Central: The Tigers and Guardians both made the playoffs last season but it will be the Tigers who win this division. Any time a team has the reigning CY Young award winner in Tarik Skubal who has won it back-back, Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, and they brought back franchise legend Justin Verlander, have a good chance.
Cleveland got lucky Detroit blew the lead but they got better so it will be tougher for them since they still have holes on their team. Outside of LF Steven Kwan at the top and 3B Jose Ramirez with Kyle Manzardo/David Fry at 1B/DH their lineup isn’t good. Their middle infield is good on defense but cannot hit, two-thirds of their outfield is questionable and their catching duo is Bo Naylor who is supposed to hit and Austin Hedges who is good on defense but this combo hasn’t produced.
The Royals were supposed to be a playoff team competing for the championship due to their rotation and young players but injuries and underperforming led them to barely over 500. That should be the reason they compete since their rotation is still Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Kris Bubic and Noah Cameron. Their bullpen is still Carlos Estevez, Lucas Erceg, and they brought back Matt Strahm.
The Twins are lucky they are in the same division as the White Sox or they would have been in last place since they had a fire sale at the deadline essentially trading everyone but CF Byron Buxton, INF Royce Lewis and SPs Pablo Lopez and Joe Ryan.
The White Sox still lost over 100 games but decided to go back to what made them successful which is pitching and defense. Their rotation is led by Shane Smith (All-Star), Sean Burke with Davis Martin who will have another full healthy season, Anthony Kay who is back stateside, and brought back Erick Fedde who was good last time he was there. Also, they are hopefully getting Drew Thorpe and Ky Bush back from injuries. They also decided to get veteran relievers instead of letting inexperienced guys go out there and blow leads; signing Seranthony Dominguez to close, Sean Newcomb, and trading for Jordan Hicks lets Grant Taylor/Jordan Leasure be put in less pressure situations.
East: The Blue Jays went from last place to winning the American League Pennant and they only got better. Their rotation is still top tier as they have Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, and Jose Berrios, Max Scherzer, and signed Dylan Cease long term plus Cody Ponce who was overseas/a full season of Trey Yesavage.
The Yankees will try again to live up to their payroll with a stacked lineup of outfielders
Aaron Judge, bringing back Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham, DH Giancarlo Stanton, infielders Jazz Chizholm Jr, Ryan McMahon, Ben Rice and re-signed Paul Goldschmidt, plus C Austin Wells.
The Red Sox decided to double down on being a playoff team by upgrading their rotation instead of waiting for all the injured pitchers to come back; they signed Ranger Suarez, traded for Sonny Gray/Johan Oviedo to help out All-Star ace Garrett Crochet and Brayan Bello. They extended closer Aroldis Chapman and still have Garrett Whitlock but could improve their bullpen.
Well the Orioles fell to last place leading to their manager being fired and them retooling this team. They signed 1B Pete Alonso, traded for OF Taylor Ward and gave a massive long-term extension to their prospect C Samuel Basallo; traded for Shane Baz, signed Chris Bassitt, Ryan Helsley and re-signed Zach Eflin.
The Rays may finally bottom out as they also trade off valuable assets and don’t do much to fix their talent at the MLB level. They traded away Brandon Lowe, Josh Lowe, Shane Baz and let Peter Fairbanks, Adrian Houser, Christopher Morel leave in free agency.
West: The Mariners almost made the World Series and this year will be no different thanks to their rotation of Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo, George Kirby, Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller plus closer Andres Munoz. Their lineup still boasts C Cal Raleigh who should have won MVP, 1B Josh Naylor, outfielders Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena, and they traded for Brendan Donovan.
The Astros surprisingly missed the playoffs but they were one of the most injured teams in all of baseball. They did lose both Framber Valdez and Luis Garcia to free agency so it will be on Hunter Brown, Christian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr. to shoulder the load but also new pitcher Tatsuya Imai. Their bullpen is still great with Josh Hader and Bryan Abreu.
The Rangers can have a top tier rotation if it stays healthy with Jacob DeGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker plus they trade for MacKenzie Gore. Their bullpen doesn’t have a reliever with much closer experience except Alexis Diaz who hasn’t been good in years.
The A’s keep improving little by little each season by not unloading their best players but instead are locking them up long-term. The core of their lineup is DH Brent Rooker, OF Lawrence Butler, SS Jacob Wilson, 1B Nick Kurtz, 1B/DH/LF Tyler Soderstrom and C Shea Langeliers.
Well the Angels go as OF Mike Trout does and he has not been healthy in a few seasons and now he is moving back to CF where the durability question will come up again.
Central: The Brewers keep winning their division no matter who the manager is (Craig Counsell or Pat Murphy-back-back manager of the year) or who is on the pitching staff as they have become a pitching reclamation factory. They still have Brandon Woodruff and Jacob Misiorowksi at the top plus the two pitchers they turned around in Quinn Priester and Chad Patrick plus this year’s new project Kyle Harrison. Their bullpen still has Trevor Megill closing and Abner Uribe at the back end.
The Cubs made the playoffs for the first time since 2020 due to their lineup of OFers Peter Crow-Armstrong, Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, C Carson Kelly, 1B Michael Busch, SS Dansby Swanson and 2B Nico Hoerner plus Kyle Tucker who left in free agency.
The Reds surprised many by making the wildcard round their first playoff appearance in five seasons and a good amount of the credit should go to manager Terry Francona and their pitching staff. That staff is led by Hunter Greene, with Andrew Abbott, Brady Singer and Nick Lodolo while the fifth spot is wide open with some young options. Emilio Pagan is is still their closer and has Tony Santillan and Pierce Johnson as set up men.
