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Gleeman on the news that the Angels are sending Brandon Wood to the Arizona Fall League:

Wood has clearly fallen out of the Angels' plans after hitting .180 with a brutal 128/11 K/BB ratio through 431 career plate appearances and in theory the AFL is a place to showcase him in front of the maximum number of scouts, but even if he thrives there I'm not sure how impressed other teams will be with a 25-year-old beating up on Single-A and Double-A pitchers.

I'm not sure, either.

Wait. I am sure. I'm sure that other teams won't be impressed at all. I'm sure that if other teams were going to be impressed by Brandon Wood, they already would have been impressed and the Angels would have already traded him.

This is charity, plain and simple. Brandon Wood's been in the Angels' organization for more than seven years and he's been a good soldier. He just hasn't been a good hitter. Not in the majors, anyway. In 330 Triple-A games he's triple-slashed .283/.350/.536, and you would think that a guy with those numbers might eventually find his stroke with the big club.

But that just hasn't happened, and it's hard to figure how a few weeks of beating up kid pitchers in the desert is going to change anything. For the Angels' sake, let's just hope they're doing this because they love Brandon Wood, and not because they don't have enough promising young players to fill their AFL quota.

Just another thing that's gone wrong for the Angels this season. Bill Plunkett:

Angels manager Mike Scioscia's defense of Hideki Matsui has been far more consistent this season than Matsui's production.

With Matsui in the depths of yet another slump (1 for his past 14), Scioscia benched Matsui for the third time in the past seven games, the first time against a right-handed starter. But Scioscia continued to express confidence that Matsui's next good streak is just around the corner.

--snip--

Scioscia insists he has seen no loss of bat speed with Matsui, a sure sign of aging in a hitter. While the legion of reporters who document Matsui's every move – even on a day spent on the Angels' bench – worry that the Angels might release him (signed to a one-year, $6 million contract), Scioscia assured them Sunday was not a signal that his confidence in Matsui had evaporated and the veteran's playing time would disappear in the final third of the season.And the point is what, exactly?

None of this matters to anyone except Matsui and those Angels fans who live and die with every pitch.

In less than two months, Matsui's contract and the Angels' season will expire.

Matsui doesn't make a great deal of money. They have to pay him whether he's on the roster or not, and anyway it's not like he's blocking some hot prospect. Matsui's got the sixth-highest OPS among Angels with at least a dozen plate appearances this season. All the guys ahead of him are already playing.

Well, sort of. Mark Trumbo, 24, has been tearing up the Pacific Coast League pretty good this season. He's probably a future DH, and might even take his place in the lineup next spring. But there's little difference between promoting him tomorrow and promoting him on the 1st of September when the active rosters are expanded.

Little difference, because [Hank] Conger's not great and because the Angels' fate has been determined already. They're nine games out of first place and a dozen games behind Tampa Bay.

Yes, it's time to start thinking about the future. But that can wait for another week or three while management comes to terms with reality.

**********

I suppose there's a larger point to be made here, about spending real money on non-elite older players. I'll bet you can find columns last winter complaining that the Yankees should have kept Matsui and Johnny Damon, because by golly they were still pretty good hitters and what's a few more million dollars to the Yankees, anyway?

It was never about the money. It was about getting younger and (perhaps) better. Granted, Damon's and Matsui's replacements -- Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson -- haven't exactly hit their projections, and the Yankees might have won about as many games if they had kept the older guys. But the get-younger impulse will serve the organization well in coming years.

Jeff Passan on the deal that may have set the Diamondbacks back years in their rebuilding process:

The Angels depantsed the Arizona Diamondbacks. They stole Dan Haren in a trade and left the directionless D’backs naked and with nowhere to hide. First, Arizona panicked by firing general manager Josh Byrnes earlier this season. Now, with suitors from coast to coast putting together packages for Haren, they jumped at one centering around Joe Saunders.

Again, just for giggles: Twenty-nine year-old Dan Haren, one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball entering this season, and still an ace, for Joe Saunders.

