitting something like .205 at the All Star Break the first year of this F/A contract).

 

Dodgers winning the NL West and advancing to the Series?? Sorry, they'll never get past the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

Plus, looks like Pagan may be back in CF (at least while RF'er Pence is out -- Pagan pretty fragile health wise but should be able to shore up Giants OF until Pence returns in about 4 weeks). Check the stats on Pagan last year -- not his personal stats but the SF Giants winning percentage when he was in the starting line up --- I think it was close to .650

[disarcina]

as for the Halos -- I think the odds makers, right now, see the Angels losing EVERY fifth start -- so that's 33 losses right off the top.........

[disarcina]

well, as DiPoto said at fanfest -- Halos won the division by 10 games -- have the moves in Seattle and Anaheim closed that TEN game gap?

 

probably not -- perhaps 5 or 6 games but not TEN.

 

much depends on how our starters (Garrett Richards) rebound.

 

I think Weaver is poised to have a good year, Shoemaker looks strong........CJ Wilson seems to have new life.

 

Santiago is a crap shoot and we'll need the pen by the 6th inning and Heaney? -- I hope he does real well at SLC.

[OregonLAA]

Paxton and Walker are scary good. Problem for them is staying healthy. Dream rotations never seem to work our in baseball though

[Ender]

well, as DiPoto said at fanfest -- Halos won the division by 10 games -- have the moves in Seattle and Anaheim closed that TEN game gap?

 

probably not -- perhaps 5 or 6 games but not TEN.

 

much depends on how our starters (Garrett Richards) rebound.

 

I think Weaver is poised to have a good year, Shoemaker looks strong........CJ Wilson seems to have new life.

 

Santiago is a crap shoot and we'll need the pen by the 6th inning and Heaney? -- I hope he does real well at SLC.

 

You can't assume the Angels will win 98 games ... can't really assume any team will win 98 games.

 

Can they? Sure.

 

But it's pretty tough to win 98 games in the modern era.

[SoWhat]

http://emeraldcityswagger.com/2015/03/22/getting-to-know-the-2015-los-angeles-angels-of-anaheim/

For the lulz.

[nando714]

My final prediction is that the angels win the west by 5-7 games. Hitters go to die in Seattle. Their pitching who knows if it stays healthy And their bullpen isn't anything special I expect rodney's numbers to go down a little.

[Lou]

Mariners prospect Victor Sanchez has died

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/03/28/mariners-prospect-victor-sanchez-has-died/

[tdawg87]

That's terrible.

[Hollyw00d]

Sucks man. So young