Ours not to reason why, ours is but to do and die...
Here goes.
Tampa Bay Rays (2016: 68-94)
Tropic Of Longoriacorn
Ugh. Besides dramatic effect, this is why I left this division until the very end.
Because the Rays were bad in 2016. Except, they weren't really that
bad. Not as bad as their record suggests. Indeed, their entire season
was essentially undone by one spectacularly awful 29 game stretch: from
June 16th to July 18th the Rays won only four times. Yep, that's a 4-25
record folks, and if you're wondering no the Blue Jays did not have the
fortune of facing Tampa during that plunge.
So what does it all
mean for 2017? Well, avoiding a .137 winning percentage for a month of
your season would be a positive step. Chris Archer is a safe bet to
bounce back from a difficult 2016 (9-19, 4.02) and behind him in the
rotation are some interesting names. Jake Odorizzi is a mighty good
pitcher with improving durability, Blake Snell is a big lefty with
dazzling minor league numbers and a solid major league debut (6-8, 3.54)
aside from walking too many guys (5.2/9), Matt Andriese looks to
finally take a rotation spot and run with it after being a swingman his
first two seasons, and then there's Alex Cobb and his funky as hell
delivery, once again back from injury and looking to get his career back
on track. If healthy, starting pitching will be a strength of this
ballclub.
But will the offense be a strength? It surprisingly was
in 2016, with okay-to-solid seasons from newcomers Logan Morrison,
Corey Dickerson, Steve Pearce (obviously elsewhere now) and the very
unexpected 30 homer season of infielder Brad Miller. They've lost second
baseman and Blue Jay killer Logan Forsythe, while shortstop Matt Duffy
and Colby Rasmus are injured to start the year, so the depth of this
lineup will be tested. Interestingly, the Rays have seemingly abandoned
glovework for improved bats in recent years, besides the defensive
wizardry of Kevin Kiermaier of course. This will be a better Tampa team
in 2017 (again, just avoid that 4-25 stretch) but they'll need some of
those starting pitchers like Andriese, Snell and Cobb to provide lots of
great innings if they wanna be in the thick of a playoff race. That's no certainty, so...
Prediction -- 76-86, 5th AL East
Baltimore Orioles (2016: 89-73)
The Buck Stops Here
This
is an especially tough division to preview because there aren't any
teams that are certain to be awful, or even bad. You can make a
realistic case for any of the five teams winning the division in 2017.
The weakest case, however, may very well belong to the Baltimore
Orioles. They don't have the strong starting pitching of Tampa or
Toronto, the dynamic prospects of the Yankees or the insane deep superstar lineup of the Red Sox. One thing they do really, really well though is
hit home runs. As a team they've hit more than 200 of them in five
straight seasons, leading the American League three times in that span.
The Orioles formula to win ballgames is really slug a bunch of dingers
early, get modest starting pitching and then let that lockdown bullpen
shut the door. And it has worked well for Buck Showalter during this
run.
So why be skeptical about their chances? Well first, the
starting pitching looks especially thin for 2017. It's a turn of #2/3
starters at best anyhow, and beyond Kevin Gausman and Chris Tillman (who
is injured currently) there are some serious questions. One time
hotshot Dylan Bundy is penciled in for a spot, coming off an encouraging
10-6, 4.02 campaign where he split 109.2 innings between starting and
relief. Thing is, Bundy hadn't pitched that many innings in a season
since 2012 in the minors, and the results this spring (7.36 ERA, 9
strikeouts in 17 innings) raise a few eyebrows. Rounding out the last
two spots are Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez, which I don't think needs
further explanation. Beyond them are AAA fodder guys like Tyler Wilson,
Mike Wright and Logan Verrett.
My second cause for skepticism is
basically that Zach Britton simply can not be as good as he was last
year. Britton is a top five reliever in baseball without a doubt, but allowing only 4 earned runs again for an
entire season? Unquestionably unlikely.
It's easy to see the
Orioles rotation being just good enough to keep the team hanging around
the race, or it's easy to see the home runs raining down so much that it
bails out the terrible starting pitching, winning enough 9-8 slugfests
to keep them in the race. I think this starting rotation could be a
flaming mess though, especially with Tillman's health being such a huge
question.
Prediction -- 81-81, 4th AL East
New York Yankees (2016: 84-78)
Babies In The Bronx
Of
all the American League East teams, the Yankees may well have the
greatest level of variance. Maybe you can picture a guy like Brett
Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury or Chase Headley rediscovering some of that
previous ability and being a huge free addition to this club. Maybe not
playing the outfield everyday agrees with Matt Holliday so much that he
mashes 35 bombs in that bandbox they call a major league park, maybe
Chris Carter does the same thing. Maybe Gary Sanchez is the next Mike
Piazza, Greg Bird the next Jason Giambi or Aaron Judge the next... um...
Rob Deer?
