2002 American League Preview: Yankees in the East and Mariners in the West will repeat as division champions while the White Sox return as the top team in the Central.

IT IS A GOOD THING THE SEASON IS GETTING CLOSER. The offseason has produced a layer of confusion that has been hard to understand.

Turns out that contraction was just a bluff by noted jokester/commissioner Bud Selig. At least for one more year.

As for that illegal $3 million loan between Selig and Twins owner Carl Pohlad, just mention the possibility of Montreal relocating to Washington, D.C. next year and all those politicians, threatening to take away baseball's anti-trust exemption and wondering how an industry can be crying poverty while the Boston Red Sox are sold for over $600 million, become very quiet.

What's needed is the predictability of the season. All the twists and turns awaiting teams have been taken by others before them. Still, in the American League this year, teams have the potential to go where few have gone.

In the A.L. West, new Texas GM John Hart has gathered every malcontent except Osama bin Laden. We're talking about a man who has put John Rocker and Carl Everett in the same locker room.

The Rangers finished 43 games out of first place last year, but that did not stop Hart from spending $107.5 million on free agents Juan Gonzalez, Chan Ho Park, Dave Burba, Jay Powell and Todd Van Poppel. Rocker and Everett were acquired through trades.

What Hart did was make the A.L. West the best division in the league. What he didn't do was guarantee the Rangers a spot in the postseason. Seattle, winners of 116 games last year, will repeat as division champion. Oakland, despite the loss of Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen and Johnny Damon, will return to the postseason as the wild card.