OK, so there are a few kids involved, too: Twenty-one year-old left-hander Pat Corbin, 26-year-old reliever Rafael Rodriguez and a player to be named later who could be 19-year-old lefty Tyler Skaggs. No can’t miss prospects. No top-of-the-line major league players. Just Saunders, his miserable strikeout rate and a lot of dreaming.

Passan cleverly reviews the players exchanged when the Diamondbacks traded for Haren less than three years ago. Then, they gave up a platoon of top prospects: Brett Anderson, Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Carter, Aaron Cunningham and Dana Eveland.

Now, there's a real good reason why Haren's not worth as much now as he was then. Then, he was a durable All-Star under team control for three years and $16 million. Now, he's a durable All-Star under team control for three years and $41 million.

That difference of $25 million is why the Diamondbacks couldn't get nearly the haul the Athletics got, three years ago.

Still, someone seems to have messed up here. If Joe Saunders plus some (relatively) unheralded prospects was the best the Diamondbacks could do, 1) they should have just kept Haren until they could get more for him, and 2) a bunch of other teams looking for a good starting pitcher really, really messed up by not offering the Diamondbacks a more attractive package than the Angels.

My guess? Diamondbacks management simply overrated Joe Saunders -- perhaps because of his 54-32 career record -- and, especially, the three minor leaguers in the deal. I'm sure they've got a bunch of bright people working there. But it would be odd if they were so right about this deal and everyone else were so wrong.

With Jeff Mathis coming off the DL and the Angels short a first baseman, Mike Napoli's going to give it a go. A good idea? Aaron Gleeman's take:

Napoli admitted that moving to first base "felt a little strange" initially, but he's by far the Angels' best option offensively and did play there some in the minors. In fact, this could be Napoli's best chance at everyday playing time, as Scioscia has often gone with Mathis' glove over his bat when choosing his starting catcher.

Napoli has a lifetime .848 OPS, which is above average for big-league first basemen, and he's averaged 30 homers per 500 at-bats for his career. Assuming he can be somewhat passable offensively, Napoli is very capable of giving the Angels the same type of production they'd get from a midseason pickup like Paul Konerko.

Well, yes ... but whatever you gain with Napoli at first base, you lose with Jeff Mathis behind the plate. Mathis is a terrible hitter, one of the very worst hitters in the major leagues who is blessed with regular playing time. Obviously, Scioscia -- coincidentally or not, an ex-catcher -- has great affection for Mathis' defense, and given the Angels' success you can't really hold it against him. It's incredibly difficult to quantify, but perhaps Mathis' defensive contributions balance (or more than balance) Napoli's hitting. Particularly considering that "a midseason pickup like Paul Konerko" wouldn't be free.

If Napoli really can play a passable first base, this is not an unreasonable move. Especially if the Angels don't want to give up a couple of prospects or add a few million dollars to their payroll.

Two facts:

1. The Angels have been outscored this season, and

2. The Angels have a 37-32 record.

Taken in isolation, these facts are hardly newsworthy. After all, the Tigers are 35-29 despite having outscored their opponents by only six runs. The Rockies have outscored their opponents by 40 runs, but are just one game over .500. These things do happen.

But as Dave Cameron points out, this thing always seems to happen to the Angels:

If it seems like we write about this every year, well, we do. I mentioned the Angels' penchant for clutch hitting two years ago, showing that they were consistently among the league leaders in our metric that shows the gap in wins added that comes from hitting well in high leverage situations. Matt Klaassen wrote about it earlier this spring.

And here we are today, talking about it again, because once again the Angels are clutching their way to victories. They have +1.34 clutch wins from their hitting and +2.48 clutch wins from their pitchers, totaling just under four wins added by coming through when it counts. Not surprisingly, they lead the league in clutch wins added.

It isn’t surprising because they do this every single year...

