The following is not an attempt to divine which AL East teams will be playing baseball in the middle of October. It is instead an attempt to divine how the other four teams stack up against the Yankees. This may in fact be a more pointless venture than the aforementioned kind of content. The Yankees will only play a relative handful of games with each of these teams, and as we all know, 19 or so games isn’t enough of a sample to draw conclusions.

That’s why fun was invented. Fun is good!

Baltimore Orioles

So, the Orioles spent enough money this offseason to buy a small island. They walked away from free agency with three new players, and netted Mark Trumbo in a trade. Most of that money went towards retaining Chris Davis, Darren O’Day, and Matt Wieters (when he accepted his qualifying offer). Baltimore failed to upgrade its starting rotation, making a lateral-at-best move by replacing Wei-Yin Chen with Yovani Gallardo, and are relying on Davis, Trumbo and Pedro Alvarez not striking out so much that a rip in spacetime appears in the middle of Camden Yards. There’s also the matter of Trumbo playing a full season’s worth of defense in right field.

That all being said, Baltimore has put together one of the best bullpens in the game. The duo of Zach Britton and O’Day is an excellent one to build around, and then Mychal Givens, Brad Brach and Dylan Bundy himself will round out the relief corps. And, not for nothing, Adam Jones and Manny Machado still exist.

For all intents and purposes, this is nearly the same team that Baltimore trotted out last year, but it’s a much more Orioles-y team. The rotation is probably worse, there are = going to be even more strikeouts and dingers, and the relievers are good. So look forward to Miguel Gonzalez’s yearly outing against  the Yankees where he looks like Dizzy Dean.

Random player that will give the Yankees fits: Pedro Alvarez

I mean, it’s obvious, right? Alvarez is a huge and hefty slugger with a proclivity to strike out at any given moment. This naturally means that he’s going to deposit a baseball in the short porch at Yankee Stadium every single chance he gets. Fear him.

Boston Red Sox

David Price is staying in the AL East. He’s being joined by Craig Kimbrel and Carson Smith. The Red Sox looked at their pitching staff, decided that it simply wouldn’t do, and made an effort to fix it. The rotation behind Price is still one huge shrug emoji (Clay Buchholz? Rick Porcello? Joe Kelly?) and Eduardo Rodriguez just landed on the DL. But the Sox should score enough runs and have a good enough bullpen to counteract that with enough regularity to get by.

You see, Mookie Betts is still a thing, as is Xander Boegarts, and Dustin Pedroia. Oh, and it seems that whole “Hanley Ramirez at first base” experiment is going well. Hanley still hit fairly well last year, and now that a lot of the negative defensive value is going away, he’ll be much more useful. David Ortiz fueled by a farewell tour should be a sight to behold, too.

Add that to a store-brand version of the Yankees’ late inning bullpen house of horrors, and it’s easy to see why so many are picking Boston to win the East. With both teams having restocked and rearmed, 2016 is going to provide some vintage rivalry games.

Random player that will give the Yankees fits: Steven Wright

It was very tempting to pick old friend Chris Young here. All Young does is smash lefties and, well, CC Sabathia is going to pitch against the Red Sox at multiple points during the year. However it’s Wright that will be the monster under the bed. Knuckleballs are always a dicey proposition for the Yankees, and Wright made them look utterly foolish last year. He’s probably going to see more playing time this year.

Tampa Bay Rays

Jake McGee was transfigured into Corey Dickerson in one of this offseason’s more amusing trades. Dickerson is a young power-hitting outfielder and that’s exactly the kind of player that Tampa needed to add. They also added perennial “no seriously this is the year he breaks out!” shortstop Brad Miller, as well as Logan Morrison, who fulfills their requirement of constantly having an underwhelming 1B/DH-type slugger on the roster.

The Rays will once again feature one of the best rotations in the American League. Chris Archer’s hair alone could probably notch 100 strikeouts, but thankfully, he also has an arm. So do Jake Odorizzi, Drew Smyly, and the suddenly good Erasmo Ramirez. It remains to be seen if Matt Moore really does still have an arm, and the existence of Alex Cobb’s arm is unclear at this moment. However, a prospect by the name of Blake Snell could debut this year, and boy does he ever have an arm. Snell is the third best left-handed pitching prospect in the game. The only reason he isn’t the best is because Steven Matz just barely missed the rookie status cutoff and Julio Urias is probably a robot sent back in time from the future and is under the impression that every batter’s name is John Connor.

Basically, the Rays are once again going to depend on run prevention more than they will on run scoring. It should be noted that their offense probably got better, though, so this could be a sleeper team to keep an eye on. If things break the right way, the Rays could be a whole lot of fun. Their entire pitching staff having potent strikeout stuff is basically the best way to turn the Yankees into a shambling mess, and they defend well enough to gobble up a good portion of what gets put into play. Kevin Keirmaier is probably standing behind you at this very moment, waiting to catch a baseball.

