Is Your Favorite Team in the AL East? Then Read This
The American League East is arguably the toughest division in Major League Baseball today. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox alone are enough to earn that reputation, but now you can add the pennant winning Tampa Bay Rays to the A.L. East’s competitive teams.
If you’re still not convinced, after a mid-season managerial change, the Toronto Blue Jays finished 10 games above .500 to become the best 4th place team in the wildcard era. As for the Baltimore Orioles…well, someone had to finish last.
The Tamp Bay Rays are young and inexpensive—they have less than $50 million in 2009 commitments. They also have a farm system overflowing with talented prospects, giving the defending A.L. Champs plenty of options to fix weaknesses.
Their biggest weakness is hitting left-handed pitching. With Cliff Floyd and Eric Hinske testing the free agency waters, the Rays will try to add more offense that can improve the league’s third-worst OPS against lefties.
Tampa Bay would like to add depth to the closer position. Current closer Troy Percival is old and injury prone. If the Rays don’t want to promote an arm from within, they will take a long hard look at what’s available on the free agency market.
The Tampa Bay Rays were forced to a Game 7 of the American League Championship Series by a wounded Boston Red Sox squad. Despite being just one game away from returning to the World Series, the Red Sox have already started to close the gap between them and the upstart Rays.
The Red Sox bolstered their bullpen and thinned out a log jam in centerfield by trading Coco Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for right-handed reliever Ramon Ramirez. This makes Jacoby Ellsbury the Red Sox’s starting center fielder.
The Red Sox offered arbitration to catcher Jason Varitek, meaning he’s unlikely to be back with the team next year. To fill the void behind the plate, the Red Sox will likely pursue Taylor Teagarden or Jarrod Saltalamacchia, both with the Texas Rangers.
On January 8th, the Red Sox acquired Rocco Baldelli to add to their outfield.
The Red Sox acquired right handed pitcher Randor Bierd from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for right handed pitcher David Pauley.
Boston also signed Brad Penny and free agent right handed pitcher Takashi Saito to a one-year contract through the 2009 season with a club option for 2010.
Any trade Boston makes will probably involve highly touted pitcher Clay Buchholz. Red Sox can part with pitching prospects since they have a solid four-man rotation.
And the team just signed free agent right handed pitcher John Smoltz to a one-year contract through the 2009 season. So their pitching is starting to look very good.
With Manny Ramirez gone and slugger David Oritz another year older, the Red Sox would have loved to have landed the 29-year-old switch-hitting free agent Mark Teixeira to their lineup. But alas, the New York Yankees snatched him up in a move very similar to how they got A-Rod. The deal is for 8-years and $180 million.
The Yankees have a lot of two things: money and old age. Look for baseball’s richest franchise to spend more of its money to get younger, both at the plate and on the mound. They also got
The Yanks have $75 million in 2008 salaries coming off the books thanks to the free agencies of Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, Carl Pavano, Andy Pettitte (although Abreu and Pettitte might be back with the team) and to the retirement of pitcher Mike Mussina.
Besides Teixeira, the Yankees have also been salivating over starting pitcher CC Sabathia. The former Brewer ace wants a nine-figure salary and the Yanks can afford to write that check. And in the end, the Evil Empire signed Sabathia as well for 7 years and $161 million.
The Toronto Blue Jays finished the 2008 season with 86 wins, the league’s best ERA, and the league’s fourth-best run differential—all good enough for fourth place in the division.
So can these birds really compete with the top flyers in the AL East? The answer is probably not.
Last year, the Blue Jays had one of the league’s best four-man rotations with Roy Halladay, Burnett, Jesse Litsch and Shaun Marcum. Two of those four pitchers are already gone for next season. Burnett opted for free agency and Marcum will miss all of 2009 with Tommy John surgery.
The problem with the Blue Jays is they don’t have the Red Sox’s or the Yankees’ money, but are stuck in their division. It might be prudent for Toronto to think beyond 2009 and start preparing now to dump salaries before the trade deadline.
The Baltimore Orioles had the fifth oldest lineup in the majors, only two players were south of 30. The good news for the Birds is most of their veterans are entering the final year of their contracts.
Last off season, the Orioles pillaged the Seattle Mariners of numerous prospects for the hugely disappointing Erik Bedard. Anticipate Oriole GM Andy MacPhail to try and repeat that transaction. While it will be difficult to find a team as stupid as the Mariners were a year ago, it’s not out of the question for MacPhail to make several solid trades that make the Orioles younger and competitive.
2nd Basemen Brian Roberts should be one of the first to go followed by Aubrey Huff, Melvin Mora and Ramon Hernandez. In return, Baltimore should aim to improve its pitching staff. In 2009, the Orioles had the league’s worst ERA.
The upcoming 2009 MLB season is going to be very exciting and the A.L. East is going to be extremely competitive. Look for the off-season changes to make a big difference for all of the teams in the A.L. East and expect to see Tampa, New York and Boston battle it out all season long.
About The Author:
Ryan Hogan writes for ClickitTicket, a website where you can buy MLB and other sports tickets and read original sports and music articles. This is a MUST-SEE website that has great deals on sports, theater and concert tickets and great original content, visit http://www.clickitticket.com
Popularity: 14% [?]
