NL West 2013 Preview

Why did I choose to preview the NL West before any of the other division: The Dodgers.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have been the most talked about team in baseball since making their blockbuster for Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto last August. Since then, with the high-profile signings of free agent pitchers Zack Greinke and Ryu Hyun-jin, and a new ownership that's willing to spend whatever it takes, the Dodgers have been featured in more front stories than the World Series champion and division-rivals, the San Francisco Giants.

The San Francisco Giants have spent the offseason trying to keep their current World Series winning formula intact by resigning Angel Pagan, Marco Scutaro, Jeremy Affeldt, and confidently making Sergio Romo their closer and not resigning injured Brian Wilson. The Giants are probably the only team to have won 2 of the last 3 World Series and not be the favorites to win their division as reigning champions.

The Giants get absolutely no respect despite having one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and the reigning NL MVP, Buster Posey.

Speaking of teams that get no respect, the San Diego Padres will once again finish at or near the bottom of the division by making little-to-no effort to upgrade their team to win this year. Carried by exemplary pitching in 2010, the Padres negated their biggest home-field advantage by bringing the walls in closer this year. Do not mistake this as a dig at the Padres as they are a young team with a long-term plan, but they will not be getting out of the NL West basement for the next 2-3 years as long as they stay away from repeated PED offenses.

Fun stat: the Padres only have 9 players on their current 40-man roster in their 30s.

Also in the NL West, we have the Colorado Rockies. The 2012 Rockies had the worst record in their 20-year history, finishing 64-98 while battling injuries, atrocious pitching and a terrible home record. To put things in perspective, Rockies' starting pitchers had a combined 6.70 home ERA, by far the worst in the majors. This year, the Rockies will attempt to right the ship with their explosive young talent in All-Stars Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, veteran wine-connoisseur Todd Helton, and a new high school manager in Walt White Weiss. Do I think they'll contend this year? Absolutely not. Will they improve on last year's historically bad season? They couldn't do any worse.

Finally, our last NL West team is the underrated Arizona Diamondbacks. The desert snakes slightly improved their starting pitching and bullpen with the acquisitions of Heath Bell, Matt Reynolds and Brandon McCarthy, but absolutely destroyed their star power by trading away All-Stars Chris Young and Justin Upton, and top-prospect pitching prospect Trevor Bauer. Granted, these moves could be blessings in disguise as both outfielders were under-performing in Arizona and Bauer drove his catcher crazy. The D-backs have a solid team with Martin Prado (acquired from the Braves), Miguel Montero, Aaron Hill, Paul Goldschmidt, and pitchers Ian Kennedy (La Quinta High), JJ Putz and Trevor Cahill who all seem to over-perform despite their perceived lack of talent.

Each division has its own story and the story of the NL West is that it will be a two-team race between the Dodgers and Giants. The Rockies could surprise some teams with their power, but will struggle in pitching, and the Diamondbacks always find a way to hang around, but neither team can match the offense and pitching of the Dodgers and Giants.

MY 2013 NL WEST PREDICTION: Dodgers 1st place finish with 89 wins, Giants get second Wild Card sport with 88 wins.

These two teams will be trading wins and losses all season and will face tough competition from the Diamondbacks and Rockies, thus limiting their total wins. I'm sure two teams from the NL East will finish with more wins than the Dodgers and Giants, but both will find a way to make it to the post season.

Disclaimer: Be careful on the Dodgers though. This prediction is based on everything going right for the "super team." I'm still not convinced this is a super team despite everyone jumping on the bandwagon. I'll cover this in a future article, but Dodgers have a lot more problems than people think, which is the main reason I can't see them winning over 90 games despite having Greinke and Clayton Kershaw the whole season.

Angels Blank D-Backs for 2nd Straight Day (32/81)

Garrett Richards continued to pitch like a major league starter Sunday as the Angels shut out the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-0 for the second time in as many days.

Richards delivered a worthy follow up to Ervin Santana's 1-hitter, pitching 8 innings and giving up only 4 hits. Ernesto Frieri came in to shut the door in the 9th and picked up his 7th save as an Angel.

With Angels starting pitchers throwing as well as they have been lately, one has to wonder what's going to happen once Jered Weaver (back) comes back to the rotation next week.

The Angels have 6 guys who deserve to be on any rotation in the majors. Obviously Richards is the youngest, least experienced, and would be the first option to go. However, the guy has been lights out since his first start and has found the comfort level that he sorely lacked last season. Taking a starter out of the rotation who is throwing so well and sending him back to Triple A could backfire on the Angels future plans for Richards. The move may stump his development or it could have no effect at all.