Random player that will give the Yankees fits: James Loney

There was literally no other player under consideration for this honor. Loney has a long and illustrious history of turning into Ted Williams when he plays the Yankees. He’s so offensively impotent that many are shocked that he made it through the offseason without being demoted or cut, and that may very well happen at some point this year. Until then, Loney will make the Yankees cry. He has a career .339/.386/.465 line against them. This isn’t Adrian Beltre or Miguel Cabrera or something. It’s James Loney. 

Toronto Blue Jays

Can we talk about home runs? Do we even need to talk about home runs? Because the Blue Jays like to hit home runs. A lot of home runs. All of the home runs.

Consider that this lineup includes Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki, and Josh Donaldson, the reigning MVP. It also includes Russell Martin, Michael Saunders, and depending on what day it is, either Chris Collabello or Justin Smoak. The city of Toronto may as well cut ties with most of its electrical service providers and use the Jays as a power source. Oh, and there’s Kevin Pillar playing insane defense in center field.

So why aren’t the Jays the runaway favorites for the division? It’s because of their rotation. David Price is no longer here, and what’s left is the awesomeness of Marcus Stroman and the hope that Marco Estrada is actually a good pitcher. R.A. Dickey will provide some innings, but things are much murkier after that. In addition to gambling on Estrada, the Jays are gambling on the leaps and bounds that J.A. Happ made in Pittsburgh can be continued outside of the watchful gaze of Ray Searage. Rogers Centre isn’t exactly the most ideal place to find out.

The Jays are going to be an experiment in seeing just how much pitching is needed to support a god-tier offense. It obviously worked out quite well for them last year, but they also had Price. Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, look forward to the bleachers at Yankee Stadium being under constant mortar attack.

Random player that will give the Yankees fits: Darwin Barney

Barney is probably going to platoon with Ryan Goins at second base until Devon Travis gets healthy. He’s an all-glove, no-hit kind of guy. Because he can’t hurt the Yankees that often with his bat, odds are he’ll make more than a few insane plays that will scuttle entire games for New York. Or he’ll come up with a really clutch hit. Somehow, some way. Barney just feels like the guy. There are also way too many good players on this roster to easily find a “random” player.

Lead photo: Kim Klement/USA Today Sports

What are we making too big a deal of and what might be flying under our radar?  I’m calling it overreactions and underreactions.  We’ll go through the two divisional opponents the Yankees faced this week then take a closer look at the Yankees.

Blue Jays

Overreaction: Pitching Depth

On the surface the Blue Jays have the makings of a good, deep pitching staff.  R.A. Dickey has a Cy Young, Mark Buehrle is indestructible, and Norris, Hutchison, and Aaron Sanchez are all under 25 with immediate upside.  Per an article by Jeff Long on the main BP site, they have the longest tenured bullpen in the majors, while youngsters Roberto Osuna and Miguel Castro looked terrific during the opening week.  The rotation and bullpen both contain a balance of talent and stability common to many great pitching staffs.  From the first series alone you might think the Blue Jays will be a force to be reckoned with this year on the mound.

But before we send the 2015 AL East banner across the border, there are a few things worth mentioning.  First, the Yankees are not a very good offensive team and we shouldn’t judge any pitching staff based on the extent to which they can shut 37-year-old Carlos Beltrán and the like down.  The Orioles scored five, seven, and seven runs on them in their weekend series, a better sign of their true talent level.  Secondly, the Marcus Stroman injury will really hurt the team this year. Aaron Sanchez was moved to the rotation as his de facto replacement and PECOTA projects the dropoff to be significant. Stroman’s projected ERA of 3.35 easily trumps Sanchez’s projected ERA of 5.48 over a similar number of innings.  Moving Sanchez also took him out of consideration for being used in the closer role, which Brett Cecil relinquished to Castro in short order.

Underreaction: Lineup Depth

Nobody questions the idea that the top half of the Blue Jays lineup may be the best in the AL East, or even the entire AL.  On opening day, they started five all-stars at the top of the order: Jose Reyes, Russell Martin, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Josh Donaldson.  Everyone knows that these guys will combine to be good and, if everyone stays healthy, they have the potential to be great.

Unsurprisingly, through one week of play, the Blue Jays lead the AL East in runs and are sixth in all of baseball.  The scary thing is that 1-5, the Blue Jays have been underperforming.  Bautista, Martin, and Donaldson are all hitting below .250.  The thorns in the side of the Yankees during the opening series weren’t Reyes and Bautista, they were Devon Travis and Kevin Pillar.  The bottom of the Blue Jays lineup looks to be improved significantly this year and that should scare teams. PECOTA projects Travis and Pillar to be around average offensive producers this year, a step up from the dead spots we used to see in the lineups of Blue Jays teams past. Dalton Pompey showed flashes as well this week, although John Gibbons would be wise to stop batting him in the two-hole.

Red Sox

Overreaction: Best Pitching in the AL East

Trust me, this sounded a lot better before the Yankees busted out the boomsticks on Sunday night so let’s pretend momentarily that that did not occur and we could restore that mindset we had Saturday afternoon.  The Yankees were fresh off two losses in a span of 18 hours and the Red Sox were leading the AL East at 4-1.  Through one turn of the rotation, the Red Sox had four different Cy Young candidates.  A direct quote in my series preview was “Kelly and Miley are…subpar” and yet the Yankees scratched together a mere three runs against them in games 1 and 2.  Sure they knocked around Alexi Ogando a bit while the game was out of hand, but chances are the dial on your panic meter was moving upwards.