--snip--

I’m genuinely curious what they could possibly be doing to extract such performances from wildly different players, but do so almost every single year? At this point, the odds of it just being luck are pretty slim, so it seems reasonable to suspect that the Angels are doing something right. But none of the theories advanced so far seem to have any kind of evidence to support them, and there does not seem to be any discernable trail we can follow that will lead us to the answer.

Until someone figures out just what the Angels are doing, all we can really do is sit and stare in amazement. Right now, there’s no explanation. The Angels are a phenomenon.

This is Mike Scioscia's 11th season managing the Angels. In those 11 seasons, the Angels have outperformed their run differential by 27 wins. That's a lot.*

* There's a strong relationship between a team's runs scored and allowed, and its wins and losses. A team that scores and allows the same number of runs will usually finish around .500; a team that scores 40 more runs than it allows will usually win roughly 85 games. And so forth. Every season, a few teams will vary wildly from their "Pythagorean projection," due to clutch performance and/or lopsided scores, but these variations rarely are repeated the next year.

Those 27 "extra" wins haven't been spread out evenly over those 11 seasons, though. From 2000 through 2005 the Angels never strayed far from their runs scored and allowed, and overall were actually three wins worse than their theoretical record: +1, -2, -2, -3, +1, +2.

But in 2006, Scioscia's teams began to consistently outplay their run differentials: +5, +4, +12, +5, +4 (so far in 2010).

I don't know if this is the best five-year run any manager's ever had, but I suspect it's one of the more impressive you'll find. And as Cameron notes, it's been almost entirely due to fantastic clutch hitting ... clutch hitting which, as you know, is quite a slippery beast if you're trying to identify an actual ability rather than a fleeting phenomenon. But in the case of the Angels, there's been nothing fleeting about it.

Did Scioscia learn something in the first half of his managerial career that he began to apply in 2006? Has the Angels' front office, generally considered uninterested in 21st-century baseball analysis, somehow figured out how to identify real clutch hitters? These questions remain unanswered, and probably will for a long, long time.

So the next time someone suggests that we already know everything there is to know about baseball, please direct them to the Mike Scioscia and Orange County's Angels since 2006.

Gee, this is a complete surprise:

The Mets designated Gary Matthews Jr. for assignment, according to the team. They also called catcher Omir Santos and infielder Ruben Tejada up and placed Luis Castillo on the 15-day DL in related moves. Matthews earns $11MM this year and $12MM next year, but the Angels are still responsible for all but $500K of his 2010 salary and all but $1MM next season.

--snip--

Carlos Beltran's injury gave Matthews the opportunity to win regular playing time, but Angel Pagan's excellent all-around play means the Mets didn't have to rely on Matthews.

Rather than hammer the Angels for spending (nearly) $50 million on Little Sarge -- after all, I've done that many times before, and with great vigor -- instead I'd just like to use this little episode to make a point ...

When it comes to the money a team is spending on players, there are two numbers I would like to know:

1. How much money the players on the roster are making, and

2. How much money all the players are making, including everyone on the 40-man roster and everyone who, for whatever reason, is still drawing a paycheck from the club (even if indirectly, as was presumably the case with Matthews).

I just believe that any report on payroll you see that doesn't include the $10.5 million the Angels are paying Matthews this season (to not play) is incomplete. Particularly if you're doing something interesting like figuring marginal wins per dollar.

So are we supposed to believe this one?

Excellent baseball sources are telling us the Angels and the Cubs may be involved in trade talks that could send Derrek Lee to L.A. The Angels lost their starting first baseman, Kendry Morales, last weekend when he broke his leg in a celebration after he hit a walk-off grand slam. Lee was a late scratch from Wednesday's lineup because of tightness in his right hamstring.

On a scale of 1 to 10, here are Derrek Lee's last six seasons (including this one): 10-2-6-5-7-2. At $13 million per season, you want to see at least a 6 every season, which means Lee's been worth his salary just half the time. Still, he wouldn't be a terrible gamble if the Cubs are willing to throw some money into the deal. As usual, the "winner" depends on who else is included; I certainly wouldn't give up more than one Grade B prospect to get Derrek Lee (and considering how poorly he's played this spring, that's probably too much).

