Opening Day has finally arrived, and teams all around the league are gearing up for another pennant chase in hopes of being crowned this year’s World Series champion. Of course, there’s still another seven months to go before someone raises the Commissioner’s Trophy. Until the playoffs begin, teams will be focused on a smaller goal: winning their division. We have been conducting a series of polls to gauge who MLBTR readers believe is the favorite in each division. That series has already covered the National League, with the
Dodgers,
Cubs, and
Phillies each coming out on top in their respective divisions. In the American League, meanwhile, the
Rangers and
Tigers have been voted as the favorites to win their respective divisions. The final division left to cover in this series is the AL East. Teams are listed in order of their 2024 record.
New York Yankees (94-68)
The reigning league champion can never be counted out as a contender for their division, and that’s certainly true when it comes to a franchise with as strong of a history as the Yankees. With that being said, it’s difficult to argue the club is better on paper today than it was a year ago. 2024’s club was largely built around the presence of three superstars:
Aaron Judge,
Juan Soto, and
Gerrit Cole. While Judge is still crushing baseballs in the Bronx as reliably as ever, Soto departed for Queens on a massive $765MM pact over the winter while Cole underwent Tommy John surgery last month and will miss the entire 2025 season. The losses of Soto and Cole are a major blow to the club’s lineup and rotation, and the latter has been further dented by injuries suffered by
Clarke Schmidt and
Luis Gil while the former is exacerbated by the absence of
Giancarlo Stanton.
That’s not to say the club has no reasons for optimism, however. All of Stanton, Gil, and Schmidt could return at some point during the first half, with Schmidt in particular likely to be back in the rotation later this month. The addition of star southpaw
Max Fried offers the club a suitable stand-in ace for Cole this season even after a somewhat middling debut in pinstripes, while an offensive nucleus of Judge,
Cody Bellinger,
Paul Goldschmidt, and
Jazz Chisholm Jr. should score plenty of runs even without Soto, especially if Goldschmidt can turn back the clock during his age-37 season. That’s before even mentioning their elite bullpen, which was top three in the AL last year even before this winter’s upgrade from
Clay Holmes to
Devin Williams in the ninth inning. Even with the loss of Soto and their many early season injuries, the Yankees cannot be ruled out to repeat at the top of the division.
Baltimore Orioles (91-71)
After a second consecutive playoff appearance with zero wins to show for it, some fans in Baltimore are starting to get antsy. New owner David Rubenstein’s first offseason at the helm of the club came with big expectations that the club would step away from the frugality of recent years and commit more strongly to contention, and in some ways that did happen. The club replaced
Anthony Santander’s power in the lineup by bringing in
Tyler O’Neill on the first multi-year guarantee the club has made since Mike Elias took over baseball operations, and went about upgrading an already-strong offense in other ways by bringing in
Gary Sanchez and
Ramon Laureano. Considering the Orioles already have a phenomenal offensive nucleus built around players like
Gunnar Henderson,
Adley Rutschman,
Jordan Westburg, and
Colton Cowser, those upgrades should give them among the most fearsome lineups in the sport.
That aggressiveness in bolstering the offense was not matched on the pitching side of things, however. Staff ace
Corbin Burnes was allowed to depart for Arizona, and his replacements in the rotation are a pair of aging veterans in
Charlie Morton and
Tomoyuki Sugano. While both are decorated pitchers who could offer strong mid-rotation production, the loss of Burnes puts a great deal of pressure on
Zach Eflin and
Grayson Rodriguez (the latter of whom is currently on the injured list) to perform in front-of-the-rotation roles. The possible return of
Kyle Bradish later this season from UCL surgery should help things, but even that would come with question marks due to a year-long layoff. The bullpen is in better shape, fortunately, with closer
Felix Bautista back from his own UCL surgery and
Yennier Cano,
Gregory Soto, and
Seranthony Dominguez among the other late inning options. If the club’s rotation can hold up and avoid further injuries, the Orioles should have as good of a shot as anyone at the AL East crown this year.
Boston Red Sox (81-81)
The AL East club with by far the biggest offseason, the Red Sox made significant splashes this winter when they traded for (and, more recently, extended) ace southpaw
Garrett Crochet before bringing in third baseman
Alex Bregman on a three-year, opt-out laden deal. Both of those moves are likely to transform last year’s middling club into true contenders, giving Boston an ace-caliber arm ahead of homegrown mid-rotation pieces like
Tanner Houck and
Brayan Bello (not to mention offseason signing
Walker Buehler) while allowing them to kick
Rafael Devers’s lackluster glove off of third base and into a DH role. Those additions build on a solid group of talent already in place, with players like Devers,
Triston Casas, and
Jarren Duran standing as likely offensive contributors.
