Curses! Foiled by the Red Sox yet again.  AL West champs for the fourth time in five seasons, the Angels were sent home from the playoffs early by the Red Sox for the third time in four October's.

No team dominated their division more than the Los Angeles Angels in 2008.  The Halos came out of the AL West chute in fine fashion, endured a bit of a challenge from the pesky A’s through June, and then closed strong with a 17-9 mark in September as they streaked to a 21-game margin over the Rangers who eventually claimed the bridesmaid honors in the division.

Too bad that no team dominates the Angels in the postseason more than the Red Sox.  For the third time in five seasons, Boston dispatched Mike Scioscia’s bunch from October play in the first round, a rude ending for the only team to hit the century mark in the Win column in the majors for 2008.

The Anaheim-Orange County-West of Yorba Linda on the Left Coast Angels haven’t even been challenged all that much the past two seasons out in the four-team AL West. The Mariners did fool everyone, me included, in 2007 and the A’s were the small-market darlings of the group between 2004 and 2006, capturing the division in 2005, the only time in the past five seasons the Halos didn’t win it.  But for the most part, LA’s Junior Circuit entry has been head and shoulders above the rest.

Here’s a look at the wins and losses in the division from 2004-08:

I’m really not too proud of the projections my simulations program put out for this division last year.  While the Rangers and Athletics were close, the average wins for the Angels was outside the acceptable margin, and the Mariners was the absolute worst of all 30 MLB teams.

AL WEST
(Team, Avg Sim Wins / Actual Wins)
Los Angeles (89.0 / 100.0)

...unless the Red Sox are in town

It wasn’t like the Cardinals in the 1980s and certainly nothing close to the 1959 Go-Go White Sox, but last year’s Angels did squeeze out their 100 wins last year playing at least some semblance of Small Ball.  That term has become a bit misused in recent times, due in part to every team relying on ‘slugging’ to some degree or another.  Small Ball is not just about a single and bunting or running him over a base or two before scoring him on a deep fly ball.  It entails defense and superior pitching in addition to playing for a single run.

With the exception of some issues at shortstop, Los Angeles did play solid defense in ’08.  Their edge on pitching was primarily down in the bullpen where Francisco ‘K-Rod’ Rodriguez set a new saves record with 62 thanks in large part to the setup work that was turned in by the trio of Scot Shields, Darren Oliver and Jose Arredondo.  Rodriguez is now a continent away in the Big Apple, with Brian Fuentes signed to assume that 9th-inning role.

Finishing 10th in runs, ninth in homers and 11th in on-base, Scioscia’s squad did rank second in steals in the AL with 129 bases pilfered.  A good bullpen and capitalizing on the single run here and there is how they were able to beat the Pythagorean W-L mark of 88-74.  Once again, it shows a weakness in my sim program as far as in-game decisions by a human manager.  There haven’t really been any additions to this offense, so it’s going to have to come from within from full, healthy seasons by guys like Howie Kendrick, Mike Napoli and Kendry Morales.

Texas (77.4 / 79.0)
Consistency, thy name is the Texas Rangers. The team that Dubya used to own has been very steady in the Win column the past four years, though 79, 80, 75 and 79 wins don’t exactly leave a lot to cheer and won’t push a team into the playoffs.

A poor, 10-18 start in April left the team in a hole they never completely could dig out.  From May on, Texas played winning baseball (69-65).  The club had their eyes set on a break-even, 81-win season until a 5-game skid in late September, three of those losses when they were swept at home by the Angels, nixed those hopes. Now they will be retooling a bit on offense where they led the AL with 901 runs last season, ranked first in slugging (.462) and third in homers with 194.  Milton Bradley has departed for the North Side ivy in Chicago, meaning someone like Nelson Cruz is going to have to step it up in ’09.  And Michael Young is moving to third base, with shortstop likely manned by Omar Vizquel or German Duran to start the year before Elvis Andrus gets the call.

They will need another 900-run season this year unless something really weird happens with this group of pitchers.  Perhaps a healthy Brandon McCarthy can be part of that weirdness, or maybe Kevin Millwood and/or Vicente Padilla rediscover their old ways.  But there’s not much reason to expect a huge improvement from a staff that ranked last with a 5.37 ERA in 2008.

Oakland (69.8 / 75.0)

Holliday in Oakland, for now

Here’s another team that got by playing a version of small ball, though manager Bob Geren probably wasn’t expecting the offense to be as impotent as it turned out.  Jack Cust’s 33 bombs accounted for more than a quarter of the team’s 125.  And the club stole but 88 bases with Rajaj Davis leading the team with 25 in his part-time role.  Oakland ranked last in the AL with just 646 runs on the season, with the only NL clubs they outscored being the Nationals, Giants and Padres.  If you’ve got a DH, you should be able to score more than a team without one, period.

Oakland did address their punchless attack this winter by acquiring Matt Holliday and Jason Giambi.  Whether or not the Athletics actually hold on to Holliday all year is a question mark, despite owner Lewis Wolff saying the club would rather keep him and pick up the draft choices next winter when Holliday is expected to file for free agency.

Obviously the A’s got it down on the mound, and without both Rich Harden and Joe Blanton in the rotation this year, it could be a different story this time.  And with Justin Duchscherer’s hip situation, it could be really bad in the rotation though I’m excited about seeing Gio Gonzalez get a crack at it.  The bullpen will also have youngsters Joey Devine and Brad Ziegler opening spring as the co-closers.

Seattle (88.2 / 61.0)
I’m still embarrassed about the projections for this team.  Never mind I wasn’t the only one fooled or that the pitching staff suffered some key injuries or that the team was depending first on John McLaren and then Jim Riggleman to manage.  This team just flat out stunk.

On offense the Mariners couldn’t hit for average (.265, ninth in the AL), couldn’t hit for power (124 HR, 12th), and except for Ichiro Suzuki, couldn’t run (90 SB, sixth).  New manager Don Wakamatsu will in many ways be starting from scratch, especially in terms of getting this team to forget about 2008 and focus on 2009.  Ichiro will find two new faces in the outfield this year after the club acquired Franklin Gutierrez from the Indians and Endy Chavez from the Mets, so this should be a great defensive outfield.  Jeff Clement is going to be an All-Star catcher…eventually.  And there’s still hope for Adrian Beltre to come around as well as potential in the middle infield duo of Jose Lopez and Yuniesky Betancourt.

Eric Bedard is supposedly recovered from his shoulder woes and he will be a free agent after this year.  More often than not, we see players put up nasty numbers when they’re playing for an FA deal.  Felix Hernandez pitched much better than his 9-11 record; Carlos Silva pitched worse than his 4-15 mark, if that’s possible.  J.J. Putz is gone from the pen, and the closer situation is completely unsettled.  But the trio of Roy Corcoran, Mark Lowe and Miguel Batista could surprise.