AL West offseason roundup: Every move by all 5 teams

Angels and Astros upgrade; Rangers and Mariners go dumpster diving; A’s find their usual bargains.

The 2018 MLB season is finally upon us! Here at Athletics Nation we follow the A’s offseason moves closely, but they’re not the only team making trades and signing free agents. There are four other clubs in the AL West division, so let’s take a look at what they did.

In the transaction tables, I’ve done my best to include every player who appeared in MLB last year. That turned out to be a mistake, because holy toledo there are a lot of fringe dudes who got into just a couple games. Nevertheless, here’s the full landscape. Free agent contracts are rounded up to the nearest million. In the “Goodbye” columns, free agents who don’t have a team listed next to them remain unsigned. Players in italics are noteworthy minor league prospects, or minor league free agent signings. (Note: This is an update from a previous post in December.)

Houston Astros

2017 record: 101-61

Quick season review: They won the World Series. They had the best lineup in baseball anchored by the league’s MVP (Altuve), a strong rotation with a pair of aces (Verlander, Keuchel), and a good enough bullpen. All of the most important players are coming back in 2018, and all they need to do is shore things up around the margins.

Analysis: They really didn’t have much they needed to do this winter, but they went the proactive route and beefed up their rotation while they had the chance (acquiring Cole for spare parts). They grabbed a couple new relievers too, replacing the ones they lost in free agency. They’re still the team to beat, not just in the AL West but in all of MLB.

The Angels

2017 record: 80-82

Quick season review: Took a step forward from 2016, but still missed the playoffs again. They’ve got the best player in the sport (Trout), plus a couple more supplementary stars (Upton, Simmons, Calhoun, Richards), but for every strength on their roster there’s a massive hole elsewhere. They particularly needed help throughout their pitching staff and infield.

Analysis: They actually had a pretty decent winter. Not a great one, but not their usual strategy of strengthening only the positions they already had set. They managed to land Ohtani, who finally addresses their starting rotation for once — they could have used even more help, but at least they got someone. They made a splash at 2B, which was a position of actual need. Sure, they signed an All-Star shortstop for eight figures per year even though they already have literally Andrelton Simmons, but Angels gonna Angel. (Not listed: Also re-signed OF Justin Upton to 5/$106M extension, avoiding opt-out clause.)

Texas Rangers

2017 record: 78-84

Quick season review: They hit a lot of dingers but not much else went right. The pitching staff disappointed, and it’s now without its biggest name (Darvish, though Hamels remains). Their lineup still has its anchor (Beltre), surrounded by familiar but inconsistent names.

Analysis: Still spending their time taking flyers on creative/bounce-back pitchers. Last year it was Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross, which to be fair kinda worked because Cashner panned out. Now it’s Fister and Minor, who probably shouldn’t be included in the same sentence for legal reasons, as well as Moore — and that trio isn’t depth but rather the actual expected rotation. Beyond that they did a lot of dumpster diving, albeit for some fun names like Colon and Lincecum. There aren’t that many serious holes in their lineup, just high-profile youngsters hoping to live up to their reputations, so they’re right to focus on that rotation. But they did most of their offseason shopping at Goodwill.

Seattle Mariners

2017 record: 78-84

Quick season review: They tried. They really did. Probably too hard, if we’re being honest. But once again they fell short of October despite being in full win-now mode. Only one of their star hitters fully lived up to his reputation (Cruz, while Cano and Seager were merely OK), and they basically didn’t have a rotation — 17 different pitchers made a start (A’s only used 12). Their longtime ace dropped a deuce thanks to injury (Felix).

Analysis: Their big splash is an infielder whom they’re moving to the outfield. They also got Healy, but he’s already injured (c’mon, sign Brandon Moss, we dare you!). So many of their outfielders got hurt that they had to bring back 62-year-old Ichiro, though to be fair everyone’s happy he’s staying in the league. Their payroll is bloated, but on the bright side they also have utterly zero farm system so they can’t really trade for any midseason upgrades either. They probably should have found a way to do more this winter, but instead they spent their time scouring the waiver wire. This is win-now mode gone wrong.

Oakland A’s

2017 record: 75-87

Quick season review: Their rebuild reached its third year but finally began to show promise. The pitching staff was mostly bad and injured, made worse by trading away the best arms, but some of the young hitters emerged (Olson, Chapman) to supplement the incumbent leaders (Khrush, Lowrie). They finished in last place, but did so as optimistically as possible.

Analysis: The Goodbye free agency section may as well be blank, as all of those departing players were fringe depth guys. Meanwhile, the A’s did a good job of checking off their winter to-do list — they added a few good relievers (one a lefty), a good starting outfielder, and a recent All-Star catcher, all for relative buy-low prices, and in the meantime they freed up the DH spot for Khris Davis. The rotation is thin, but is it even the worst in the division? The Rangers and Mariners are so questionable that they don’t even have fifth starters listed on Roster Resource.