The MLB regular season starts this week with two brief games in Japan between Oakland and Seattle. The Athletics agreed to give up two home games, so they will technically be the home team in both games, even though Seattle will probably have the crowd support because of super star Ichiro Suzuki.
Both Oakland and Seattle are long shots to win the American League West division and each team currently stands around 30/1 to win the division title, while the Angels and Rangers are dominating favorites around 1/1 (even) money.
Both teams also have Season Over/Under win projections of just 72 wins according to the oddsmakers, however it looks like Seattle will be the slightly weaker team overall which provides some value playing the Mariners Under 72 wins for the year.
Let's start with a rotation that lost Michael Pineda who won nine games despite having all-world talent. They will rely heavily on Felix Hernandez who for all of his work only managed 14 wins last year. He'll be backed by Jason Vargas, Kevin Millwood, Blake Beaven and Hisashi Iwakuma. Millwood struggled last season and is on the wrong side of his career. Brandon League was a great pick up for the team, but who knows how long he'll last around the deadline. They also added Hong-Chi Kuo who had his own problems last year with an ERA at 9.00.
The Mariners' offensive lineup will have a different look with Ichiro batting third. Suzuki hit .272 last year and is also sliding towards the backside of his career. Suzuki's protection is Justin Smoak who hit a lusty .234 with 15 HR's. Expect improvement at first base, but it won't be enough to give him a nice selection of pitches. Chone Figgins is going to lead things off and will bring a batting average under .200. He stole only 11 bases last season and won't be on base enough. Michael Saunders has improved during the spring and is working towards being the player that people hoped he would be. Franklin Gutierrez is out until around May 1st. There just isn't much depth to this lineup outside of Ichiro and Dustin Ackley right now. Jesus Montero is a wild card for this team. He must handle the bigger park, and only being the DH, although the team has said he will play catcher occasionally. The one thing that will be intriguing with the Mariners is how long it will take Danny Hultzen, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker to get to the majors. Each prospect has thrown well in the spring, but aren't quite ready yet for the big show.
Numerous documented national No. 1 finishes in NFL, NCB football, MLB baseball, NBA, and NCB basketball; Won the inaugural $100,000 Insider's Handicapping Invitational.
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