{"id":17592,"date":"2014-01-11T15:44:42","date_gmt":"2014-01-11T15:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17592"},"modified":"2014-01-23T21:17:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T21:17:15","slug":"offseason-so-far-al-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17592","title":{"rendered":"Offseason so far: AL West"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After looking at the AL East<\/a> and AL Central<\/a>, today we complete a round-up of the offseason so far in the American League by reviewing the comings and goings from the AL West division.<\/p>\n

Oakland A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rarely a quiet offseason in Oakland as General Manager Billy Beane knows that his team, more than most, cannot afford to stand still whilst those with more money (which is pretty much every other team in the Majors) can outspend them.<\/p>\n

The A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have won the division in each of the last two years and, although they haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t made any major moves, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve shuffled the pack to try and make it three on the spin. Oakland normally can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to keep hold of players that hit free agency and, sure enough, Bartolo Colon (Mets) and Grant Balfour (still to find a team) will not be with the club in 2014. However, these losses didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start an Oakland firesale; in fact they immediately replaced those two key players with Scott Kazmir and Jim Johnson, the latter acquired in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n

The A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have traded away several players \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including Seth Smith to the Padres, Brett Anderson to the Rockies and Jerry Blevins to the Nationals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done so mainly to improve their options for the current roster, rather than as part of a rebuilding project. Outfielder Craig Gentry (from the Rangers) and reliever Luke Gregerson (Padres) are the main two new recruits likely to be regulars on the team.<\/p>\n

Texas Rangers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last two seasons haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been completely disastrous in Texas, yet they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve certainly been a disappointment with a Wild Card game loss in 2012 and missing the playoffs completely last year.<\/p>\n

The Rangers hope that some better luck with injuries will lead to an improvement in their pitching, so their offseason so far has been geared towards improving the batting lineup.<\/p>\n

They did this in one surprising swoop when they traded away second baseman Ian Kinsler to acquire first baseman Prince Fielder from the Detroit Tigers. Fielder was only two years into a nine-year contract in Detroit, but he became something of a target from Tiger fans when logging just one extra base hit (a double) in 11 postseason games after ending the season with the lowest home run total of his career (25). A change of scenery could work out extremely well for Fielder and the Rangers.<\/p>\n

He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be joined in the lineup by outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, who signed a 7-year, $130m contract with the team in mid-December. Choo will take over from Nelson Cruz, a free agent still searching for a new team, whilst Neftali Feliz is likely to return to being a closer after Joe Nathan left for the Tigers as a free agent.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Angels<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the big-ticket offseason signings of 2011\/12 (Albert Pujols) and 2012\/13 (Josh Hamilton), the Angels have been relatively quiet this time around. Their big hope is that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to add fit, healthy and productive versions of those two players to their lineup regularly in 2014.<\/p>\n

David Freese has been acquired from the Cardinals to take over at third base, whilst slugger Mark Trumbo has been traded away to the Diamondbacks. Trumbo is really a home-run-hitter who provides little else and having traded away such a player they arguably acquired another one in 42-year-old veteran Raul Ibanez, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much of a fielder and had just a .306 OBP last season, but did hit 29 homers in 124 games for the Mariners.<\/p>\n

Jason Vargas has left the team as a free agent to join Kansas City. Hector Santiago and Tyler Skaggs, who was reacquired from the D-Backs having been traded to them in August 2010, will join the battle for a rotation spot, with Joe Smith signed as a free agent to be the set-up man for Ernesto Frieri.<\/p>\n

Seattle Mariners<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mariners haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been leading players in offseasons of recent years, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made the biggest move of all so far in 2013\/04. Rumours that they were genuine contenders for the signature of Robinson Cano seemed fanciful right up to the point when the New York Yankees admitted defeat in their attempt to keep hold of their second baseman.<\/p>\n

For all of the excitement generated by their $240m investment in Cano, everyone knew that Seattle needed more than one player, however talented, to be genuine playoff contenders after finishing 25 games behind the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last year.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve acquired Logan Morrison in a trade with the Marlins and signed Corey Hart, who missed all of 2013 with a knee injury, but you still feel they are several players short and that may well mean their offseason work is far from over, especially in adding to the pitching staff.<\/p>\n

The main free agent departures have been Ibanez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s above-mentioned move to the Angels and the anticipated departure of Kendrys Morales, who is yet another player still seeking a team.<\/p>\n

Houston Astros<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rebuilding work continues in Houston where even the most optimistic Astros fan will see a winning season as being beyond them this year.<\/p>\n

They have moved towards signing some established Major League players though. The main feature of their offseason work has been compiling what looks to be a good bullpen thanks to the acquisitions of Jesse Crain, Chad Qualls and Matt Albers.<\/p>\n

Scott Feldman has been brought in on a three-year contract to lead a young rotation, whilst the Astros swung a trade with the Rockies to make Dexter Fowler their new centrefielder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We complete a round-up of the offseason so far in the American League by reviewing the comings and goings from the AL West division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[123,125,553,128,127,126],"class_list":["post-17592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-houston-astros","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-mlb-2","tag-oakland-as","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17620,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17592\/revisions\/17620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}