The AL West with Rob Neyer

There are people in this world who speak and write so authoritatively, that I find myself always agreeing with them even when I know they are wrong. Rob Neyer is one of those people. Rob could write a column about how earthworms are going to take over the world, throw out a few stats, and by the end I would be thinking: Wow, I better start sucking up to some earthworms.

You know Rob from his excellent ESPN columns and from his fine books on baseball blunders, baseball lineups, baseball dynasties, and baseball pitchers (with our co-hero Bill James). In addition, he and Rany Jazayerli do a terrific periodic chat about the state of the Kansas City Royals, which never fails to both enlighten and depress the hell out of me. Rob and his wife, Kristien, live in Portland, which he believes would be a great Major League baseball market, and according to his Wikipedia entry, he went to high school with one of the guys who plays a caveman on the Geico commericals. I'm told that Rob also finished Robert Caro's "The Power Broker" so that means the three living people who did that (not including Robert Caro, who I believe stalled out at Page 1,298) have been a part of Baseball Preview with the Stars.

Rob also recently set an ESPN record for longest online chat, an achievement I rate slightly below Bob Beamon's 1968 long jump, but above Barry Bonds' home run chase.


First, 1-4, predict the AL West.

Honestly, I haven't gotten far enough yet in my preseason analysis to do this with any sort of confidence. But my gut tells me the Rangers are going to surprise us (in a good way) and the A's are going to surprise us (in a bad way), so I'll order them:
1. Rangers
2. Angels
3. Athletics
4. Mariners.

How about their only being four teams in this division. That's not really fair, is it?

Well, no. But it's been a long time since the major leagues were fair. Not since 1902, I think.

Who do you think is the best everyday player in the division?

It's not a good division for everyday players, but I think the answer probably is Michael Young, pushed this season by his teammate, Mark Teixeira. Which is a pretty good argument for the Rangers doing well this season. If, of course, they can find two or three good starting pitchers.

True or false: Joe Morgan really does believe that Billy Beane wrote Moneyball.

I haven't asked him, and one would think somebody he trusts has set him straight at some point in the last three years. But I've not yet heard him mention the name Michael Lewis. So your guess is as good as mine.

Have you gotten used to saying Los Angeles Angels yet? I'm still calling them the California Angels, and that's been outdates for more than 10 years. They've had more names than Prince.

I actually call them the Orange County Angels whenever my editors let me get away with it. It's more accurate than Los Angeles, obviously, and if the owner doesn't care about literal truth then why should I? It's weird, though, I really haven't called them the California Angels in more serious moments, though for years when the Raiders were in Los Angeles I continued to say Oakland, and to this day I'll sometimes refer to the Los Angeles Rams. I think it's easy for me to remember these new Angels because they actually began life as the Los Angeles Angels, and I've spent a fair amount of time researching those early years for one of my books.

Who is the best starting pitcher in the division?

Rich Harden, in the unlikely event that he's healthy for more than six straight weeks. But my money's on Felix Hernandez, who has a pretty good chance to establish himself this season as the second-best pitcher in the American League (and thus the world).

True or false: Barry Zito will have a better year than any pitcher in the West.

Based purely on ERA? Sure, thanks to his new league and his new ballpark his numbers might look impressive at the end of the season. But there are at least six guys in the division I'd take before Zito.

Who is the best closer in the division?

Every team has a good one. The Rangers have two good ones. But you have to take Francisco Rodriguez, who's one of the two or three best in the game.

You began your career working with Bill James and you wrote a touching essay about him in the book, "How Bill James Changed Our View on the Game of Baseball" (wonderful book, long title). What are you doing now if you didn't get the job with Bill?

If somebody let me back into college, I probably would have become an intolerant high-school history teacher. If not, I would have tried to make my living convincing publishers that some book titles just don't work real well.

Who wins the argument: Bill James or Bill Clinton?

You know that old advice to lawyers? "If you can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue the law, argue the facts. If you can't argue either, pound on the table." James would start out with the facts and maybe the law and he'd be doing well, but Clinton would pound the hell out of that table.

How good is that Anaheim rotation?

It's good. I don't see any obvious Cy Young candidates, and there's some legitimate concern about Jered Weaver. But nobody in the division is close, top to bottom.

Well, more importantly, how will Anaheim score any runs? And if you were a pitcher, why would you throw a single strike all year to Vladimir Guerrero (not that throwng strikes matters to Vlady)?

It's a great baseball conundrum that anybody ever throws a strike to hitters like Guerrero and Robinson Cano and Alfonso Soriano. But clearly it's not nearly as easy to pitch to those guys as their walk columns might suggest. As for Guerrero's teammates, you're right: it's hard to see them scoring often, as only Guerrero and young Howie Kendrick seem like good bets to be better than average.

True or false: Texas had to fire Buck Showalter.

I'm a big Showalter fan, but he was there for four seasons and they never finished higher than third, and at some point you have to let the results dictate these things. I think Showalter will be in the game for a long time, and he'll be associated with a lot of good organizations; right now he's working for your Indians. But maybe he's just not managerial timber at this point in his life.

Is this the year your Kansas Jayhawks win it all in the NCAA Tournament or, even more significantly, get out of the first round?

This is Bill Self's best team, and his first No. 1 seed. As you know, though many strange things have happened in the NCAA tournament, a No. 1 seed has never lost to a No. 16, and KU won't be the first. I certainly won't predict a championship, because you simply can't win without some luck in the close games (nearly every champion plays at least two close games). I will say this: the Jayhawks are one of the four best teams in the country. And if they all come back next year...

Not to rehash this, but let's rehash. You and I both think the American League MVP voting last year was messed up. If you could choose one reason, why did Justin Morneau win?

Simple: he piled up a lot of RBIs for a playoff team, and he also played well when the Twins played well. The voters prefer things to be simple like that.

Ron Washington now manages Texas. Let me ask you this: Could the old Royals Baseball Academy (Ron Washington's alma-mater) work today?

Sure. They're all over the place in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, right? I mean, the popular image of the Royals Academy is that they were taking raw athletes and turning them into baseball players, right? But Frank White played baseball before he went to the Academy, and I'm guessing Washington did, too. Anyway, if you really wanted to do it, you'd have to do it like they do in China, and take the kids when they're actually kids, seven or eight years old. Then you'd have yourself some ballplayers, boy.

What is your favorite baseball blunder?

As a Royals fan, my favorite baseball blunder is the Mets trading Amos Otis to the Royals for Joe Foy.

Seattle. Jeff Weaver. Explain.

Bavasi's. Days. Numbered.

What is it like to do a six-hour ESPN chat?

It's funny. The previous ESPN.com record was five hours and three minutes. Typically my chats go for an hour, maybe a bit longer. And this time after the first hour, I was a little fatigued, both mind- and fingers-wise. But I got a second wind, and the second wind lasted for about five hours. I could have gone way past six hours and thirty-seven minutes -- the final count -- but wanted to leave room for challengers to the title. And it was a lot of fun, seeing all those questions and answers pile up over the course of the morning and afternoon.

True or false: Players on the West coast are underrated.

True, though it's certainly hard to argue that Ichiro's underrated, or Barry Zito. But so much these days is driven by highlights, and so many of the West players' highlights come after bedtime in the East, that a lot of these guys just aren't seen. That's changing, obviously, with the ready availability of highlights via MLB's website.