Or maybe it's not their time yet. Sanchez can't
possibly be as good as he was for a third of a season last year, Bird is
coming off a serious injury that cost an entire season, and Judge doesn't make nearly as much
contact as Deer did (ouch). Holliday is still injury prone, Carter
strikes out almost as much as Judge, and banking on a star season from
Ellsbury or Headley at this point is kind of like hoping Jose Bautista's
arm comes back. It could, but it's best to work around what you've got.
The
Yankees pitching is a curious situation as well. Masahiro Tanaka
continues to pitch great with half an elbow, C.C Sabathia rose from the
dead to actually provide good innings in 2016 (he's 35 though), but beyond
that you're hoping the big arms of Michael Pineda and Luis Severino can
both put it together at the same time. The bullpen is frightening on
paper with Chapman and Betances at the back, but getting the ball to
them could be a big challenge. Tyler Clippard and Adam Warren were quite
effective in limited action last year, and if that continues then the
Yankees pen will indeed be a strength.
This is where that
variance kicks in. For the Yankees to contend this year, those young
players (Sanchez, Bird, Severino, Judge) are gonna have to do a lot of
the heavy lifting. It could happen, it could collapse spectacularly.
Every young ballplayer develops at their own pace, if they develop at
all. They could win 90 games, they could lose 90. So, I'll take the
fence. The comfortable, I-told-ya-so fence.
Prediction -- 82-80, 3rd AL East
Toronto Blue Jays (2016: 89-73)
A Call To Arms
I feel like there's so much that's been said about the chances of our team this summer that almost anything I could say would be just regurgitation of what someone else has already written or spoken about. So I'm gonna change up my format here, and just make some basic declarations. Some are obvious facts, others perhaps wild predictions.
-- If the Blue Jays starting rotation picks up its excellent slack from last season and is reasonably healthy, this team is gonna be in a playoff race come September.
-- Francisco Liriano will lead the team in strikeouts.
-- Russell Martin will be batting 8th by July. The bat is fading fast (stop trying to pull everything Russ, for the love of god) but his glove will cover the spread.
-- Kendrys Morales can flat out hit, and that isn't just a Buck And Tabbyism.
-- A majority of left-field at bats will be taken by somebody not yet in the organization.
-- Josh Donaldson plays for the Blue Jays. This gives us a chance.
-- Joe Biagini will save more games than Jason Grilli (which is hopefully very few between them! #GetHealthyRoberto)
-- Aaron Sanchez won't be quite as good, but Marcus Stroman being better will make up for it.
-- People don't talk enough about how good defensively this team is, particularly up the middle. I know people do talk about it, just not enough.
-- Rowdy Tellez will make his major league debut before September. Conner Greene will in September, out of the pen.
-- Ryan Goins will actually play an inning at first base, and we'll all lose our minds
So... yeah. This is a good team but an old team. If a veteran or two start to slip off the age cliff even further, there will be problems since there isn't anything in the way of young, major league ready depth kicking around. Some players will surprise, some will disappoint, but overall I think they've got at least one year left of exciting summer baseball. It's such a tough division that I'm not confident saying anything really, but I have to so here goes.
Prediction -- 91-71, 2nd AL East *Wildcard
Boston Red Sox (2016: 93-69)
Killer B's Of Beantown
Last year I laughed about how many bad contracts the Red Sox have, and still do! They're paying Rusney Castillo almost 50 million more bucks over the next four years to not be on their 40 man roster, Allen Craig gets 11 million this year for the same thing, and they also get to pay Pablo Sandoval almost 60 million more to see if he can be at least an average player at third base. I laughed and laughed and laughed this time last year...
Yeah well... the thing about the Red Sox is that they have an embarrassing amount of young, cheap, star talent, at least position player-wise. Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr, and now Andrew Benintendi. It's really quite... annoying. Factor in also how they traded for one of the best left-handed starters in baseball in Chris Sale, without giving up any of those young controllable stars on their major league roster, and you pretty much wanna just bury your head in a pillow while they march off to another World Series.
Except! No. This team may look like a juggernaut on paper but they're not indestructible. Losing David Price until at least May thins out the top of their rotation, as does losing new addition Tyler Thornburg do so to the bullpen. David Ortiz is gone (a loss as much spiritual as it is production wise, and Ortiz's 2016 was bonkers), Sandy Leon has never been as remotely good anywhere as he was in 2016, and the bullpen beyond Craig Kimbrel looks like a tender spot, especially with Thornburg out for a while. If the Red Sox start out hot in spite of all this, well then yeah they'll run away with this thing once everyone comes back healthy. I think they'll win the division anyway, but if they stumble for a while because of injuries/whatever, we'll have ourselves a race. Everything went right for them in 2016, that rarely happens two years straight.
Prediction -- 94-68, AL East Crown
And that's it, that's all everyone. Hope you enjoyed reading these twice as much as I enjoyed writing them. Now lets get these games underway so I can see how hilariously wrong I was... gotta love baseball.
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