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From 1998 to 2007, the Yankees and Red Sox took the first two places in the AL East each year except one (the Blue Jays finished a game in front of the Red Sox for second place in 2006) . The extended divisional dominance of the two clubs has rendered a series of successful seasons in Toronto unnecessary and was perhaps the most important factor in the MLB's 2011 decision to add a second wild card team in each league. While expanding the playoff championship, the new system also increased the importance of the division championships, ensuring that no second-place team within a striking distance of the first one did so. would continue until September. Although this change seems to promise annual appearances at the Yankees / Red Sox in October, he ended up greasing the skates for Baltimore, Toronto and Tampa Bay. Last year was the first season since 2009 that Boston and New York have made the playoffs.
It seems, however, to have been the beginning of something – again in 2018 the Sox and Yankees, both flush with young players, have galloped in front of the rest of the East. With the Orioles and Jays fading and the Rays leading an intelligent but underpowered experience, we have good reason to expect more of the same thing in 2019 and beyond. But we are ahead of ourselves! Before the Red Sox and Yankees meet for three games in the Bronx starting Friday, the mid-season report:
Boston Red Sox (55-27)
The club from last year was surpassed by all teams. The offensive therefore finished sixth in the league in scoring, a beautiful total but disappointing, especially as the two teams that made the ALCS, Houston and New York, finished in both first in . This year's team, backed by JD Martinez (25 HR) and another Mookie Betts team (20 HR, a .338 / .428 / .684 lineup) holds second place in the AL. in the fingers and the first in OPS. Andrew Benintendi (.290 / .374 / .519) knows the kind of season he was expecting last year. Mitch Moreland, who usually thrives before the break, makes his best first half (.291 / .359 / .549), and Xander Bogaerts has already outperformed last year 's total in less than half of appearances.
Their pitching is also improved. Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel remain their masters, but David Price is healthy again and Rick Porcello is prospering, since it is an even year. (When will Porcello have the sense to sit every two years?) And no paddock has spared a higher percentage of his chances. Of course, there are some disappointments here: Dustin Pedroia and Drew Pomeranz missed a long time with injuries, and Christian Vazquez and Jackie Bradley Jr. regressed offensively. But these are surmountable challenges; all the pieces are there for a deep race in October, if the baseball gods cooperate this time.
Status: A
New York Yankees (52-26)
Did this Yankee team have any luck or bad luck? Hard to say. Let's start with the bad breaks. Giancarlo Stanton's .847 OPS is at 70 points south of his career average as a Marlin, and a total of 160 points less than the MVP season of last year. (Although Stanton's June was its best month away.) The first Yankees basemans produced the third worst OPS in the league, thanks to the struggles of Greg Bird, Tyler Austin and Neil Walker . Receiver Gary Sanchez had a .291 OBP before a groin strain forced him to DL. Promising Jordan Montgomery only made six starts before suffering an elbow injury that required surgery from Tommy John. Sonny Gray and Masahiro Tanaka combined for a 4.76 ERA. The emergency help Tommy Kahnle had to be demoted to minors.
But they would not have the pace for 108 wins without luck on their side. Luis Severino was among AL's two or three most dominant pitchers – he holds the batters at .254 OBP and averages six innings and two thirds per exit. The Yankees had a 15-2 record in their debut. Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar went on 25 runs, and Didi Gregorius scored 15 more. With 20 circuits and a .397 OBP, Aaron Judge has only slipped slightly from his mystic rookie year. And the bullpen held the opponents hitters at a .601 OPS, the most stingiest figure in the majors. As in Boston, yes, there is a potential gap here, and there is a hole or two to fill. (The Yankees race at JA Happ in Toronto or at another start, but I wonder if a first baseman like Justin Smoak from Happ might make more sense.) It's hard, though, to call their season to something other than a triumph.