Is Derrek Lee better than some sort of platoon involving Mike Napoli and Mike Ryan, with Robb Quinlan occasionally tossed in there for old times' sake? Probably. But not by a lot. But as long as they're within shouting distance of first place, they have to keep looking at their weak spots. First base is obviously one of them, but third base is worse, plus two-fifths of the rotation and a goodly chunk of the bullpen. Considering Mike Scioscia's man-crush on Jeff Mathis, when Mathis comes off the DL, Scioscia should probably just install him behind the plate and give most of the first-base action to Napoli. The Angels need to make some in-house fixes, and this is probably the easiest.

As Larry Brown Sports notes, Kendry Morales certainly isn't the first athlete injured while celebrating. And he probably won't be the last, as most managers don't want to serve as traffic cops after a dramatic win.

Here's Kansas City manager Ed Yost:

"Part of the fun of a walk-off win is the excitement that’s generated," he said. "You fight hard, and you’re pushing hard and, suddenly, the game is over and your emotions pour out. I don’t think you want to stop that.

"You might want to see it tempered down a little bit. All I know is I would like to practice our walk-off celebrations a lot more than we have so far. Then we can refine it."

I think he means tamped down a bit, but that's OK; managers aren't paid to know the intricacies of the language. Here's another manager's take:

The Twins actually have been through such an event. When they jumped around the field following their series-clinching victory at Oakland in the 2002 playoffs, infielder Denny Hocking fell to the ground and was spiked by a teammate. Hocking, knocked out for the entire American League Championship Series against Anaheim, initially suggested the spiking was intentional.

That's a long time between noteworthy injuries in celebrations -- a point Twins manager Ron Gardenhire tried to make Sunday.

"Probably 1,000 celebrations over the course of the last five years and there's one injury and now you want us to quit," he said. "I don't tell them what to do at home plate. That's just an unfortunate accident whether he jumped up and landed on someone's foot or, as Denny Hocking said, someone took him out on purpose."

Actually, we checked. From 2006 through yesterday, there were 296 walk-off home runs. Granted, there are other celebrations. But it's those walk-off home runs that seem to involve the most players and the most exuberance. Managers want their players to enjoy themselves. But the crazy celebrations aren't a necessary condition of the game. It's often said that baseball is a marathon rather than a sprint, and there was a time, not so long ago, when players treated the game that way. I suppose they still do, most of the time.

But how many times does someone have to get hurt after hitting a game-ending home run, before it's smart to temper those celebrations? Is the answer 1-in-296 times? Is it 1-in-500? Is a team that dogpiles the hero more likely to win its next game than the team that doesn't? Is it more likely to win 90 games? This is a simple cost/benefit analysis. Except while we can roughly figure the cost, the benefit's impossible to even guess at.

In the absence of compelling evidence, I'll just go with Ron Washington's take: "Certainly don't need somebody getting hurt after you win a ballgame."

The last play of Wednesday night's Angels-Indians game was hard to watch for at least two people: loser Chris Perez and SweetSpot blogger Steve Buffum:

With two outs and runners at the corners, Chris Perez was summoned to face Howie Kendrick. Kendrick bunted Perez’ first pitch past him toward second base, where the deep-playing Luis Valbuena could only watch helplessly as Kendrick crossed first base to win the game.

After the game, Chris Perez expressed his opinion:

"It was a bad baseball play that happened to work out," Perez said afterward. "I don't want to say it was bush league. But you never see that. Ninety-nine percent of hitters in that situation would rather win the game with a hit, not a bunt."

Now, let me say, I totally agree with Perez. This was a bad baseball play. It was a stupid baseball play. I would even go so far as to say it was a bush league baseball play.

By Chris Perez.

Steve's argument is that if Perez had been a little more aware of his surroundings, he might have made a play on Kendrick's bunt.

