2012 Preview: Seattle Mariners

The Seattle Mariners score less often than a debate team at Spring Break. Seattle has been the lowest scoring team in the American League the last three years and the lowest scoring team in all of baseball the last two seasons. It’s very hard for an American League team to score less runs than the worst offensive team in the National League because, of course, teams in the Junior Circuit get to insert a designated hitter in the line up in place of a pitcher. Yet Seattle has been saddled with that distinction two years running.

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2012 Preview: Oakland Athletics

The present day pickle the Oakland A’s find themselves in provides an interesting view into the business of Major League Baseball, particularly the dysfunction that comes with thirty competing owners enjoying a Federally granted anti-trust exemption. This isn’t yet another rehash of the find-undervalued-assets philosophy featured in Moneyball; Oakland, and by extension MLB are facing a much more tangible problem. The A’s don’t have anywhere to play baseball after 2013. As a result, it’s difficult to determine the team’s current strategy on or off the field. Two things are certain though: Someone is going to have to blink very soon and in the meantime it’s hard to be an Oakland A’s fan.

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2012 Preview: Texas Rangers

A glance at the box above indicates the Texas Rangers were the best team in the American League in 2011 during both the regular-season (with 100 expected wins based on its actual offensive and pitching production) and the post-season (in the form of a second consecutive appearance in the World Series).

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2012 Preview: Los Angeles Angels

As readers have noticed by now, as we reach Day 11 of 30 Teams in 30 (Week) Days, these previews are presented in a top-to-bottom projected-order-of-finish sequence. As the series moves today to the last remaining division in the American League, the West, the team name at the top of this page indicates the Angels will join the Tigers and Red Sox as 2012 American League division winners.

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2012 Preview: Baltimore Orioles

In a number of the prior previews, I’ve made mention of a team’s strength of schedule. Statements such as “Minnesota has the toughest interleague slate of games in their division” and “outside the division Tampa has the toughest schedule of all AL East teams” may have been scattered among the team essays but I never quantified the differences from team-to-team. The Baltimore Orioles present the perfect opportunity to do so.

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