TSN.ca MLB Preview: AL East

Is another Sox-less, Yankees-less playoffs conceivable? Do the O's have the guns to repeat? How will the Rays fare under new management? TSN.ca previews the American League East.

Baltimore Orioles (96-66, 1st in AL East)

If you told the Orioles after their sweep at the hands of the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS that Dan Duquette would be all over the news in the offseason, they would be hopeful that their GM would be busy in adding pieces to the AL East champions to finally put them over the top.

Unfortunately, Duquette being the story of the Orioles’ offseason was due to the 2014 MLB Executive of the Year’s attempt to jump ship to the Toronto Blue Jays as its new president, rather than for any high-profile additions to last year’s surprise division champs. Duquette remains with the team after owner Peter Angelos played hardball with the Jays, demanding an absurd package of prospects (including 2014 ninth-overall pick Jeff Hoffman) that killed talks. Still, it’s hard not to wonder if irreparable damage was done to Duquette’s relationship with the team and that could be a storyline to watch over the 2015 season.

On the field, it’s hard to argue that Buck Showalter’s team isn’t worse than it was a season ago. Gone is last season’s home run and RBI leader, Nelson Cruz. After the Orioles picked up the 34-year-old slugger off of the Biogenesis scrap heap, he hit 40 home runs and added 108 RBI and cashed in on a multi-year deal with the Seattle Mariners. After nearly a decade in the Orioles’ outfield, Nick Markakis is now in Atlanta. With his production decreasing over the past five seasons, it’s not really surprising that his $17.5M club option for 2015 was declined, but the O’s failed to come to terms on a long-term deal with the seventh-overall pick in 2003.

While the O’s offence will take a hit without Cruz, the team hopes for a full season out of Manny Machado. A knee injury limited the burgeoning superstar to just 82 games last season. Fully healthy now, a 20-home run/80-RBI season is a reasonable ask out of the 22-year-old.

A year removed from a 50-home run, 138-RBI season, Chris Davis missed the final 17 games of the regular season and all of the playoffs, suspended for amphetamines after failing to receive a therapeutic use exemption. Davis is back and while replicating the heights of 2013 might be unreasonable, Davis will be expected shoulder a heavy portion of the offensive burden.

The Orioles’ pitching staff is a deceptively good one, third in the AL last season in ERA (3.43) and fifth in opposing average (.244). The rotation will be almost identical (Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen, Bud Norris and Miguel Gonzalez) with the disappointing Ubaldo Jimenez and Kevin Gausman battling for the final spot. Pitching was a strong spot for the Orioles last season and should be again this year.

The Red Sox might be the sexy pick in the AL East, but go ahead and sleep on the Orioles at your peril.

In: C J.P. Arencibia (free agent - TEX), OF Nolan Reimold (free agent - ARI), OF Travis Snider (trade - PIT).

Out: DH Nelson Cruz (free agent - SEA), C Nick Hundley (free agent - COL), OF Nick Markakis (free agent - ATL), LHP Andrew Miller (free agent – NYY). 

New York Yankees (84-78, 2nd in AL East)

It’s not often that you get to call the Yankees a dark horse, but here we are.

Two years after Mariano Rivera’s retirement and the season following the Derek Jeter retirement tour, few prognosticators have the Bronx Bombers in the postseason in 2015, but there is enough quality here to make the Yanks a team that should find themselves in the playoff conversation.

When you’re talking about the Yankees, you have to address the elephant in the room…no, not CC Sabathia: Alex Rodriguez is back. After missing last season, suspended for his part in the Biogenesis scandal,  A-Rod returns to the Yankees against what seemed like their best efforts. Make no mistake, this is not the Alex Rodriguez who was a 14-time All-Star and a three-time AL MVP.  Rodriguez is 39-years-old and won’t be playing any third base. Rodriguez is expected to hit seventh. With expectations greatly lessened on his production, a healthy Rodriguez (who has had a fantastic spring) could quietly surprise.

As for the rest of the Yankees’ order, there is balance. Trips to the DL and an aging core will be a worry, though. Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury, who has battled an oblique injury for most of the spring, are constant threats to reach base, but they are also injury-prone. Teixeira and Carlos Beltran will be expected to shoulder the offensive load, (along with a better season from Brian McCann and a full year of Chase Headley), but both have been slowed by age and injury (Beltran had offseason surgery) in recent years. Didi Gregorius is no Jeter in the line-up, he is an improvement with the glove.

While a bullpen anchored by arguably the American League’s best late-innings, one-two combo in Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller is a massive strength,  age and injury worries carry over into the rotation, where there are big question marks surrounding their top three starters. All of Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda and Sabathia missed significant time last season, with Pineda also missing most of the prior two seasons with the same shoulder woes. Now 34, Sabathia has been overweight for most of his career, but the strain it has put on his knee has increased with age. That, along with fading velocity and a terrible Grapefruit League, is reason for Joe Girardi to have serious reservations about the former Cy Young winner. Nathan Eovaldi, acquired from the Miami Marlins in the offseason, could emerge as the key cog in this rotation.

In: LHP Chris Capuano (free agent - BOS), David Carpenter (trade - ATL), RHP Nathan Eovaldi (trade - MIA), SS Didi Gregorius (trade - ARI), OF Garrett Jones (trade - MIA), LHP Andrew Miller (free agent - BAL), RHP LHP Justin Wilson (trade - PIT).

Out: RHP Shane Greene (trade - DET), SS Derek Jeter (retired), RHP Hiroki Kuroda (free agent -Japan), RHP Brandon McCarthy (free agent - LAD), RHP David Phelps (trade - MIA), IF Martin Prado (trade - MIA), RHP David Robertson (free agent - CHW), OF Ichiro Suzuki (free agent - MIA). 

