Striking the Hot Stove match

I won't steal the thunder of the playoffs yet (although it seems like there's no chance the Cry Sox can possibly beat either Houston or St. Louis without a healthy helping of Doug Eddings to nudge them along), but just over the horizon are my first annual offseason analyses of the American League West clubs. Normally baseball sites wait to do this sort of thing until after free agency, etc., have played out, but I thought that this approach might help us, the poor Mariners fans, to understand more clearly the potential impact of moves and non-moves by our division rivals as they retool this winter.

We'll go in order of the final 2005 division standings, so the Angels will be first up, immediately after the end of the World Series. I'll leave a week in between long posts to discuss each team, and follow that Angels analysis with one on the Athletics, then the Rangers, and finally our Mariners.

That will get us to Thanksgiving, at which point I might even get inspired and do each of the other AL teams. Or not. We'll see if we can make use of this hydra-headed blog and get all five brains working over the analyses.

Alternately, you can go back and listen to all of the great Fairlyisms and the spot on insights of Rick Rizzs from 2005. But since that will only take about 2 seconds, you'll still have time for some Hot Stove action right here.