Quality: A
Rays of Tampa Bay (39-41)
When you look at this list, you see a team with several fathoms of contention. You see a tank in progress, they exchanged their nearest and their left in Seattle more than a month ago. It is a collection of salvaged spares, from CJ Cron discarded to Matt Duffy, injured, to the lost field-player Daniel Robertson, through an anonymous starting rotation made more anonymous by the that the Rays do not wear. They do not even let their starting pitchers start most games. Apart from Cron, there is no power hitter in this team, and aside from Blake Snell, there is no thrower who has even won.
But when you look at their differential, it's a 0 the unsuited has become an average base club. The ingenuity of the team deserves to be credited: Since the deployment of the opening for the first time on May 19, the Rays' staff has been the most productive at baseball. (It is unclear how much this novelty deserves to be credited, as the Tampa Bay ERA team was weaker in the non-opening games than the parties with one.) But maybe that the first role is less emblematic of the cunning of the Rays that are the performances of the men who were invited to fill it. The intrepid Ryne Stanek, a 26-year-old fighter, has a 1.85 MPM in 24.1 innings of work. Wilmer Font, dropped earlier this year by the Dodgers and Oakland, has a 1.64 ERA in 22 innings since arriving in Tampa. Can the Rays continue to find pitchers with 20 good innings? I do not know. But I know this: It's a lot easier than finding pitchers with 200 innings of play.
Level: B
Toronto Blue Jays (37-43)
Entering 2018 On a disappointing 76-86 2017, the Jays faced a tough choice. In Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, they had two of the best sports prospects, building blocks for possible playoff teams in 2020 and beyond. They could have played the season, store young people, save money. But they also had Russell Martin, J.A. Happ, Josh Donaldson, and Troy Tulowitzki, veterans in their thirties with maybe enough in their tanks to train the team in second place in wild-card. Thus, in the offseason, the Jays chose not to rebuild, although they chose not to spend in free agency, either.
The result, alas, was a team that is not very good (among the AL teams, they rank eighth of the points scored and 11th points awarded) and is not particularly well positioned for the future. Heur will return a fair return to the market, but Donaldson, on the list of injured for a month already with a calf injury and no date back, will probably be impossible to negotiate. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether Tulowitzki will play all this season, and Martin's career seems to be functionally over. And things are not much better for young people. Aaron Sanchez, 25, was injured in 2017 with an irregular 2018. Marcus Stroman, 27, chased his dominant team in 2018 (he also missed six weeks of injury). Roberto Osuna, 23, who has been on administrative leave since the beginning of May, was struck last week by a 75-game suspension for violating the league's domestic violence policy. In early June, the Jays were planning to call Guerrero's Double-A, which would have at least given the fans courage. But then he suffered a knee injury, and even that faint hope disappeared.
State: D +
Baltimore Orioles (23-57)
Is there anything to love here? This team ranks 14th in the AL in points and 14th in the AL to prevent them; I guess they deserve a little praise for not being the Royals, who are at the back in both categories. But this group is beyond malaise. Chris Davis, hitting .152 / .230 / .252 with a lower than average defense at the start, has already scored a -2.2 WAR. He has been under contract for four seasons after that cowabunga! Jonathan Schoop has cracked (.202 / .244 / .354) after his breakthrough in 2017. Adam Jones no longer has the scope to play center. OK, Mark Trumbo has a career over the base year … at 0322.
Spend the throw: Alex Cobb has a 6.75 ERA, and the O's are stuck with him until he 2021. Andrew Cashner, signed at two … year's deal, was barely better (4.70 ERA), and I'm too ashamed to even stick to Chris Tillman's statistics right here. (In all fairness, Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman were OK.) It's unclear why management has tried to pull another troubled year out of this core; Baltimore was 33-41 after the break in '17, and this offseason seemed a good time to cut off the bait and move Manny Machado, Zach Britton (though Britton got hurt in late December) and others. Instead, the team is all-in on a unloved class of free agent launchers, and they will pay the price for a while. Only a good return to the deadline for Machado, having a peak year, can save that mess of a season.
Grade: F
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