MLB Predictions: Naming Robinson Cano and the AL East Preseason All-Stars
January 25, 2011 · Andrew Seifter · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
For all the statistics we pore over as baseball writers and fans, the most definitive marker of a team’s performance is that final won-loss record after 162 regular season games. From that kind of “bird’s-eye view,” it’s easy to see that the American League East features the best collection of players of any division in the game.
While AL East teams don’t always win — or even reach — the World Series, three different AL East teams have made it to the World Series in the last four years, with the 2007 Red Sox and 2009 Yankees emerging as World Champions. Perhaps more importantly, though, the AL East has proved in recent years that it is the division with the most top-tier teams and the most depth.
In 2010, the AL East was the only division to feature two teams that won at least 95 games and four teams that won at least 85 games. The AL East was also the only division with two 95-plus win teams in 2009, when it had baseball’s only 100-win team (the Yankees). In fact, the AL East has produced two teams with 94 or more wins for four consecutive years, while no other division in baseball has accomplished that feat even once during that time. They might as well change the name of the AL Wild Card to “AL East Runner-up.”
So who are the best players in baseball’s best division?
I recently put together a position-by-position comparison of what should be the division’s two best teams in 2011: the Yankees and the Red Sox. But some members of the Rays, Blue Jays and Orioles deserve to be in the conversation for the division’s best, too.
Without further ado, here are the American League East’s preseason All-Stars.
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