The Cardinals have fallen on hard times as they haven’t made the playoffs in three seasons and maybe can finish in last due all the talent they have unloaded since the deadline last year. Their rotation lost a few veterans like Sonny Gray and Miles Mikolas so Dustin May if he is healthy will be their co-ace with Matthew Liberatore since the rest are all inexperienced starters; their bullpen doesn’t have a closer since they traded away Ryan Helsley. They also traded away Willson Contreras, Brendan Donovan and Nolan Arenado which opens more playing time for Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson at the corners and Thomas Saggese at 2B.
The Pirates will again be a last place team or they could pass the Cardinals for 4th place. They traded away talent at every deadline as they did last year getting rid of their closer and their starting 3B. The outfield alignment is still an issue as it was last season as Oneil Cruz is not a CF nor is Bryan Reynolds a RF; but they doubled down and signed two DHs in Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna as one of them is going to play the outfield. Their infield is more or less set with Nick Gonzales back at SS for a full season, Jared Triolo is a good defender at 3B and they still have Spencer Horowitz at 1B; the other new addition was trading for 2B Brandon Lowe.
East: The Phillies are always a contender the only issue is they cannot get past the Dodgers in the playoffs. Their rotation does have some question marks like the health of Zack Wheeler due the blood clots and they lost Ranger Suarez in free agency; so Christopher Sanchez is the ace with Jesus Luzardo and Aaron Nola, plus Taijuan Walker which is still solid but not great. A full season of Jhoan Duran as closer with Jose Alvarado, Tanner Banks and they signed Brad Keller makes a solid bullpen.
The Mets have the money and the talent but they failed to make the playoffs last season and even though they made many moves this summer most were head scratching. 1. They let both Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz both leave in free agency. 2. They traded away LF Brandon Nimmo/2B Jeff McNeil. 3. They signed INF Jorge Polanco, INF Bo Bichette, and acquired Marcus Semien; causing them to have a 2B/infield log jam. 4. Traded for CF Luis Robert and SP Freddy Peralta; signed Devin Williams and Luke Weaver from the Yankees to close games. A rotation of Peralta, Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes, David Peterson with either Kodai Senga and youngsters Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong is better than last year.
The reason why the Braves have not seen the playoffs the last few seasons is their best players cannot stay healthy; OFRonald Acuna Jr, 2B Ozzie Albies, 3B Austin Riley, SS Ha-Seong Kim and C Sean Murphy, and on the pitching side it’s been Spencer Strider and Reynaldo Lopez.
The Marlins still do the same things like trading away players at the deadline or offseason to acquire prospects like unloading both Ryan Weathers and Edward Cabrera. Their rotation still has Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Max Meyer and Braxton Garrett but they need to all stay healthy; while their bullpen got better by signing Pete Fairbanks to pair with Anthony Bender and Calvin Faucher.
The Nationals started over with a new GM and a new manager who is the youngest ever in Blake Butera. Their teams go if their three best players are healthy in SS CJ Abrams, OFers James Wood and Dylan Crews but Abrams could be traded.
West: It is inevitable due to the money, their front office and current leadership that the Dodgers will go back to the World Series and win it all again even if it takes 7 epic games to win it. Any weakness the team has can be solved via a trade at the deadline as well due to their money and farm system. Looking at their rotation without the injury concerns it has Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and four young pitchers; it doesn’t even get to the DH Shohei Ohtani who went back to pitching last season as the season progressed. Their bullpen added Edwin Diaz to what had a nice core of Blake Treinen, Will Klein, and Alex Vesia and will get Tanner Scott/Evan Phillips back from injury.
The Padres have started over at manager by firing Mike Shildt and replacing him with former reliever Craig Stammen to take over a team that didn’t change that much from last season. Their rotation is still led by Michael King and Nick Pivetta, the only difference is instead of Yu Darvish it will be Joe Musgrove who is back from injury while Darvish is out; they added German Marquez, Griffin Canning, Walker Buehler, Marco Gonzales and Tristion McKenize to patch the back end with their own young guys. They did lose closer Robert Suarez but had Mason Miller on the roster to step in and the other four relievers are no slouches either in Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada and Wandy Peralta.
The Giants hired a college manager Tony Vitello to replace Bob Melvin to oversee a team that is mostly the same with a few additions but to see if they can be better than .500. The lineup is what will carry them as they will have DH Rafael Devers for a full season with SS Willy Adames, 3B Matt Chapman, OFers Heliot Ramos and Jung Hoo Lee and C Patrick Bailey.
The Diamondbacks did a bit of a fire sale at the trade deadline and got Merrill Kelly back in the offseason to be their ace; even Zac Gallen came back for another season to help co-lead the rotation. The rotation still has Ryne Nelson, Brandon Pfaadt and Eduardo Rodriguez plus at some point Corbin Burnes will make a return from surgery and even signed Michael Soroka as well. Their bullpen will be a weakness until the second half as their three best relievers AJ Puk, Justin Martinez and Andrew Saalfrank are all injured to start the season.
Their two best outfielders Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Corbin Carroll have two different kinds of injuries holding them out to start the season which will lead them to use infielders in the outfield flanking Alek Thomas. The infield is still good with SS Geraldo Perdomo, 2B Ketel Marte, C Gabriel Moreno and traded for 3B Nolan Arenado; DH/1B will be a combination of Carlos Santana and 1B Pavin Smith.
The Rockies almost broke the record for most losses in a season missing it by two so they hired a new front office but kept their interim manager Warren Schaffer to be their full time manager. Give them credit for trying to put some band-aids on the rotation with tradable guys for the trade deadline: Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano and Michael Lorenzen who can eat innings alongside the ace Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela. Their bullpen is still a mess so expect another bad season due to that.
