MLB’s hot stove is starting to cool as teams build up their 2023 roster. The new year calls for new Power Rankings.
We plan to provide fastball power rankings throughout the 2023 Major League Baseball season. Today we are starting a new Power Ranking. When he announces the 2023 Power Rankings, he will go one division at a time and rank the teams in each division.
Please note that these power rankings are not predictions. Rather than predicting where teams will end the season or how they will perform, we rank teams based on how strong they look on paper following their moves from the offseason. increase.
These are just the first edition of my Power Rankings, so expect more to come out before the season begins.
We start today with the American League West. First, let’s see how the division’s teams finished last season:
1) Houston Astros 106-56
2) Seattle Mariners 90-72
3) Los Angeles Angels (73-94)
4) Texas Rangers (68-94)
5) Oakland Athletics (60-102)
Now for the power rankings. Let’s go in reverse order.
5) Oakland Athletics — The A’s had the second lowest salary in Major League Baseball at $48,443,900 a season ago. They are currently projected to make $25,500,00 the lowest salary in baseball in 2023. Oh, they traded their best player to the Atlanta Braves.
4) Los Angeles Angels — On paper, the top four teams in this division all look very good. The Angels added Tyler Anderson, Brandon Drury, Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshera, but the improvements Texas made to their pitching staff give the Texas Rangers a slight edge over the Angels.
3) Texas Rangers — Rangers are not messing around. After paying $500 million to match free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien a year ago, the Rangers have completely reworked their pitching rotation, adding Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney and Nathan Eovaldi to the Joined Martin Perez and John Gray. Signing Iovaldi may have been the best move any team made this offseason. The Rangers have a legal pitching rotation, at least on paper.
2) Seattle Mariners — The Mariners are closing the gap on the Astros. It’s getting closer. Last fall, the Mariners posed their biggest postseason challenge to Houston in the American League Division Series. The Mariners led in Games 1 and 2, and in Game 3 he went all the way to 18 innings. The Mariners have already built up his year with the young roster and hope to get even better. Jerry Dipoto got Teoscar Hernandez and Kolten Wong, essentially he replaced Jesse Winker and Adam Frazier with them. The Mariners have the potential to win the AL West this year.
1) Houston Astros — The defending champion remains AL West’s favorite on paper and on the field. The club may have lost 2022 AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, but the club has re-signed 2020 AL MVP Jose Abreu and will miss the entire 2022 postseason due to injury. That attack should be even stronger in 2023, as he re-signed Michael Brantley, who sat out of . Top prospect Hunter Brown has potential in the rotation and outside the bullpen.
For more MLB offseason analysis, watch the latest episode of The Jack Vita Show.
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