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This is the tale of two pitchers. It is the best of Scott Kazmir, and the worst of Scott Kazmir. On one hand, we have a pitcher that was nearly ace-quality, dominating the AL despite injury problems, and shining as a lone bright spot on a number of Tampa Bay Devil Rays teams that were not terribly good. On the other, we have a pitcher who continues to have injury problems, and who also appears to be losing his stuff, and certainly losing his near-ace status. Thankfully, the Angels didn’t trade any quality prospects for Scott Kazmir version 2.0, right?

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This may be the Player Preview I’m dreading the most, simply because it may be the hardest. Almost everyone else that I’ll be looking at has some sort of MLB track record, even if it’s as small as Kendry Morales’ 279 games. Brandon Wood is an entirely different case, entering 2010 without even 1/3rd of the games played at the Major League level, and so we don’t have much of a history at this level to look at.

His minor league history, of course, is quite well-known among Angels fans, at one point rating as high as Baseball America’s #3 prospect, and after 7 years at various levels in the Angels’ system his chance to shine at the highest level has finally arrived. He’s taking over the reins at the hot corner from the Angels single most valuable player last season, Chone Figgins, who left for Seattle via free agency. To say that he has big shoes to fill, after Figgins lead the 2009 Angels in both UZR and WAR, would be an understatement. Expecting him to do it may be another matter entirely.

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It’s got to be hard to be the guy that replaces the face of the franchise. I don’t envy Hideki Matsui that task, although I’m sure a World Series ring and $6MM is really helpful in dealing with it. After spending the first seven seasons of his MLB career with the Yankees, Matsui moves over to the Angels to replace former AL MVP Vladimir Guerrero, who the Angels let walk after a disappointing and injured 2009.

Matsui is obviously well-known from his time with the Yankees, but more than that he has a clear and obvious major league history we can look at to base our predictions on, which is always a nice bonus. In his time with the Yankees, Matsui put up a .292/.370/.482 line, while playing most of the time in LF. His defense has never been good, and sometimes has been quite terrible, which definitely caused his value to take a hit, and in the end Matsui averaged about 2 WAR per season with the Yankees.

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