LEAGUE HALF EMPTY
Too many MLB teams have absolutely no chance to win
They made it. Rob Manfred and the baseball poohbahs can take a bow. They were able to complete spring training relatively unscathed by the coronavirus and we will have a full season after all. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that, at a time when hope normally springs eternal for everyone in baseball, nearly half the teams can be considered irrelevant even before the season’s first pitches. By irrelevant we mean there is almost no conceivable way any of them could imagine going to the World Series.
Besides the tanking Orioles, Pirates and Rangers, the slowly tank-emerging Tigers, and the incompetently-run Rockies, there are teams like the Red Sox, Diamondback and Giants who did little to improve upon their under-.500 performance of last year, and still others like the A’s, Reds and Indians who figure to regress mightily after shedding some of their best players for payroll purposes.
A division-by-division breakdown:
AL EAST
If the Yankees, on paper one of the few elite teams in the AL, can stay reasonably healthy — obviously a big if — they could render the whole rest of this division as irrelevant. For the time being, however, we’ll give the Rays and Blue Jays a reasonable chance of staying competitive deep into the season despite legitimate doubts about both. The Rays shed two of their top three starters, Blake Snell and Charlie Morton, and didn’t replace either and plan to use multiple “openers” to get them through the season. They also just lost their most effective back-end reliever, Nick Anderson, for at least half the season with a partially torn elbow ligament. The Blue Jays spent a ton of money over the winter, most of it on center fielder George Springer, who starts the season on the injury list with an oblique strain, and closer Kirby Yates who will miss at least half of the season with an elbow flexor strain. Definitely irrelevant are the Red Sox, who won’t finish last again but have only two proven quality starters in their rotation in Eduardo Rodriguez, who was scratched from the season opener with a dead arm, and Nathan Eovaldi - and the Orioles, who are looking at a third straight 100loss full season despite the dubious addition of Matt Harvey after a 10-hit, 5.40 ERA in 10 innings of spring work.
AL CENTRAL
Until their best hitter Eloy Jimenez went down for the season tearing up his shoulder in the outfield last week, the White Sox, who added a proven starter in Lance Lynn for their rotation along with a dominant closer, Liam Hendriks, over the winter, looked like the team to beat, not just in this division but possibly in the entire American League. Despite minimal improvements (shortstop Andrelton Simmons), the defending champion Twins will be relative all year, but they will be the only ones in this division. The payroll-downsizing Indians can’t help not missing Francisco Lindor and Carlos Santana in the middle of their lineup and their rotation behind Shane Bieber is very green and their bullpen very problematic. The up-and-coming Royals will be greatly improved, and fun to watch especially if Bobby Witt Jr. manages to hit his way onto the team at some point, but they’re not ready to contend, and the Tigers will continue to be awful.
AL WEST
This could easily be the worst division in baseball. The defending champion A’s cannot possibly be expected to repeat, much less contend for anything. Not after losing their best player, Marcus Semien, and their elite closer,
Liam Hendriks, to free agency. The Astros should win the division even though they will be without Justin Verlander and lost George Springer to free agency, because they still have the best lineup and there’s hardly ever been a Dusty Baker team that wasn’t competitive. The Angels, who have had five straight losing seasons, have the same problem – weak starting pitching – and while they did add Jose Quintana, it’s probably asking too much for Shohei Ohtani to be both the ace of the pitching staff and an MVP-caliber leadoff man. The rebuilding Rangers will also likely lose 100 games.
NL EAST
Conversely, this is most likely the best, most competitive division with the Braves, Mets, and Nationals all justifiably considering themselves viable World Series contenders, and the Phillies at least competitive having addressed the worst bullpen in the league with the additions of Archie Bradley and Jose Alvarado. The Nationals made the most improvements in the offseason, signing Brad Hand for the bullpen and Jon Lester for the back end of the rotation and adding defensively challenged thumpers Kyle Schwarber and Josh Bell as lineup complements for Juan Soto and Trea Turner, But to remain relevant their rotation aces Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg must stay healthy. Any other division and we’d consider even the Marlins relevant with their three power arm starters, Sixto Sanchez, Pablo Lopez and Sandy Alcantara. Here, however, they’ll likely finish a very competitive last.
NL CENTRAL
This is a mystery division with none of the teams seemingly on a par with the Braves, Mets and Nationals over in the East. The Cardinals, who finished last in the majors in homers and runs last year, are the team to watch after trading for Nolan Arenado – especially after they get frontline starters Miles Mikolas and Kwang Hyun Kim back from injuries in May. The Brewers, who made some considerable defensive upgrades with the signings of Jackie Bradley Jr., and Kolten Wong, may be the best team in the division, but we won’t know for sure until Christian Yelich proves last year’s disastrous season was just an anomaly. We debated whether the Cubs, who still (temporarily) maintain their core players, Anthony Rizzo, Javy Baez and Kris Bryant from their 2016 world championship team, were going to be relevant or irrelevant this year. For now, we’ll put them in the former group, but if they’re floundering at the All-Star break, they could quickly shift to the latter by trading Baez and Bryant. The other two teams in the division fall heavily into the irrelevant column. The Reds, who lost Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer to free agency, traded closer Raisel Iglesias and non-tendered Archie Bradley for payroll reasons, are in regress mode after making the postseason for the first time since 2012 last year while the Pirates, in full tank mode, are by far the worst team in baseball.
NL WEST
The defending world champion Dodgers remain until further notice the best balanced, deepest and most talented team in baseball, but the Padres, who made the most off-season noise of any team this winter by adding Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrave to their rotation, will give them a challenge as possibly the second best team in baseball. After that, the rest of this division, the Diamondbacks, Giants and bumbling Rockies, in the absence of star power players anywhere, will all be hard-pressed to finish over .500. In terms of World Series aspirations: All three truly irrelevant.