By Alden Gonzalez

OK look, before you freak out by the headline, just keep in mind the Angels probably will get another starting pitcher. If they can’t get Masahiro Tanaka, or they can’t fit Matt Garza into the budget, they’ll likely turn to the likes of Bronson Arroyo, Chris Capuano, Paul Maholm, etc. And chances are they’ll land someone.

But that’s not the point of this exercise.

The question, if given more character space, is something like: Is the Angels’ current five-man rotation already good enough, even without a shiny new free agent?

Impossible to determine, you say. And you’re pretty much right. But thanks to the assortment of reliable projections that exist in this sabermetric age, we can at least come up with some semblance of where they stand among their American League counterparts. For that, I turned to Oliver, which is available subscrition-free via FanGraphs.com (and tends to be a lot more favorable than Steamer). I projected the five-man rotations for each team, and added up the cumulative ERA, FIP, WAR and innings total. For the Angels, I have Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, Garrett Richards, Hector Santiago and Tyler Skaggs (pictured).

Before we take a look at where the Angels (project to) stand, some notes …

A lot of teams — most, actually — have a fifth spot open. In deciding who to pick as the fifth starer, I chose the guy projected to have the highest WAR.

The best teams have quality depth beyond the five starters, and the Angels still lack in that department. That isn’t really reflected in this.

Things can change drastically for any team that signs Tanaka, or Garza, or Ubaldo Jimenez , or Ervin Santana .

, or . Derek Holland isn’t listed with the Rangers because the projections came out before it was learned that he’d be out until midseason due to knee surgery.

isn’t listed with the Rangers because the projections came out before it was learned that he’d be out until midseason due to knee surgery. THEY’RE PROJECTIONS; NOT FACTS. (Obvious, but worth reminding.)

OK, now, here’s a look at each team individually, in alphabetical order. The first cumulative number is ERA, the second is FIP, the third is WAR and the fourth is IP …

Angels (Weaver/Wilson/Richards/Santiago/Skaggs): 18.27|19.62|9.0|826

Astros (Feldman/Cosart/Oberholtzer/Peacock/McHugh): 21.78|22.3|5.0|736

Athletics (Parker/Kazmir/Gray/Griffin/Straily): 18.27|19.91|9.0|782

Blue Jays (Dickey/Marrow/Buehrle/Happ/Hutchison): 20.85|21.44|8.1|757

Indians (Masterson/Kluber/McAllister/Salazar/Carrasco): 19.41|18.99|9.1|755

Mariners (Hernandez/Iwakuma/Walker/Ramirez/Paxton): 18.05|19.06|11.4|802

Orioles (Gonzalez/Tillman/Chin/Norris/Bundy): 20.03|21.62|7.9|764

Rangers (Darvish/Harrison/Ogando/Perez/Tepesch): 19.3|20.41|10.5|727

Rays (Price/Cobb/Moore/Hellickson/Archer): 17.85|19.12|11.0|848

Red Sox (Lester/Buchholz/Lackey/Peavy/Dempster): 19.38|20.16|12.7|860

Royals (Shields/Vargas/Guthrie/Duffy/Davis): 20.97|21.36|8.6|827

Tigers (Verlander/Scherzer/Sanchez/Porcello/Smyly): 17.01|16.5|19.2|904

Twins (Nolasco/Correia/Hughes/Pelfrey/Worley): 21.23|20.99|7.8|783

White Sox (Sale/Quintana/Danks/Johnson/Rienzo): 19.37|21|8.8|743

Yankees (Sabathia/Kuroda/Nova/Phelps/Pineda): 19.6|20.5|9.9|783

Now, the fun stuff (as if you weren’t having fun already). Here’s where the quintets rank. We’ll start with cumulative ERA (obviously, the lower the number, the better) …

DET

TBR

SEA

LAA/OAK

TEX

CHW

BOS

CLE

NYY

BAL

TOR

KCR

MIN

HOU

Now, FIP (like ERA, the lower the better) …

DET

CLE

SEA

TBR

LAA

OAK

BOS

TEX

NYY

MIN

CHW

KCR

TOR

BAL

HOU

Now, WAR …

DET

BOS

SEA

TBR

TEX

NYY

CLE

LAA/OAK

CHW

KCR

TOR

BAL

MIN

HOU

Lastly, IP …

DET

BOS

TBR

KCR

LAA

SEA

NYY/MIN

OAK

BAL

TOR

CLE

CHW

HOU

TEX

To summarize, the Angels’ current group projects to rank tied for fourth in ERA, fifth in FIP and innings, and tied for eighth in WAR. For comparison’s sake … in 2013, the starters ranked 11th in ERA, sixth in FIP, 11th in WAR and ninth in innings. So, they’re already much better, right? Well, no. Or, perhaps. Who really knows. But Jerry Dipoto has said several times since the Winter Meetings that he’d be perfectly fine with going into Spring Training with this current group, and that may not be just a negotiating ploy.

Some other takeaways from these numbers …

Despite losing Doug Fister , the Tigers will probably still be very, very good.

, the Tigers will probably still be very, very good. Despite adding Scott Feldman , the Astros will probably be really, really bad.

, the Astros will probably be really, really bad. If you’re a big believer in FIP, then the Indians are a lot better than given credit for, even without Ubaldo.

The Rangers have a lot of talent, but also a lot of health uncertainties, as reflected in their projected innings total.

If the Mariners get Tanaka, they can be pretty scary.

— Alden