Clay Buchholz did a lot to quell this panic Sunday night but it bears repeating, the Red Sox will not be winning because of their pitching this year.  In 2009, a week of pitching dominance against the Yankees and the Phillies would be a big deal, but in 2015, it doesn’t mean nearly as much.  Look for matchups with the Nationals and Orioles next to pump up those ERA’s and make fans a little uneasy up in Boston.

Underreaction: Regression towards the Mean

I’m sure you heard this only a million times this offseason, but the Red Sox were the first MLB team to ever go from last to first to last in a span of three seasons.  Needless to say, they’ve had extremely high variance results recently. 71 wins was probably a 10th percentile result for the Red Sox in 2014. A cause of that futility was a number of players who played well below expectations. Clay Buchholz, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Napoli, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Johnny Gomes, Daniel Nava, and Will Middlebrooks all had horrible seasons.

Yes, the biggest stories in Beantown this offseason were the signings of Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez. And yes, replacing Gomes and Middlebrooks with these two will help the club tremendously. But I would argue more important to the success of the Red Sox in 2015, and something that caught my eye more this first week were improved performances from those who disappointed. Some like Pedroia and Napoli will be healthier than last year. Xander Bogaerts and Daniel Nava look a lot more comfortable at the plate. Clay Buchholz will probably end up somewhere between his first and second start.  But if the Red Sox can, and I suspect they will, get the 50th-70th percentile results from guys who had 20th percentile seasons last year, they will be a much improved club.

Yankees

Overreaction: Banjo Hitting

Yet another overreaction ruined by that Sunday night stomping.  Most of the concern through one week of Yankees baseball has to do with their ability or lack thereof to hit the baseball. Continuing with the Drew family tradition, poor play is causing people to call for Stephen’s head. Carlos Beltrán resembles a corpse so far, the bottom half of the lineup has looked punchless, and for a while on Friday night it seemed the Yankees were never going to score again. As my colleague Andrew Mearns pointed out, through 5 games, the Yankees had an abominable line of .193/.280/.342 with a 78 wRC+. They deserved every slur I’m sure fans were hurling their way.

But look what happened Sunday night; they broke out in a big way. And no I don’t expect them to bang out 16 hits and 14 runs every game but mediocrity? I think we can put up with that. For context last year the Padres had the worst offense in baseball and hit .226/.292/.342 with a 82 wRC+.  Beware of small sample size is an overused warning but for 5 or 6 games of baseball I feel it’s appropriate and the Yankees offensive production will probably end up looking a lot less like the first five games and a lot closer to last year’s line of .245/.307/.380 with a 92 wRC+.

Minor Overreactions

• Tanaka is hurt: We covered this last week.
• But they’re only 2-4: For those who point to the Yankees record of 2-4 and say boo, take a quick look at some of the other teams the same record: LAA, PIT, WSH, CLE, CHW.  And at the top of the league ATL (4-1), COL (4-2), and CIN (4-2) are all teams expected to compete for the worst record in the league.  One week doesn’t mean we should lose site of the bigger picture.
• Player X needs to go: Check out Andrew’s article where he used whipping boy Stephen Drew as an example.

Underreaction: Stupid Little Things

During the FOX broadcast of the Saturday afternoon game they showed at least a 30-second montage of Yankee defensive misplays and errors.  It would have been an impressive collection of screw-ups for an entire week of baseball, but the Yankees accomplished it in one day. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the video online to dub Yakety Sax over but I found a few clips for your amusement.

• A-Rod can’t catch
• Garrett Jones can’t catch
• “Stolen Base”

Of these, only the A-Rod one was recorded as an error, but the team finished with three errors altogether, so you know that was just a sampler. Defensive misplays, errors, pickoffs, caught stealings, these stupid little things are commonplace among this team right now. For a team that envisions fighting for a playoff spot, this needs to be cleaned up. Last Friday Nick Ashbourne wrote a GIF-tastic article about all the baserunning blunders the Yankees had through one series. Well I turned the game on Friday in the fourth inning and the first play I saw was Chase Headley getting picked off and I joked that he’ll have to make it a weekly feature. Later in the game, tied in the 17th inning, with one out Brett Gardner got picked off again.  There were 132 pickoffs in all of baseball last year and the Yankees got picked off twice in the same game, a game that was won in the 19th inning by one run.

In a vacuum one pickoff won’t be the difference between being in or out of the playoffs.  But if the baserunning and defense continues to be this collectively porous, it’s entirely possible the Yankees will or might have already lost a game or two because of these fixable issues.

Minor Underreactions

• CC’s return: In his first start back, CC didn’t get the results he deserved, but he pitched very well.  Hold some cautious optimism that this continues.
• Weak bench:  The difference between the Yankees and Red Sox benches were pretty stark as indicated by the starting lineups the day after playing 19 innings.  The Yankees don’t have much versatility, thump, or experience on their bench beyond Chris Young.