It’s the best division in baseball. Four teams won 85 or more games last season and all four of those teams have made a playoff appearance in one of the last two seasons. The American League East boasts the best baseball money can buy.
A division that was once dominated by two teams (New York and Boston) for more than a decade has turned into a free-for-all with the consistency of the Tampa Bay Rays and the emergence of the Baltimore Orioles as an offensive powerhouse. And one cannot speak of the East without mentioning the Toronto Blue Jays, a team a year removed from a huge offseason that brought not only heightened expectations but also the almost inevitable disappointment that comes with those.
But with a division that seems to have an even playing field up and down the East Coast, which team will emerge as champions, and which teams will be headed back home come October? Well, ask and you shall receive.
In last year’s AL East preview, I picked the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox to all be looking up in the standings at the Blue Jays and Orioles. What a difference a year makes. The Red Sox only tied for the best record in baseball en route to a World Series title, the Rays won a Wild Card berth, and the O’s, Yankees, and Blue Jays packed their bags and headed home for the playoffs. This season we’ll give it another shot.
5. Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays did basically nothing this offseason. They lost powerful catcher J.P. Arencibia to the Rangers and starter Josh Johnson to the Padres. Jose Reyes has already strained his hamstring – an injury that will probably hamper him all season if history is any indication – and their closer will begin the season on the disabled list.
The Jays have power in the middle of the order, but are relying on aging veterans R.A. Dickey and Mark Beurhle to combine with unproven youngsters Drew Hutchinson and Brandon Morrow to hold the opposition at bay. They needed a legitimate starter in the offseason, and aside from a late push to acquire Ervin Santana–who eventually signed with the Braves–the team was just not aggressive enough to get the job done. In a division where every team in front of them won 85+ games, the Jays will finish in the cellar again this year.
4. New York Yankees
The Yankees spent the offseason doing what New York does: spending a ton of money in an attempt to buy a World Championship. The only problem is that they spent $493 million on veterans that are either aging or injury prone and a Japanese sensation that has never thrown a major league pitch.
Yes, CC Sabathia has lost a ton of weight. But along with the lost weight comes lost velocity. He’ll have to prove that he can take a page out of Mike Mussina’s book by using location and smarts to get hitters out later in his career.
Yes, Michael Pineda is finally back from injury. But he’ll have to prove he can stay healthy and that his 2011 rookie season wasn’t a fluke. And yes, Masahiro Tanaka is talented. He went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA last year in Japan. But Japanese baseball is not Major League Baseball. Tanaka will have to prove he has something that Hideki Irabu, Chien-Ming Wang, and Diasuke Matsuaka didn’t have: staying power.
The additions of Carlos Beltran, Brain McCann, and Jacoby Ellsbury (if he can stay on the field) will help, as will the return of team captain Derek Jeter. The Yankees will win their share of games and could make a run at the division, but the way I see it, their average age of 31.2–highest in baseball–will catch up with them in the dog days of summer and they will finish on the outside looking in.
3. Boston Red Sox
It may shock some that I have Boston finishing third in the division this season, unless you follow me on Twitter. I just think this is a team that over-achieved in 2013. But I guess if you’re going to over-achieve, winning a World Series is a good way to do it.
Boston has good pitching in Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and John Lackey. But they lost Ryan Dempster and are turning to an aging, injury-prone Jake Peavy and mediocre-at-best Felix Doubront to round out their rotation.
Don’t get me wrong; Boston will be very good. And their rotation has the potential to be incredible. But which pitchers will show up? Do they get the 2012 version of Jake Peavy that made 32 starts and pitched to a 3.37 ERA, or do they get the Jake Peavy who has failed to complete a full season in all but one year since 2007?
Do they get the Clay Buchholz that went 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA in 16 starts in 2013 (foreign substance be damned), or the Clay Buchholz that pitched to a 4.56 ERA in 29 starts in 2012? And what about John Lackey? Is he the guy that had a 3.52 ERA in 29 starts in 2013 or the guy that had a 6.41 ERA in 28 starts in 2011 before missing all of 2012?
To me, Boston will be a playoff team in 2014 as I believe both Wild Cards come out of the East this season, but they have too many question marks, like Grady Sizemore and Xander Bogaerts, and lost too many key pieces like Ryan Dempster, Jacoby Ellsbury, Stephen Drew and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, to win the division, or the World Series for that matter. It took a tragedy to bring this team together in 2013. What will it take this year?
That leaves two teams left: the Orioles and the Rays. The Rays have the pitching, the Birds have the power. So who comes out on top?
2. Baltimore Orioles
1. Tampa Bay Rays
I write for an Orioles website, and the fan in me wants to pick the Orioles to win the division. I picked them last season by going with my heart instead of my head, which did a disservice not only to myself, but also to my readers and Eutaw Street Report. My heart is even more with the Orioles this season, but my head is telling me they will not win the division this year.
The Lords of Birdland boast the most powerful lineup in the game today and only added to it this offseason by bringing in Nelson Cruz. They have four guys in the lineup in J.J. Hardy, Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Cruz who have 30-homer seasons under their belts. Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters each have 20+ homer seasons on their resume. A healthy Manny Machado will return with his league-leading 51 doubles sometime in April. This team will score runs.
The Orioles also bolstered their rotation this offseason by adding Ubaldo Jimenez to the fold. Jimenez won 13 games while pitching to a 3.30 ERA in 2013. More impressively, he pitched to a 1.82 ERA after the All-Star break and allowed more than three earned runs just five times last season. He will be paired with Chris Tillman atop the rotation, who had a coming out party in 2013, going 16-7 with a 3.71 ERA while making his first All-Star team.
While the rotation could be solid if nothing else for the Orioles in 2014, it could also be what holds them back. They have five starters in Tillman, Jimenez, Wei-Yin Chen, Miguel Gonzalez and Bud Norris that are all capable of a 3.50 ERA…but also of a 5+ ERA. Orioles starters pitched to a 4.57 ERA in 2013, fourth worst in all of baseball. That number will need to improve by at least a half run for them to take the division in 2014. A record-setting defense that includes five former and current Gold Glovers will certainly help.
Also holding the team back, believe it or not, is the offense – to a certain extent. The lack of production with RISP in the second half last season has been well documented, as has the team’s overall .313 OBP. This team is going to need more patience and discipline in 2014.
The Rays, meanwhile, have the pitching to win the division. Backed by a solid defense, Rays starters pitched to a 3.81 ERA in 2013, third best in the American League. The bullpen contributed a 3.59 ERA to the cause, leading to an overall team ERA of 3.74, fifth best in the AL. That, and that alone, is why the Rays are my favorite to win the division.
David Price, Alex Cobb, Matt Moore and Chris Archer make up four parts of a rotation that is as good as they come. Jake Odorizzi is expected to be a solid replacement for Jeremy Hellickson, who will miss the first 6-8 weeks of the season after surgery on his pitching elbow. Should Odorizzi struggle, Hellickson will replace him by June.
The offense is paced by Evan Longoria, WIl Meyers, Ben Zobrist and James Loney. This could be the weakest lineup in the division, but with that pitching staff, this team could average four runs a game and still win 90 games.
There you have it folks, your AL East preview. Barring injury, the Rays will win the AL East with Baltimore and Boston securing playoff berths and New York and Toronto finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.
As always, this is just one journalist’s opinion and is up for debate and interpretation. Any team in this division could conceivably win the division in 2014, which should lead to one of the more exciting summers in recent memory.
Please follow me @PaulValleIII and tell me your thoughts on the division. Happy Opening Day 2014 everybody!