Well, maybe. But I watched the play a few times, and I don't know that any power pitcher in the world could have done anything about that one. Mike Mussina in his prime, maybe. Kendrick just got a little lucky, pushing the ball past the pitcher and toward a second baseman who was playing deep.

What's really bush league is Chris Perez's reaction. I know he was frustrated, but really? Kendrick's not supposed to do whatever he can (within the rules) to win the game? I'm only halfway through this book and maybe I just haven't got to the part where it says you're not supposed to bunt with a runner on third base in the ninth inning. But I'm pretty sure that Chris Perez is the first pitcher in the world who thinks even little guys without much power are supposed to swing hard every time.

Brandon Wood is struggling. Mike Scioscia's not ready to pull the plug, and (for obvious reasons) isn't going to tell us when he might pull the plug. Aaron Gleeman with a quick summary:

Wood has been a well-known and generally highly touted prospect since 2005, but his gaudy minor-league numbers are inflated by hitter-friendly environments and there were always questions about how his high strikeout rate combined with mediocre plate discipline would translate to the big leagues. So far the answer is "not well."

He has tons of power, but Wood has continued to swing at everything while making poor contact, and unlike against Double-A and Triple-A pitchers he hasn't been able to punish as many mistakes. He's certainly much better than he's shown thus far and the Angels are right to give him a longer leash, but even if Wood had adjusted quickly to the majors most projections pegged him as a Joe Crede-type player rather than a star.

I'm sure I've been a supporter over the years, maybe even a (non-dues-paying) member of the Free Brandon Wood Club. But Wood's MLEs -- his major league equivalencies -- have not been terribly impressive. Here are his MLEs for just the last three seasons, all with Triple-A Salt Lake:

.210/.263/.370
.235/.299/.446
.235/.283/.432

(Source: Minor League Splits dot com)

To some degree, I knew that once you factored in the generally hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League and Salt Lake's hitter-friendly ballpark, Wood's numbers down there weren't real good. But a third baseman with a sub-.300 on-base percentage every year? The only thing he's got going for him is youth, which must be what led to his (slightly better) .239/.305/.435 PECOTA projection for this season.

Bottom line, Wood's MLEs and projections are impressive only compared to his .178/.210/.280 career line in the majors.

The other day I was looking at Wood's stats and I thought, "But Glenallen Hill struck out a ton in the minors and he made it!" True. But Glenallen Hill had a breakthrough in Triple-A when he was 24. Wood's been able to cut down the strikeouts some, but he's now 25 and still hasn't put it all together, even in Triple-A. I won't be surprised if he eventually has some decent seasons. I'll be surprised if one of them is 2010.

Is Brandon Wood finally going to play every day for the big club? According to Mike Scioscia, yes. Here's Craig:

Mike Scioscia more or less confirmed what folks who think a lot about baseball had been hoping for: Brandon Wood will break Angels' camp as the starting third baseman. There had been concerns that the three-year, $10-million deal the club gave to Maicer Izturis this winter would serve to block Wood. Again. Scioscia says, however, that he's "looking for [Wood] to get the first opportunity there, with Izzy helping out with the versatility he brings to play second, third and shortstop."

Wood hasn't been consistent in his multiple cups of coffee over the past three years, but he has simply raked down on the farm. He has power. He has nothing left to prove at AAA. The Angels need to play him now or lose him forever. I'm high on him, so I'm happy to see that he's getting a shot at regular playing time. The only question now is, if Wood struggles early, how short a leash Scioscia will have with him.

A fairly short leash, I would guess. It's not just Izturis who's lurking about; anyway, he's best cast as a super-utility guy and isn't likely to repeat last year's numbers. The Angels also have Freddy Sandoval, who isn't much of a third baseman and doesn't have Wood's power, but strikes out roughly half as often as Wood and isn't likely to suffer long stretches of sub-.200 batting averages. (Those tend to have a powerful impact on managers.)

