Angels Exercise Options on Lackey and Guerrero, not Anderson

Is it bad that I initially thought this was a picture of Guerrero's hot zones even though one really hot one is out of the strike zone?

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (besides the absurdly long name, isn't it weird that the Angels are essentially named "The The Angels Angels") exercised the options for John Lackey and Vladimir Guerrero, but they did not exercise Garrett Anderson's. None of this is really news. It was expected. Anderson may be re-signed for a smaller amount of money, but chances are the Angels will initially use that money to entice Mark Teixeira to stay.

The question now is what do they do next with the two people they exercised. John Lackey is the ace of the staff, but he'll be 31 after next season. Plus, the Angels already have a stellar young rotation behind him in Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, and Jered Weaver with Nick Adenhart (who struggled last season but he is only 21) on the way. They won't necessarily need to overspend on an aging pitcher, but will they? As for Vladimir Guerrero, it's hard to believe he's only 32 because he's been around so long. Being 32 usually isn't a bad thing, but did you see how he ran the bases in the ALDS? His knees and body obviously seem to be going, but he did hit .303/.365/.521 with 27 HR and 91 RBI. He peaked for a long time from 1998-2004, but he's been declining ever since. He hasn't declined all that fast, but it's noticable that he has. When will he precipitously fall and will he be Angel when he does it? I guess that all depends on whether or not they sign Teixeira this offseason. Guerrero might be the biggest reason to re-sign Tex, but it won't be to protect Guerrero. It'll be to protect the The Angels Angels.