The next and only other possibility to get sent down would be Santana, but he earned himself a couple more starters, at least, after his 1-hitter against the D-Backs last night. They're not sending Santana down unless he gives them no choice by falling flat on his face in his next few starts, and I don't see that happening.

Another unpopular, unconventional option would be to go to a 6-man rotation (something the Washington Nationals are considering to do to limit their ace, Stephen Strasburg's inning limit). I'm not a fan of the inning limit because it gives starters too long a rest between starts, which could be detrimental to a pitcher's rhythm.

The last thing would be to move Santana or Richards to the bullpen (something I strongly disagree with) and send a guy like Bobby Cassevah down.

If you were the Angels, what would you do to Garrett Richards when Jered Weaver returns?

Santana 1-Hits D-Backs (31/81)

Two words: ERVIN SANTANA. The Angels worst pitcher this year turned a surprise performance against the Arizona Diamondbacks last night giving up only 1 hit and 1 walk as the Angels won 2-0.

The year had been absolutely atrocious for the right-hander. Santana was leading the league in home runs given up and not giving his team a chance. However, the couple of times he had thrown well, he received zero run support from his team, let's not forget the Angels are still leading the league in being shut out, but last night was something else entirely.

In the second inning, my friend Andrew texts me:

"Ervin is looking sharp tonight."

Keep in mind, this is the same guy that texted me during the 3rd inning of Jered Weaver's no-hitter a few weeks ago:

"Weaver's got a no-no after 3... pray, my friend, pray like you've never prayed before.  I wanna see a no no!"

It's crazy to call a no-hitter that early in the game, but Andrew has been nearly spot on both times (and he doesn't even text me all that often). Sure enough, Santana was on fire last night and didn't give up a hit until 2 outs in the 7th inning. The outing reminded me of his no-hitter he threw last season, and I really hope this is the turning point of the year for him.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a couple of ideas to get Santana out of his funk. One of the ideas was to talk to a veteran pitcher to get some advice. Little did we know that advice would come from Arizona pitcher, Joe Saunders. Saunders, who came up through the Angels farm system with Santana, pitched in the same rotation for 4 1/2 years, and made the All Star team together, gave a pep talk to Santana on Friday telling him to keep his head up.

"I talked to him (Friday) and said, `Keep your head up, keep doing your thing," said Saunders, pitching on his 31st birthday. "I guess I had some real good advice. He really had it going."

Whatever Saunders told Santana worked. While I don't know how well Saunders would fit into the current Angels rotations, I'll be the first to admit that I miss the guy. He was always proud to wear the Angels uniform and always gave us his all. Maybe he'll be back again someday before his career is up.

For now, if Ervin continues what he started Saturday night in his next game, the Angels would be back to having one of the most feared rotations in all of baseball.

Angels Come Home, Leave Bats on Plane (30/81)

Yesterday may have marked the Angel's first home game since coming back from their awesome road trip, but the Angels have been back in sunny southern California since the beginning of the week.

In the last four games since getting off the plane, the Angels are 2-2 and have only managed 7 runs. Last night they got blanked by the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 and are waiting for their bats to make it through customs. Even the sizzling hot, Mike Trout, has cooled off going 1 for 13 with a single and a walk in the past 3 games.

Surprisingly, the two Angels who have had the most offensive impact the last two days have been the most surprising. On Wednesday, the Angels beat the crosstown Dodgers 2-1 thanks to home runs by Alberto Callaspo and Erick Aybar. Last night, the Angels only managed 3 hits against D-Backs starter, Trevor Cahill, with two of those hits coming from Aybar and Callaspo.

I was listening to the game on the radio last night on my way to Downtown Disney to grab dinner when I heard that the Angels had elected to intentionally walk D-Back's catcher, Miguel Montero. This was a smart move as Montero has been tearing up the ball in recent games, but didn't pay off when D-Back's second baseman Aaron Hill ripped a high cutter over the fence for a 3-run home run off Angels starter, Dan Haren. Yes, that was the nail in the coffin for the Angel's futile offense that game, but you can't fault Mike Scioscia's team for making a smart move to walk Montero.


I've been faulting Scioscia a lot this season for some impractical moves, but in recent weeks, I've got to admit, he has been managing his team very well. Besides the one incident where he left Jerome Williams in too long against the Dodgers, the skipper has been putting together a very smart baseball team. Now if only these nerds can remember where they left their bats.