Not that Sandoval's guaranteed a job in the majors. Like Izturis, he's a switch-hitter and a player of many positions, and it's not clear that Scioscia needs (or wants) two players like that on his roster. But with both those guys, if Wood's not hitting in May he's probably going to lose his every-day job.

Care to guess how many innings Hideki Matsui played in the field last year?

If you answered "zero" you win the kewpie doll.

Nevertheless, he's got a new team and the Angels haven't give up on him. Sure, he's going to be the club's primary DH. But according to the manager, he's not locked in:

Hideki Matsui is making better-than-expected progress in early spring-training fielding drills but it's still unclear how much the Angels' new designated hitter might play in the outfield this season, Manager Mike Scioscia said Tuesday.

"He's not in all of the outfield drills, he's been kind of weaned in, but he's doing much more than we had anticipated," Scioscia said of Matsui, the former New York Yankees slugger and last year's World Series most valuable player who signed a one-year, $6-million deal with the Angels.
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"We knew that he might be taking it slow in the spring, but from day one he was able to get into drills, start to step them up," Scioscia added. "But he still has a ways to go."

Matsui, 35, has two arthritic knees that prevented him from playing in the outfield last year. But he and the Angels hope he can see some defensive action this season, if only to occasionally relieve the starting outfielders — Juan Rivera, Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu — should they need some rest.

"We are hopeful that he's going to be able to go out there a couple of days a week and be an option to play the outfield if somebody needs to get off their feet for a day," Scioscia said.

As The Ghost of Moonlight Graham points out, playing Matsui in left field will cost the Angels some runs; he was a pretty lousy outfielder before his knees met Old Man Arthritis.

Two things about this, though:

First, Matsui hasn't played a single inning in the outfield yet, and apparently won't for some time. If he does at all. It's probably too early to panic.

And second, even if Matsui does occasionally start in left field, it'll cost the Angels runs only if he gives away more in the field than he gets at the plate. Sure, if the benefit is just giving the regular outfielder an occasional day off, it's probably not worth the trade-off. But what if one of those guys gets hurt, and can hit but can't field (well)? Dear Angels fans: Do you really want Reggie Willits or Chris Pettit in the lineup in a non-emergency situation?

As long as there's no serious risk, the Angels should at least see if Godzilla can play in the outfield without demolishing a bunch of miniature buildings.

Hey, good news for the Angels! For three years of Gary Matthews Jr. and now Brian Stokes for a spell, they had to spend just $48 million! (Well, $48 million plus Brian Stokes' salary, but who's counting?)

It's all here in the deal that's sending Matthews and a great deal of cash to the Mets in exchange for Stokes. Which leaves Matthew Cerrone wondering ...

In the team’s view, the Mets could have signed a free-agent outfielder for, say, $2 million per season, or they could have traded for Matthews Jr., who will only cost them $1.25 million per season. They apparently were not satisfied with the current crop of free-agent outfielders, and so they chose to make the trade instead.

To me, I don’t understand how that, plus giving up a pitcher, is better than, say, re-signing a guy like Jeremy Reed, who just signed a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays.

I mean, this is not to say I am disappointed or angry about getting Matthews Jr., because it’s only a fourth outfielder we’re talking about… in some ways, this move will probably prove to be very inconsequential. It’s just, I don’t understand why they needed to trade a pitcher to do it.

I don't understand, either.

Purely in terms of value, the Mets have given up something for nothing.

Brian Stokes is nobody's idea of a star, but he's cheap and he's got a 3.82 ERA in the National League.

Gary Matthews essentially forced Bill James to invent Loss Shares.

Yes, that's a joke. Bill started thinking about Loss Shares long before Matthews signed his $50 million contract with the Angels. But according to Wins Above Replacement, in the first three years of that five-year deal, Matthews has been worth negative $5.2 million.

Perhaps I was too kind. One might argue that the Mets just gave up something for less than nothing.*

* No, I don't enjoy writing such things. I hope that neither Matthews nor anyone related to Matthews nor anyone with the same last name as Matthews reads this. But I can't ignore the facts as I see them, however unflattering they might seem.

