Quote (FLCKennedy @ Jan 29 2015 01:51am)
lolwat? angels led MLB in RS, despite hamilton being garbage and calhoun missing time. pitching staff is better than it was at the the start of last season. A's got a hell of a lot worse, after acquiring the players they did thinking post season (and leading the division) they lost the division by 10 games, and all those players are now gone, along with other players that cemented that team to begin with.
Fair reasoning, and the offense is ridiculous, I am just not yet sold on Garret Richards, Matt Shoemaker, or even CJ Wilson, not to mention Heaney. The middle infield is also the worst its been in a while. Bullpen on the other hand looks to be pretty good. They're a good team, and could very well pass the A's…but they also didn't do much. Traded Howie and traded for Rutledge? What else did they really do? Just by the A's getting Ben Zobrist they had a better off-season than the Angels. But it is close and I see your points.
Quote (Profar @ Jan 29 2015 05:08am)
These things are such a crap shoot
I think a WS hangover is in order, I think that and the NL central are the biggest toss ups this year.
@ Zues
Never thought they were very good, thought last year was a fluke.
A lot of desperation signings with the royals.
Rios> Aoki
Butler > Morales
Shields > Medlen
Quote (suhduelerz @ Jan 29 2015 08:40am)
Good ole Zeus...
I stopped reading here because I was in tears from laughing too hard.
Well it wasn't a fluke..they won 86 games the year before last year and you placing them fourth most likely has them going below 500, which just ain't gonna happen, especially in this division.
Rios is much better than Aoki, offensively. He had a 800+ OPS before he got injured last year at mid-season, so even amongst the worst year of his career he really wasn't as bad as you think.
As a whole, Butler is probably better, but a 100% healthy Butler did
horrible last year. I
guarantee Morales does much better this year than Butler last year (that doesn't exactly mean Morales is better, heck Butler may do better than Morales this season, which would be much better than 2014 Butler). And that alone was my reason for saying Morales > Butler. Comparing it to the 2014 Royals, the 2015 Royals will be
much better offensively.Shields is much more durable than Medlen, but if you put them both together healthy, Medlen's stuff is arguably better. He is also the 6th starter, a real crapshoot but could end up being the Shields replacement. Either way, the Royals have the best all-around team in the division. They've already been ranked as the #1 bullpen and #1 defense going into 2015, they have a just outside top-10 farm system with MLB ready prospects, their offense is going to be much better than the one that got them to the World Series, and there is depth all around.
Then again, I probably came on here at the same point last year and tried to argue similar things about the Royals, but just go back and see how many people besides myself thought KC won the Shields trade? How many people besides myself thought KC would make the postseason? Did I not say Duffy was great? Did I not say Ventura was great? Did I not say they had the #1 bullpen and #1 defense at that point? The reactions of y'all are the same every year, so if you want something to laugh at, Just take a look at the Mariners outfield...or the Mariners infield outside of Cano...Or the Mariners rotation outside of Felix and Iwakuma...or the Mariners bullpen...or the fact they haven't finished less than 10 games back in the division in nearly a fucking decade.