Tampa Bay Rays (77-85, 4th in AL East)

Roster turnover has been commonplace for the Rays, but now the one constant in all of it for the team is gone, too. After nine seasons and over 1400 games in charge, Joe Maddon is gone from the Rays’ dugout. In his stead comes Kevin Cash. Cash, at 37, becomes the youngest active manager in the Big Four sports, but hopes for the one-time Toronto Blue Jays back-up catcher are high. Having learned under Terry Francona, perhaps the quintessential players’ manager, the Rays feel that Cash is the guy to get the most out of what will, again, be a team that will rely heavily on youth.

With former GM Andrew Freidman (gone to Los Angeles as the Dodgers’ new CEO last October) bidding adieu with the summer trade of David Price to the Detroit Tigers, one of new GM Matthew Silverman’s first actions in charge was a three-way blockbuster that saw outfielder Wil Myers head to the San Diego Padres. Though Myers is only 24 and still under team control, the deal showed that Freidman’s mantle of selling assets at peak value will be carried on under Silverman.

The team should be better at the plate, after finishing last in the AL in runs (612) and RBI (586). Steven Souza, acquired from the Washington Nationals in the Myers trade, will be the everyday left fielder and the Rays expect big things from the 25-year-old who hit .350 with 18 home runs and 75 RBI at Triple-A Syracuse last year. Souza looks to slide in at the five-spot behind Evan Longoria and James Loney at the heart of the Rays’ order.

Desmond Jennings will drop from lead-off into sixth in the order as a means to kick-start his production. After a fine spring, the Rays hope Jennings will revert to the form displayed in 2013, setting career highs in virtually every offensive category.

The Rays’ greatest strength is still its pitching, but the team will be forced to weather an early storm. Drew Smyly, Alex Colome and Alex Cobb won’t be ready to start the season. Matt Moore, an All-Star in 2013, is expected back in the summer following Tommy John that kept him out of all of 2014. In the meantime, the Rays will rely on Chris Archer and Jake Odorizzi to set the tone in the first few weeks of the season.

The Rays finished below .500 last season for the first time since 2007. It will take a lot for the Rays to avoid that mark again this season, but this AL East isn’t the juggernaut it once was. As always, the Rays are perfectly capable of surprising. 

In: SS Asdrubal Cabrera (free agent - WAS), RHP Ernesto Frieri (free agent - PIT), C/DH John Jaso (trade - OAK), RHP Kevin Jepsen (trade - LAA), C Rene Rivera (trade - WAS), OF Steven Sousa (trade - WAS).

Out: SS Yunel Escobar (trade - OAK), RHP Jeremy Hellickson (trade - ARI), OF Matt Joyce (trade - LAA), C Jose Molina (released), OF Wil Myers (trade - SD), RHP Joel Peralta (trade - LAD), IF Sean Rodriguez (trade - PIT), IF Ben Zobrist (trade - OAK).

Boston Red Sox (71-91, 5th in AL East)

John Farrell and the Red Sox are trying to pull off the rare ‘worst to first to worst again to first again’ four-year arc.

A year removed from their third World Series triumph in a decade, the team bottomed out in 2014, finishing last in the AL East at 71-91. Completely revamping their rotation and adding some pop to their order, a return to the postseason is a bare minimum expectation for the Red Sox in 2015.

On offence, general manager Ben Cherington made two massive free agent signings, with a combined $183 million-commitment to Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez.

Fresh off of a third World Series in five seasons, the 28-year-old Sandoval brings with him a postseason resume that stacks up against the very best. But, he struck out a career-high 85 times and posted his lowest OBP in five seasons last year.

Ramirez is a higher risk, but higher reward proposition. The 31-year-old has only played a full season in one of the past six and has missed an average of just over 46 games a year over the past four seasons. The Red Sox are hoping that a move to left field will help curb any health issues and the very hitter-friendly Fenway will help spur on his offence.

While the team will expect continued production from evergreen David Ortiz, former AL MVP Dustin Pedroia and a healthy Mike Napoli, rookie Mookie Betts will be the table-setter at the top of the order. Betts hopes to succeed in his first full MLB season where Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley, Jr. struggled. Cuban rookie Rusney Castillo, despite his monstrous contract, should start the season in Triple-A with the logjam in the Red Sox outfield.

And that pitching staff could need help.

Only Clay Buchholz remains from last year’s Opening Day rotation, with Joe Kelly coming over in the July trade of John Lackey to the St. Louis Cardinals and Rick Porcello, Wade Miley and Justin Masterson brought in this offseason.

On paper, this rotation is an improvement on last season’s, but there is no out-and-out ace and health is going to be a concern. Barring the unforeseen, the Red Sox will not finish in the AL East basement again. A first-place finish might be too lofty a goal. Still, expect the Red Sox to be in the playoff hunt after a year in the wilderness.

In: C Ryan Hanigan (trade - SD), C Sandy Leon (trade – SD), RHP Justin Masterson (free agent - STL), LHP Wade Miley (trade - ARI), RHP Alexi Ogando (free agent - TEX), RHP Rick Porcello (trade - DET), OF Hanley Ramirez (free agent - LAD), 3B Pablo Sandoval (free agent - SF), RHP Anthony Vavaro (trade - ATL).

Out: RHP Burke Badenhop (free agent - CIN), OF Yoenis Cespedes (trade - DET), RHP Rubby De La Rosa (trade - ARI), 3B Will Middlebrooks (trade - SD), C David Ross (free agent - CHC) , RHP Allen Webster (trade - ARI).

Come back to TSN.ca Thursday and Friday for Blue Jays-specific preview material.