So here we are...its time for the American League predictions. The Rays will be hard pressed to repeat as they are again playing in the toughest division in baseball and both the Red Sox and Yankees have improved their already formidable clubs. The Blue Jays (a 87 win team in 2008) will be lucky to take home 4th place and even the Orioles have improved (at least on offense). The Angels once again disappointed in 2008 by getting beat early in the playoffs. The White Sox surprised pretty much everyone by making the playoffs after going down to the wire with a surprising Minnesota Twins. The Twins battled for the AL Central crown all season long with great defense, timely hitting, and surprisingly good pitching despite the off-season losses of Johan Santana and Carlos Silva from their rotation. The Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993 and that is simply unacceptable in the Bronx. The Rays caught lightning in a bottle and ran the table for the season, in the playoffs and all the way into the World Series. Unfortunately for them, their fairy tale ending came to a swift and sudden end when Cinderella was bludgeoned to death by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies, a team that nobody thought could win and a team that nobody outside of Philadelphia wanted to win, swiftly and in convincing fashion pummeled the Rays in five games to take home their 2nd World Series trophy in team history (Sorry, that never gets old). That said, here we go.
AL East
1. Boston Red Sox - The Red Sox had one of the best teams in all of baseball last year and they proved it when they fought the Rays to a 7th game in the ALCS. Had things gone differently, the Red Sox could have easily gone on to win another World Series. However, the Rays pulled out a game 7 victory and were then quickly beat in the ensuing World Series against a well rested and hungry Philadelphia squad. The Red Sox lost out on their major goal of the off-season which was to acquire premier 1B Mark Teixeira. In the long run, not giving Teixeira a 8 year contract like the Yankees will be a good thing as its not smart to give any player a deal that long. The Red Sox were then able to reinvest a small amount of the money they had earmarked for Teixeira and roll the dice on several low-risk, high-reward reclamation projects. SP John Smoltz and SP Brad Penny were brought in to bolster the back end of the rotation, former closer Takashi Saito should help strengthen what was a surprisingly weak bullpen, OF Rocco Baldelli and OF Brad Wilkerson will replace Brandon Moss and Coco Crisp as a 4th and 5th OFs respectively. All in all, they won't cost close to what Teixeira alone would have cost and if they are even able to hit big on one of them it will have been worth it. The Sox have a great top of the rotation with hopefully a healthy Josh Beckett, an emerging Ace in SP Jon Lester and a very solid # 3 in Daisuke Matsuzaka. If either of Penny or Smoltz can provide solid innings, their staff matches up very well with the best the Yankees and Rays have to offer. On the offensive side of things, both Ortiz and Drew need to bounce back from injuries and Pedroia needs to continue his rise to stardom. Another huge question is the health of 3B Mike Lowell who underwent hip surgery in the off-season. If Lowell is able to bounce back and have a respectable year and the rest of the offense produces as expected, the Red Sox will be a very tough team to beat. The Red Sox also have that rare ability to replace from within as they still have one of the best farm systems in all of baseball. 95-100 Wins.
2. Tampa Rays - The Rays made their first ever World Series in their first ever winning season. I hope they enjoyed it because I don't see them making it back in 2009. They have some huge questions in their bullpen (like the lack of a definite closer due to injuries to Percival) and their young pitching staff of Scott Kashmir, James Shields, Andy Sonnastine and Matt Garza saw more innings than they ever have before. There will likely be some fallback due to that overwork in 2009. The Rays have doubly hurt their rotation by refusing to start phenom David Price at the MLB level. Price has officially been dropped to AAA to "control his innings" but the more realistic answer is to prevent him from reaching arbitration as quickly. This cost cutting move could significantly hurt the Rays in the first couple months of the season. The addition of veteran RH bat Pat Burrell should balance a lefty heavy lineup and provide some much needed patience and on-base skills to a young Rays lineup. LF Carl Crawford should bounce back and have a great year if he is finally healthy. CF B.J. Upton will also likely continue to improve as will Rookie of the Year 3B Evan Longoria. Longoria was last year's victim of the Rays penny pinching but he still hit the ground running and was an integral part of their postseason run. Overall, the Rays should have another good year but they lack the ability to add that missing piece and are bound to suffer from a long season of work in 08. I won't be surprised if they make the playoffs in the Wild Card. I also won't be surprised if everything that could go wrong does go wrong for them. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic. 90-95 Wins.
