1. Red Sox (95-67)
2. Rays (93-69)
3. Orioles (88-74)
4. Yankees (85-77)
5. Blue Jays (70-92)
Barring injuries or acts of God, everyone but Toronto will finish above .500. Should be a very exciting division. There's no clearly dominant team. Each team has legitimate concerns as of right now...
As an Orioles fan, I hope the Yankees do that. Soriano scares me a lot more than Ichiro. Soriano can actually do damage. Ichiro has no power at this point. Heck of a guy to have as a pinch runner or defensive replacement in the OF though.
I'd define reliable as feeling confident that a pitcher will give you about 180 innings with a sub 4.30 ERA. I feel confident that Tillman, Jimenez, Santana, and Gonzalez are all capable of doing so. Chen is a wild card because of his noted durability issues. Of course, there's also a pretty...
Gardner's good. That's pretty good value for him too, though a ton of his value lies in his speed. When his speed starts to decline, his value's going to plummet.
Apparently the Orioles are still very interested in Ervin Santana. I can justify losing a third round pick for Santana. That would make me feel a lot better about the Orioles rotation. Four reliable starters (Tillman, Jimenez, Santana, Gonzalez) and one wild card (Chen).
Cruz's defense isn't as bad as most people think. FWIW, he has a better UZR rating than Nick Markakis over the past two years. I think Cruz gets that negative reputation as a fielder because of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. I think Cruz will see time as an outfielder and as a DH. All...
Disagree. Tillman, Jimenez, Chen, and Gonzalez are all be better than CC's 4.78 ERA. And I can't really give Tanaka any credit when he hasn't thrown any pitches in the majors. For all I know, he could be better than Yu Darvish, or he could be Dice-K. I'm not saying he won't be good, I'm just...
The Orioles have a small window to compete. After 2015, they're losing either (or potentially both) Matt Wieters or Chris Davis. I won't deny that Ubaldo is a huge risk. But I think Ubaldo has the makeup to succeed in Baltimore- forces a lot of ground balls. Also, I'd say he's been horrible 2...
If CC doesn't rebound from last sesaon, their rotations are about equal. You're putting too much faith in Tanaka- he's a wild card.
Regarding Tex, he probably won't be out for season, but the Yankees have every right to be very concerned...