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This is the second in a series of what will be six posts going through the MLB division by division to see who has the best projected 2009 starting pitching by Wins Above Replacement (WAR). The AL West is today's subject, and, in fact, it was the urge to refine the methods I originally applied to the 2009 As that led me to do this series. It will be interesting to see how changes to the methods used (e.g., Pythagenpat rather than traditional Pythagorean win%) effects the As, as well as how they stack up against the rest of the division.

Can he help make Carlos Silva look like a 2 WAR pitcher?

Details on the methods and the rankings themselves after the jump....

Methodological details (feel free to skip if you find this boring):

• FIP is used as the primary pitching stat.
  
• The projected 2009  for each pitcher is generated by averaging the projections of the three best publicly available projection systems: CHONE, ZiPS, and PECOTA. The projected FIP for CHONE and ZiPS are from the player pages at FanGraphs. I generated the PECOTA FIP myself from the big spreadsheet.
  
• Playing time/depth chart projections are based on Baseball Prospectus's in order to account for spot starters as well.
  
• No team only starts 5 players all year long. However, I've also included a "top 5" figure for each team, based on the top 5 projected starter WARs for each team (not the top five projected IPs).
• Value is based on a Win% generated using PythagenPat in relation to a average FIP-ERA of 4.40 and an RA of 4.76.
  
• Run values are generated by are scaling FIP to RA rather than ERA for better accuracy and to properly value pitchers with respect to hitters.
• An appropriate replacement level win percentage for starting pitchers is used, with an adjustment for relative league difficulty: .390 is replacement level for starters in the NL, and .370 for the AL.
• Adjustments for ballparks use the five-year regressed park factors used at FanGraphs.
• Adjustments are made for each pitcher's influence on his run environment through a dynamic run-to-win conversion for each individual pitcher.
• Neither the rates nor playing time projections are "mine." I have simply the projections, averaged them, and combined them with BP's playing time predictions. You can find the complete projected lines for each pitcher  at the home sites for the systems (and FanGraphs, for CHONE and ZiPS). In other words, don't blame me if you lose money betting with this stuff...

Team-By-Team

Comment: The Ms may not be contenders this year, but if Bedard can give them around 150 innings as in the projection above, when you combine that with King Felix, Morrow in the rotation, and probably the best defensive outfield in baseball (when Endy Chavez is playing alongside Franklin Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki), they aren't going to give up that many runs.  Of course, they probably won't score many runs, either. I still can't believe Felix is only going to be 23 in April. Seriously, Franklin Gutierrez, Adrian Beltre, and Endy Chavez? Why don't they just trade for Mark Ellis and rename it Safeco "Tango Field?"

Comment: Kevin Millwood is not only still pitching, but projects to pitch well? It seems like a million years ago that I regret taking him on my fantasy team. Wow, and he's the only one over .500... I'd make a joke about "I wonder what it would take to get Edinson Volquez," but no one would ever want to give up Josh Hamilton, the greatest hero in American history. But after Millwood, it looks like another year of the usual for Texas. Unless you get really excited thinking about Vicente Padilla's average upside.

Comment: I've done the whole league with the new method, and without going back and counting, I'll just say that there aren't many rotations that have 3  3+ WAR starters projected. So, yeah, the Angels have good pitching. Joe Saunders, above average? Huh, well there it is.  And this is with FIP, so we're not taking into account the good infield defense provided by Kendrick, Aybar, Izturis, and Figgins (imagine if Casey Kotchman was still around...). Then again, Bobby Abreu and Vladimir Guerrero aren't going to make anyone forget about, um, Endy and Ichiro~!, either.

Comment: My original post had the As at 11.7 total, but switching to PythagenPat makes above average starters more valuable, and below average starters less valuable. So the As had a lot of guys a bit below league average to begin with, and when you combine that with their raw stats being helped out by a pitchers park.. well, you end up with a group of guys barely better than Texas. On the other hand, they're dirt cheap, and I'm guessing Mssrs. Ellis, Cabrera, and Holliday will help out, too. They do have some depth.

Final Thoughts: Clearly there are two divisions within the division when it comes to starting pitching, at least according to the projection systems. The Angels are clearly in front, although the Ms have a good rotation, too, although it's clearly not as good (on paper, anyway). Then come the As and Rangers with below average groups. As for the overall division, that's another issue, since the offenses might almost be reversed as far as quality...

Next up: NL Central