3. New York Yankees - A good number of pundits jumped on the Yankees bandwagon once again after they drove dump trucks full of cash up to the homes of star pitchers A.J Burnett and CC Sabathia this off-season. That they also managed to snatch the premier positional free agent 1B Mark Teixeira from their arch rival Red Sox was the coup de grace of the 2008 off-season for GM Brian Cashman and the Yankees Front Office. While Sabathia and Burnett should vastly improve their rotation, neither signing occurred in a vacuum. Sabathia will be replacing a 20 game winner in Mike Mussina who retired at the end of the season. Burnett is coming off perhaps the best season of his career (funny how that happened in a contract year) but the odds of him staying healthy and pitching over 200 innings will be low. Sinkerball pitcher Chien-Ming Wang will be back in the #3 spot, a spot that suits him far better than being the #1 guy. Veteran lefty and former juicer Andy Pettitte and rookie phenom Joba Chamberlain will round out a very tough rotation in the Bronx. Offensively, the Yankees look very good on paper. If you ignore defensive ability, the Yankees have a great lineup. However, Jeter is a SS in name only and he will continue to hurt them in the field as he cannot field his position at even an average level anymore. 1B Mark Teixeira will be help improve their infield defense but the loss of 3B Alex Rodriguez for the first 1-2 months will hurt them on both sides of the ball. 2B Robinson Cano is entering what could be a make or break season for the Yankees. While he is quite solid defensively, his bat disappeared in the 1st half again and he didn't turn it on enough to make up for it down the stretch. He'll have to post an OBP well above his .305 effort in 2008 if he wants to have a future in the Bronx. Their outfield defense is questionable as well with CF Brett Gardner (expected to beat out Melky Cabrera for the starting role) as the only plus defender. Veterans Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui will return as well as OF Xavier Nady. OF/1B Nick Swisher should see a decent amount of time in the field as well and a platoon of Swisher and Nady will be an improvement in RF over Matsui. Matsui will likely have the majority of his ABs from the DH role. However, it remains to be seen whether or not aging (quite quickly apparently) C Jorge Posada will return at a level even close to his amazing 2007 effort. The odds are against him and if he cannot be a plus at catcher, the Yankees will soon see themselves having a logjam at DH once again. This issue will only compound if and when they realize that Jeter is killing them in the field with his glove. If the Yankees have another disappointing year in 2009, manager Joe Girardi will quickly find himself out of work. My bet is another 3rd place finish and some heads will roll. 90-95 Wins.
4. Toronto Blue Jays - The Blue Jays won 86 games in 2008 but still finished 4th. Then they lost pitchers A.J. Burnett to free agency, Sean Marcum to Tommy John surgery, and Dustin McGowan to a frayed labrum. Marcum might be back by the end of the season and McGowan will be back by late June if everything goes according to plan. However, former 1st round pick David Purcey will get a long look this year as he has top of the rotation talent. Roy Halladay will continue to add to his potential Hall of Fame resume as he continues to quietly be one of the best pitchers in the game today and Jesse Litsch should follow up as a solid 2008 campaign with another good year in his Age 25 season. The Jays will also throw out a good but not great offense led by RF Alex Rios and CF Vernon Wells that would allow them to compete in most any other division in baseball but not the AL East. The Blue Jays have the misfortune of being a member of the AL East and will thus be lucky to finish a solid 4th once again. 75-80 Wins.
5. Baltimore Orioles - When your major pitching addition for the 2009 season is Adam Eaton, you know you're in trouble. Eaton will be a solid addition to the Orioles rotation and he is currently penciled in as their #3 starter. Of course, the Orioles will be rolling out one of the weakest rotations in the past 20 years and Eaton shouldn't be the #3 starter on most AAA teams. The Orioles may have a respectable pitching staff in a couple years as they have some impressive pitching prospects in their minor league system but they are in no hurry to bring those prospects up too soon. Their offense should continue to improve as RF Nick Markakis is quietly becoming a superstar, CF Adam Jones should be better with another year under his belt and 2B Brian Roberts continues to be one of the top leadoff men in all of baseball. Roberts very quietly led the league with 51 doubles, notched 40 steals, and batted close to .300. The offense will also get solid secondary production from OF Luke Scott, 1B Aubrey Huff, and new acquisition UT Ty Wigginton. Wigginton will likely see time at all four corner positions and will get over 400 ABs in doing so. It will be interesting to see if OF Felix Pie (long touted as a star in waiting by the Cubs before his trade) will finally put it all together in Baltimore with regular playing time and lower expectations on a rebuilding ball club. So the Orioles should take another step in the right direction in 2009 but will not be close to the top of their division. 65-70 Wins.
To Be Continued...
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