With regular season baseball less than a week away, it’s time to start looking at the landscape of Major League Baseball to try to predict how the regular season will go for the Orioles, as well as for the rest of the league. All projections are made with the rest of the league in mind so that the result of adding all records together from both leagues results in a .500 record. I have the American League six games over from interleague play. Today, I’ll focus on the AL, with the NL coming later this week.
American League East
1. Toronto Blue Jays 88-74
2. Baltimore Orioles 87-75 (Wild Card)
3. Boston Red Sox 85-77
4. New York Yankees 75-87
5. Tampa Bay Rays 74-88
The American League East might be the most talented overall division. Toronto has an amazing lineup, but I predict them to win the division because of their pitching staff. This was a team that might have won 90+ games before the injury to Marcus Stroman, and an already solid pitching staff should improve with defensive catching wizard Russell Martin behind the dish. Toronto is also my pick to lead the majors in home runs.
Baltimore should not be far behind though, as even with the losses of Nelson Cruz and Nick Markakis, this figures to be one of the better lineups in baseball. Chris Davis has looked good this spring, and with the returns of Manny Machado and Matt Wieters, this offense should be strong once again. The rotation last year had five starters with ERAs under 3.70.
Boston is a trendy World Series pick after a busy offseason, and while the offense should score a ton of runs, the back of the bullpen is questionable, and the starting pitching looks weak.
The Yankees will win more than 75 games if Michael Pineda stays healthy this year, and if Masahiro Tanaka returns to his first half of 2014 form, but with both of those being legitimate questions, and being tied to a below-average offense, it seems unlikely. No regular in New York last year hit above .271.
Tampa Bay has a good crop of young players, but Evan Longoria appears to be in an early-career decline, and young starters Alex Cobb and Drew Smyly are currently question marks. They don’t have Joe Maddon anymore either, which hurts. Still this is a decent team, albeit one that will struggle in the best division in baseball.
American League Central
1. Cleveland Indians 87-75
2. Chicago White Sox 86-76
3. Detroit Tigers 82-80
4. Kansas City Royals 75-87
5. Minnesota Twins 68-94
The times are a-changing in the AL Central, as the Cleveland Indians have the look of a team ready to explode into first place. After consecutive good seasons, Cleveland will rely on reigning Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, as well as breakout stars Carlos Carrasco, TJ House, Danny Salazar, and others to be one of the best rotations in all of baseball. The offense should be above average, and this team is a legitimate contender, despite the lack of bona fide star power.
Chicago had one of the best offseasons around the league, and should win a lot of games behind Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, and Jeff Samardzija. Outside of those three the rotation has questions; however, an offense with Jose Abreu, Melky Cabrera, Alexi Ramirez, and Adam Eaton should score more runs than the team managed to last season.
Detroit has been very good in this division for very long, but time may be starting to run out, as Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez begin to break down with age. If Cabrera begins an Albert Pujols-esque decline as it started to look like he might last season and Martinez regresses to his normal power standards after hitting 30 homers in 2014, the offense will go from great to good. That, coupled with the losses of Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello as well as a bad bullpen knocks them to third.
Perhaps the biggest surprise to some people will be my placement of the Kansas City Royals, the team that came within a game of being World Champs last year. However, after losing James Shields, and massively overperforming just to make the playoffs last year at all, they will struggle in an improved division. PECOTA and Fangraphs projections agree, as both have Kansas City as sub-.500 teams in 2015.
Minnesota will be competitive in a couple of years, and has a couple pieces on the offense that are already quite good, but for now the most exciting part of their season will be the health and production of Bryon Buxton in the minors.
American League West
1. Seattle Mariners 90-72
2. Los Angeles Angels 87-75 (Wild Card)
3. Oakland Athletics 81-81
4. Houston Astros 77-85
5. Texas Rangers 76-86
I think Seattle will be the only team in the American League to reach the 90-win plateau, which is a testament to how wide-open the league is. Seattle won 87 games last year, and has beefed up its offense with 2014 home run champ Nelson Cruz, who should slot in between All-Stars Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager to give Seattle its best offense in a while. With a pitching staff oozing in talent, (Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, James Paxton, Taijuan Walker) and the best bullpen in baseball, this is a team ready to contend for a World Series.
I think Los Angeles takes a slight step back because of issues with their starting pitching, as Garrett Richards has to prove he’s recovered from the injury that shut him down in 2014, and Matt Shoemaker’s peripheral numbers suggest he’s going to regress significantly. They should still score a lot of runs, but won’t likely be a 90+ win team.
Oakland is a tough team to peg after their curious offseason. Bringing in Billy Butler and Ben Zobrist don’t seem like moves a rebuilding tram would make, but trading away Josh Donaldson and not resigning Jon Lester do. This is still a decent if not spectacular team, but the playoffs seem unlikely.
The Astros may one day have a good young pitching staff anchored with Colin McHugh and Dallas Keuchel, but are not there yet. Houston will be a very average offense in 2015, and will likely be bitten by regression from 2014 batting champion Jose Altuve, while the rest of the offense strikes out an insane amount. If Altuve’s 2015 is similar to his 2014 and George Springer cuts down on his K’s though, this could be a surprise team as soon as this year.
Texas has been one of the most unlucky teams over the past two seasons, and won’t have its ace Yu Darvish at all in 2015. The offense should be better after being subpar in 2014, but with Adrian Beltre and Prince Fielder another year older and regressing, probably not too much better.
Tell me why I’m wrong in the comments, and stay tuned for my NL preview later this week.