Perhaps even more important than this winter’s additions, however, is the impending arrival of the club’s top prospects.
Kristian Campbell is already in the majors and emerging as a potential early favorite for the AL Rookie of the Year award, with fellow top prospects
Roman Anthony and
Marcelo Mayer also expected to make their big league debuts at some point this year. All three are consensus top-15 prospects in the sport, with Anthony in particular being rated as the sport’s #1 prospect by a number of services. That sort of high-end prospect talent all arriving in the majors simultaneously is quite rare, and affords the club an exceptionally deep positional mix with plenty of potential impact. With that being said, the club does have one potential Achilles’ heel in the bullpen. After relying on an elite tandem of
Kenley Jansen and
Chris Martin to close out games last year, the Red Sox are now banking on a strong return from nearly two years away from the mound for
Liam Hendriks and a resurgence from
Aroldis Chapman in the late innings. If the club’s strong offense and solid rotation can overcome that questionable bullpen, however, they should be in strong position to return to the top of the AL East.
Tampa Bay Rays (80-82)
After suffering their first losing season in recent memory and selling at the trade deadline last year, the Rays avoided their annual winter of sell-side trades (the
Jeffrey Springs deal notwithstanding) and actually made a handful of modest but potentially impactful additions this winter. Arguably the club’s two biggest weaknesses last season were catcher and shortstop, so the additions of
Danny Jansen and
Ha-Seong Kim figure to go a long way to bring up the floor for the club as they try to get back on track. Jansen and Kim (when the latter returns from the IL) figure to be joined this year by the Rays’ usual suspects on offense with
Yandy Diaz,
Brandon Lowe, and trendy breakout pick
Junior Caminero set to serve as anchors of the lineup. Outside of those names, however, the Rays are likely to need big performances from less established pieces like
Christopher Morel and
Jonathan Aranda in order to make noise in a crowded AL East.
Fortunately, whatever questions the Rays face on offense are largely avoided on the pitching side of things. The temporary loss of ace
Shane McClanahan to open the season hurts the rotation, but the club still features a bevy of solid arms that includes
Drew Rasmussen,
Ryan Pepiot,
Taj Bradley,
Zack Littell, and
Shane Baz. Each of those arms have the upside of at least a #4 starter, and Rasmussen in particular has flashed the sort of production that could front a rotation over the years. In the bullpen, meanwhile, the club will once again rely on
Pete Fairbanks in the ninth inning with a group of interesting arms including
Edwin Uceta and
Hunter Bigge also in their bullpen mix. If the club’s offense can get going, it’s not hard to imagine that pitching talent carrying the Rays back into the playoffs this year.
Toronto Blue Jays (74-88)
The Blue Jays failed in their offseason bid for Juan Soto, and similarly have seemingly come up short in their efforts to extend
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ahead of his final season of club control. That puts plenty of pressure on the Jays to return from the basement of the AL East and compete in what could be their superstar’s last season in town, and Toronto brass answered that pressure by bringing in some notable reinforcements this winter. Anthony Santander offers the sort of big bat to protect Guerrero in the lineup that the Jays lacked last year,
Andres Gimenez should greatly improve the club’s defense,
Jeff Hoffman looks like a strong replacement for
Jordan Romano in the ninth inning, and
Max Scherzer (when he returns from the IL) should offer quality innings to a rotation that lost
Yusei Kikuchi last summer.
Even with solid additions like those, however, a lot needs to go right for the Jays if they’re going to get to the top of the AL East this year. Perhaps the most important would be a return to form for
Bo Bichette, who endured the worst season of his career last year. A lineup featuring Bichette at his best alongside Guerrero and Santander would go a long way to making this club look like a playoff team, as would a resurgence from veteran righty
Kevin Gausman, who took a step back from his previous ace-level seasons with the Blue Jays last year. A strong year on offense from franchise catcher
Alejandro Kirk and a repeat of
Bowden Francis’s excellent rookie campaign could also serve as X-factors that help the club stay competitive this year.
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With all five clubs making a legitimate effort to compete this year, who will come out on top? Will the Yankees reign supreme once again despite their losses, or will they be successfully challenged by the young, up-and-coming Orioles despite a middling rotation? Can the Red Sox ride their splashy signings and top prospects to the postseason, or will a team like the Rays or even the Blue Jays surprise? Have your say in the poll below:
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