Everything you Need to Know about the American League (so far)
The 2016 Major League Baseball regular season began on April 3rd, marking the beginning of the end for the great careers of the Red Sox’s David Ortiz as well as Dodgers Hall of Fame Broadcaster Vin Scully. It also marked the beginning of the the careers for many exciting young prospects. Teams also begin the season full of hope that they will be playing baseball well into the fall months.
Unfortunately for most of these clubs, these hopes of hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy fizzle out due to unforeseen circumstances that occur along the way. This season in particular has been packed with news headlines stretching across all 30 teams.
However, due to the fact that this blog did not exist, we were not able to report on them. So, in order to catch ourselves up, I present to you the 2016 MLB season recap, beginning with the American League.
Since we’re not afraid of any backlash from “east coast bias” here at Exit 13, we’ll begin with the (co) 1st place Boston Red Sox of the A.L East.
In the aftermath of two abysmal seasons after winning the World Series in 2013, the Red Sox, lead by new President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski and Manager John Farrell, knew the team had to get off to a hot start in the 2016 season. In order to accomplish this, the Sox surrendered a bounty of top prospects to the San Diego Padres to acquire Closer Craig Kimbrel and a hefty sum of $217 Million to sign free agent starting pitcher David Price. The Red Sox are also relying on young stars Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Eduardo Rodriguez to provide the spark needed to lift the team into the next level and compete for a World Series.
Pitching, thought to be the Red Sox biggest weakness going into the year, has proven to be shaky at best. However, there have been some surprises such as 31 year old knuckleballer Steven Wright, who is in the top five in the American league in ERA.
The other team atop the A.L East is Buck Showalter’s Baltimore Orioles. At the plate, the O’s have been just as devastating as the division rival Red Sox, who they trail in every major offensive category. This offensive surge has been lead by the usual suspects Manny Machado, Chris Davis, and Mark Trumbo, as well as offseason addition Hyun Su Kim, who is among the top of the league in offensive output for an outfielder.
The Orioles have also been aided by outstanding starting pitching, but the stars of their team have been the bullpen arms of Darren O’Day and Zach Britton, who are both near the top of the A.L in strikeouts and hits.
On the contrary, up in the great white North, the Toronto Blue Jays are suffering from a very slow start. Although the Blue Jays have been surging in the last week, they cannot seem to make up ground in the division. They are still near the bottom of the league in offensive output, which is disappointing when you consider this same team led the Majors in runs just one year ago.
The Jays are also being held back by lackluster pitching from their two best starters going into the year, Marcus Stroman and R.A. Dickey, both of which have ERA’s above four runs per nine innings.
Following the Blue Jays near the bottom of the division are the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. Both teams have been failed by downright horrific performances thus far from their offenses. In fact, the two teams are in the bottom half of every major offensive category in the American League. One difference between these two basement dwellers is that at least the Yankees have a good bullpen to close out games with the three headed pitching monster of Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, in order to utilize this bullpen properly, you need to have more runs than the opponent, which has been a concept they’ve struggled with mightily. The Tampa Bay Rays have also been having a difficult time with the idea of winning games and sit near the bottom of Major League Baseball.
The American League Central has been led by the surprise juggernaut-Cleveland Indians. The Indians have been firing on all cylinders after losing 2 out of 3 in their opening series and haven’t looked back since then. Offensively and in the field, the Tribe has been lead by a group of underrated Major League talent Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, and Yan Gomes. The pitching staff of the Indians has also been superb, fronted by former Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber and young fireballers Carlos Carassco and Trevor Bauer.
Just behind Cleveland are the two time defending American League champion Royals who, despite losing power hitting 3rd Baseman Mike Moustakas to a torn ACL, have been rolling as of late behind an offense that is top five in every major category. This recent winning stretch has also been marked by excellent pitching from their starters and are once again leading the league in all bullpen pitching stats.
Not too far behind Kansas City is the surprising Chicago White Sox, who entered the month of June only 3 games back of first place in the division. The White Sox were lead early on by downright nasty pitching from starters Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, both of which are in the top five in the league in ERA. This rotation is also going to be further boosted by the recent acquisition of starter James Shields.
One weakness the White Sox have is at the plate as the team has been largely let down by major offseason additions Todd Frazier and Brett Lawrie, as well as veterans like Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton.
In an opposite situation, the Detroit Tigers have been plagued by horrible pitching outside of their own off season free agent signing Jordan Zimmerman. Pitchers Justin Verlander (that guy who is engaged to Kate Upton), Anibal Sanchez, and Mike Pelfrey are all near the bottom of the league in ERA and hits allowed. The Tigers offense however is in the top half of the league and continues to put up solid numbers, even without major contributions from players like Miguel Cabrera.
Towards the bottom of the A.L Central we have the Minnesota Twins, who have been in last place since April 4th and have shown no signs of slowing down in their descent towards mediocrity. The Twins are one Atlanta Braves win away from “earning” the top pick in next year’s draft so it appears that the fine people of Minnesota will have nothing to look forward to until Vikings training camp and the beginning of pike fishing season.
The A.L West has been a tale of two teams: the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers. Both clubs have gotten off to amazing starts to their seasons thanks to their offenses.
Both Seattle and Texas have been riding the hot bats of mainly all of their players, which is something very rare to see in this day and age, but just goes to show you how deep the talent pool is in today’s MLB. These two teams have also been cruising on the backs of their aces like Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels. The only difference being that the Rangers just got back their ace number two with the return of Yu Darvish, while the Mariners realistically only have one great starting pitcher and are bolstered by a great bullpen lead by Closer Steve Cishek. The Rangers and Mariners have both established themselves as top players in the league and should be battling for tops in the division at least through the end of the summer.
Elsewhere in the division, there is not much to be said. Houston has been let down by lackluster performances from their core players, including Dallas Keuchel, who has up to this point posted the worst numbers of his career.
The Los Angeles Angels are also doing a terrific job of wasting the early prime years of one of baseball’s top players, Mike Trout. The Angels have very little to show for on the mound and at the plate, this has lead to them being just one game out of last place in the division despite the fact that Trout has been having one of his most well rounded seasons to date.
That one game is the difference between the Angels and the last place Oakland A’s. Apart from the early surprises of 36 year old starting pitcher Rich Hill and the power hitting Khris Davis, the A’s really don’t have much to show for this season apart from being the 3rd most popular sports team in the Bay Area right now outside of the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Sharks.
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