NL West Divisional All-Stars 2012

With the Winter Meetings in full swing, some big changes to the Free Agency landscape have already occurred, some of them affecting this very team! With that in mind, let's change leagues but stay in the same geographical location as last time, to give you the division that brought you this year's World Series Champions:

NL WEST DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS

The World Champion San Francisco Giants are well-represented in all parts of the lineup: Angel Pagan, the erstwhile free agent who just re-upped with his former team in one of the above-mentioned transactions, leads off as he did for the 2010 NL Wild Card team while representing the Mets. Buster Posey bats third after winning the NL MVP, Silver Slugger, and batting title in a crucial year following a brutal leg injury. And Marco Scutaro serves as the team's DH after being both traded and acquired by teams in the NL West. (Usually when a good player changes team's midseason, I have to choose one division, based on where he played more or scored more fantasy points, whichever is more advantageous. It's a slightly questionable practice, but luckily in this situation there was no choice to be made.) The team's highest offensive scorer, breakout 3B Chase Headley, earned some hardware of his own (a Silver Slugger and Gold Glove) while becoming the first Padre to start on the NL West team since Adrian Gonzalez left the division after the 2010 season. Also from San Diego is surprise SS Everth Cabrera, whose league-leading 44 SB allowed him to fill in for injured Troy Tulowitzki, who had been the NL Wests's starting SS for all three years of this feature.

Colorado has another NL West stalwart in Carlos Gonzalez, who has reached the 20-20 plateau in each of the last three seasons, although he hasn't come close to his ridiculous unreal 2009 in which he hit 37 HR and won the batting title, Silver Slugger, and Gold Glove awards. He actually picked up another GG this season... despite the fact that he cost his team nearly two whole wins with his defensive ineptitude (-1.9 dWAR, 9 Zone Fielding Runs BELOW Average in 2012). The remaining three spots are filled by Diamondbacks (no Dodgers in this lineup - that should change next year with (hopefully) full seasons from Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Hanley Ramirez). Aaron Hill showed that he can once again have a flukily-amazing season at 2B as he did for Toronto in 2009. Justin Upton maintains his spot in RF despite a drop of nearly 500 points from his output last year. And Paul Goldschmidt had his moment in the sun as the second-highest-scoring 1B in the entire NL (behind the NL East's Adam LaRoche).

Moving to the defensive side, Matt Cain is the only pitcher to have appeared in the NL West's starting rotation all four years of this feature. However, he's never been more deserving than in 2012, where he reached career highs in W's and K's, and career (full season) lows in ERA and BB's, not to mention his historic perfect game. His lefty compliment Clayton Kershaw didn't equal his astounding 3,000-point Cy Young-award winning performance from last year, but he was still the top fantasy LHP in the game, leading the league in ERA and WHIP. Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong are two Giants starters who jumped to the divisional rotation from the Wild Card rotation last year, while Rookie of the Year runner-up Wade Miley of the Diamondbacks makes his first appearance in his first full season.

After sporting five different 2,000+ point closers in the last three years (Jonathan Broxton, Heath Bell (once for the division and once for the Wild Card), J.J. Putz, and Brian Wilson (WC)), the 2012 NL West suffered from inconsistency at the back end of their bullpen with Kenley Jansen leading the pack - despite the fact that he didn't take over from Javy Guerra until the end of April and gave way to Brandon League in the middle of August. Luke Gregerson once again turned in a stellar setup season, as he also did two of the previous three years. David Hernandez also has two previous appearances - one last year as an NL West setup man and one in 2010 as an AL East swingman. Brad Ziegler and Ronald Belisario make their first appearances since 2009, with Ziegler making his first divisional appearance (he last represented Oakland on the AL Wild Card team). One weakness in this bullpen is the lack of a lefty reliever - Dale Thayer unfortunately earned the last spot due to his inflated stats from his short time as the Padres fill-in closer (which corresponded to the time he spent on my fantasy team). If I was really building this lineup, I'd switch him with COL LHP Rex Brothers. Josh Collmenter became a part-time starter after finishing 5th in ROY voting last year, and looks to remain there with top prospects Patrick Corbin and Tyler Skaggs waiting in the wings.