Yeah, I would rather have re-signed Jeremy Reed, who at least would have the virtue of a contract that roughly matched his playing time. This one's just a head-scratcher. But then, the Mets do lead the league in that category.

Why was Joel Pineiro good last year? Halos Heaven is blunt (and true) about it:

Joel Pineiro sucked until he developed a two-seam fastball. He didn’t have one until 2008, and then it became his go-to pitch in 2009, when he basically ceased using his four-seam fastball (which doesn’t have much movement).


[+] Enlarge
G. Newman Lowrance/Getty ImagesUntil last season, Joel Pineiro hadn't thrown at least 200 innings since 2003.
--snip--

The only thing that I have a hard time believing he can maintain is his absurd 1.14 walks per 9 innings rate. I think that might've been best in the majors last year, and while I'm sure that he should be able to keep his walk rate lower than in years past, that rate is just unbelievable and likely to rise at least a little.

Bottom line - he's unlikely to repeat his 3.49 ERA from last year. But if he can even post a 4.00, that's just incredible from a guy we're calling our 5th starter!

Well, everything's going to rise this year. He's going to give up more walks, and he's also going to give up more than 11 home runs, because even super-sinkerballers usually give up more than 11 home runs and he's going to be facing DH's in most of his starts.

But Pineiro has become a different sort of pitcher. My concern wouldn't be for the quality of his pitching (though even a 4.00 ERA is probably a bit optimistic); my concern would be for the quantity. Pineiro threw 214 innings for the Cardinals last season. That was the first time he'd thrown 200 innings in a season since 2003. In the five intervening seasons, he averaged 148 innings.

If he pitches 400 innings over these next two seasons with a 4.50 ERA he'll be worth the $16 million. I'm just not sure about the 400 innings.

Blogger Garrett Wilson -- otherwise known as Monkey With a Halo -- reviews the Mariners' offseason and isn't quite as impressed as he's supposed to be. Wilson's big finish:

Now that we’ve gone through that little exercise, let’s recap. Seattle vastly overachieved last season but is supposed to overtake both the Angels and the Rangers in the AL West because they improved their offense from abysmal to well below average and made a big splash with their rotation that is probably only going to produce a small ripple’s worth of an upgrade. How ever will Angel fans be able to sleep at night knowing that this sleeping giant awaits them in the regular season? Hmmm ... I think we’ll be sleeping just fine, thanks.

A little whistling in the dark, methinks.

Still, Wilson does have a point. Last season the M's finished next-to-last in the American League in road scoring (just a smidge ahead of the Royals). They were 12th in road on-base percentage, ninth in road slugging. They'll be completely different at only two spots this year:

1B: Casey Kotchman instead of Russell Branyan DOWN
3B: Chone Figgins instead of Adrian Beltre UP

Elsewhere, there might be marginal improvements at: DH, with Milton Bradley taking Mike Sweeney's at-bats; left field, with Ryan Langerhans and Michael Saunders playing more, Endy Chavez and Wladimir Balentien not at all; shortstop, with Jack Wilson taking over for the whole season, from Yuniesky Betancourt and Jack Wilson; and behind the plate, with Kenji Johjima gone and Rob Johnson playing more.

The M's should be better in left field and DH, if Bradley's healthy and Ken Griffey, Jr. doesn't fall apart. Wilson will probably hit better than he did in his brief action last year, and should out-hit Betancourt, too.

There are a lot of moving parts here, but I don't see the M's moving up much. Maybe from 13th to 10th in road scoring (which I'm using as a proxy for overall effectiveness because their ballpark kills their stats).

But 10th might be good enough. The defense will be outstanding, again, and you know about Felix Hernandez and cliff Lee.

I do think we might be a little too bullish about the M's; with that they've got right now, I don't know that they're a 90-win team. But if I were an Angels fan, I don't know that I would sleep so well at night. Because I'm not sure if they're an 85-win team.