You’ve seen the AL East. And the AL Central. Today, another easy-to-decipher division in the AL – the West. The Baseball Friend, who you can tell lives for baseball like we live for fruit roll-ups and haribo gummi bears, has offered to handle the prediction duties. Our fearless projections: Angels, Mariners, Rangers, A’s. We’ll summarize all of our picks Monday and offer up World Series predictions. And please leave your picks in the comments – when you mock us in September, the first thing we’ll look for are your preseason thoughts. After the jump, The Baseball Friend’s preview of the AL West.

Today we round out the AL by taking a look at the West. This appeared to be the division that everyone agreed on. The Angels were going to run away with it as the A’s had given up, Texas can’t pitch and the M’s can’t hit. Then Lackey went down (yikes.) Then Escobar went down (not a shock, but double yikes.) There aren’t too many teams in the majors that could withstand the loss of their top two starters. Imagine the Sox without Beckett and Dice. Imagine the Yanks without Wang and Pettitte. Or the D-Backs without Webb/Haren. Or the Nats without Odalis Perez and Jason Bergmann!!! You get the point. That is not a playoff team if those two miss a considerable amount of time. That said, let’s take a look.

1. Los Angeles Angels. It just came out today that Escobar is likely to miss the season (and someone on this site once wanted to debate Escobar/Bedard with me). That’s not good. Lackey is going to miss at least a month. Also, not so good. That leaves Jon Garland and Jered Weaver at the top of the rotation. Eh. Joe Saunders? Ervin Santana? The best they can hope for is that Lackey comes back in May or that uber-prospect Nick Adenhart is ready by mid-season to make a contribution. I think the latter may be more likely than the former. Still, the rest of the division doesn’t sport a more complete team and the lineup and bullpen are good. If Vlad goes down for any extended time, they’re in big trouble.
Prediction: 90 wins (assuming 25 starts from Lackey.)

2. Seattle Mariners. Talk about a team that needs Barry Bonds. I think their owner is insane for not signing him. He’s EXACTLY what they need. Bedard and Felix are the best 1-2 in the AL and Putz is as good as anyone, but they aren’t going to hit with this lineup. Ichiro is still a force and I like Beltre a bit and Sexson can’t possibly be that bad. But his team is 2-3 bats shy (or 1 Barry Bonds bat,) away from even remotely contending. A shame, too, because I wouldn’t pick against them in a playoff series with those arms.
Prediction: 82 wins

3. Texas Rangers. I like the lineup quite a bit. They obviously need to find a new home for Laird so Salty can progress in the Majors, but with Kinsler, Young and Hamilton, they have the beginnings of a very good offense. I really like Hank Blalock to begin his career revival. He had a crazy medical situation that explains a lot of his lost power. He was very good in September last year and I think can approach his 03/04 levels again this year, his age 27 year. Sadly, the team can’t pitch very well. I don’t really see Kevin Millwood being the top starter on a playoff team, do you? Brendan McCarthy might end up their no. 1 by the end of the year, but the bullpen is shaky as well. Just not enough arms there.
Prediction: 75 wins.

4. Oakland A’s. I really like Rich Harden this year. I know that’s insane, but unless he just really isn’t ever going to amount to anything, I think he’s got a real chance to be a top 10 starter in the AL this year. Nothing but gut there, really. Assuming Beane doesn’t move him and Blanton, they make a decent, if healthy 1-2. Duchsherer has always put up good numbers and if that translates to the rotation, they may have something here. I like the kid Eveland as well. I just don’t see them hitting at all this year. Travis Buck is a decent bat, Daric Barton could be ready to make a mini-leap (a hop, perhaps?) and Mark Ellis is massively underrated, but unless Bobby Crosby shows up again, I just don’t see them being anything but mediocre at best. The future is bright. The young hitters (Carlos Gonzalez and Barton,) and young pitchers (Gio Gonzalez, Eveland, Fautino de los Santos and Brett Anderson,) are all close. 2009-2010? Interesting. This year? Not so much.
Prediction: 71 wins.

Thanks again to all who have written in (thebaseballfriend@yahoo.com). I’ll start responding soon and put another mailbag together sometime next week.