It’s Thanksgiving, and you’re here reading about baseball on the internet. Maybe you have to work, or maybe you’re in transit, or maybe you’re trying to distract yourself with your phone while a drunk uncle goes on his annual political rant.
In any case, your dedication to reading about baseball on the internet on Thanksgiving suggests you’re a baseball fan. And if you’re a fan of any Major League Baseball team, you’ve got at least one thing to be thankful for today:
AL East
Baltimore Orioles
(AP)
A window to win: Winning the AL East is never easy, and it won’t be in 2015. But the Orioles have a strong club built to win now in what looks like it will be another down year for the sport’s toughest division. The Red Sox should charge back into contention, but the Rays are reeling after losing their GM and manager this offseason and the Yankees look like they’ll soon be in need of a massive rebuild.
Boston Red Sox
Too many good players: As currently constructed, the Red Sox would likely open the season with two of Shane Victorino, Yoenis Cespedes and Allen Craig on their bench and both Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts in the minors. Those guys would all start for many — if not most — other Major League teams. The Sox need pitching in a big way, but they’ve got money to spend and the requisite pieces to make a trade.
New York Yankees
Money: The Yanks’ 2015 outlook doesn’t look so great, with big money committed to recently injured or ineffective players all around the diamond and in the starting rotation. But it’s never been clear there’s a limit on what the Yankees will spend to keep themselves competitive, and that financial flexibility will go a long way toward hastening a rebuilding process (though they’ll never call it that).
Tampa Bay Rays
Depth in young pitching: The Rays just lost the GM and manager that helped them become a perennial winner from 2008-2013, but it’s not all bad: Matt Moore should return from Tommy John surgery sometime in the 2015 and join a good young rotation that includes Chris Archer, Alex Cobb and Drew Smyly.
Toronto Blue Jays
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
Home runs: Every baseball fan should be thankful for home runs, because home runs are the coolest thing that regularly happens in baseball games. And the Blue Jays hit a lot of them. Jose Bautista and Edwin Escobar should be back and mashing in 2015.
AL Central
Chicago White Sox
Star power: The White Sox went an uninspiring 73-89 in 2014, but they’ve got a pair of commodities few other teams can boast: A bona fide slugger in Jose Abreu and one of the game’s most dominant starters in lefty Chris Sale. They’re both signed to relatively team-friendly deals that can keep them on the South Side through the end of the 2019 season, giving the White Sox some time to put better players around them.
Cleveland Indians
The ascendence of Corey Kluber: Well that was cool, right? Kluber had a nice season in 2013, good enough that he looked like a viable rotation option moving forward. Then he just got way, way better in 2014, stealing the Cy Young Award away from more heralded aces like Sale and Felix Hernandez. And his remarkable walk and strikeout rates suggest he in no way just had a lucky year.
Detroit Tigers
Miguel Cabrera: A layup. The veteran first baseman had a down year in 2014 and still finished sixth in the league in OPS. If you can’t find great joy in watching Miguel Cabrera hit, stop watching baseball.
Kansas City Royals
(AP Photo)
They just made the World Series for the first time since 1985: I could elaborate but I don’t think any Royals fan has any doubt what he should be thankful for this fall. Obviously it would have been nice to take home the hardware, but that was a heck of a lot of fun while it lasted.
Minnesota Twins
Switch-hitting: The ability to switch-hit is an awesome thing, especially with increased bullpen specialization taking advantage of platoon matchups. But the number of switch hitters has declined since the early 1990s. No one told that to the Twins: Young players Danny Santana, Eduardo Escobar and Kennys Vargas all established themselves as Major League regulars in 2014 while hitting from both sides of the plate. It should be a very cool thing to watch as they grow up and get better.
AL West
Houston Astros
Jose Altuve: Second baseman Jose Altuve a) is awesome at baseball, b) is delightfully tiny, c) is under team control through 2019, and d) seems like a really good dude. Celebrate Altuve, Houston.
Los Angeles Angels
Possibly the best player ever: You, Angels fan, have just watched the first three seasons of Mike Trout. No first three seasons of any player ever have been as good as those. Now your team has Mike Trout on it for the foreseeable future.
Oakland Athletics
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
Maybe MLB’s best GM, still: Billy Beane took a gamble at the trade deadline and made big moves for starting pitching, only to see his club collapse down the stretch and wind up eliminated in the Wild Card game. Those trades did not work out, but anyone citing them as evidence Beane should be fired needs to step back, take a deep breadth, and look at the roster Beane built, the contributors he has found, and the stars the team has created out of complete obscurity during Beane’s tenure. Beane is almost a victim of his own success at this point: We’re so used to him being great at his job that we amplify his missteps when they happen.
Seattle Mariners
Return of the King: So Felix Hernandez didn’t win his second Cy Young Award in 2014. So what? King Felix remains one of the very best pitchers in the sport — as he has been for several years — and he’s still only 28 years old and under team control through 2020. He’s got plenty of time to win more Cy Young Awards, especially as the Mariners improve around him and provide him some more wins.
Texas Rangers
It can’t possibly be worse: That was a weird thing that happened to the Rangers in 2014, but the chances of nearly everyone on the roster getting hurt again in 2015 seem slim. They might have had more talent than any 67-win team in the history of baseball. It’s just that a lot of it was on the disabled list.
NL East
Atlanta Braves
A good young core: Dealing Jason Heyward seems to indicate the Braves will move into at least a brief rebuilding phase. But with Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran and Freddie Freeman in the fold, it shouldn’t be long before they return to contention.
Miami Marlins
(Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports Images)
No more Giancarlo Stanton trade rumors for a while: It remains to be seen what the Marlins will do to put a better team around their biggest, richest slugger, but Giancarlo Stanton’s $325-million extension and its no-trade clause ensure that all those pesky trade talks will finally die down. He’s all yours.
New York Mets
So much young pitching: Matt Harvey should be fully healthy by spring training as he works to rejoin a rotation that will include Rookie of the Year winner Jacob de Grom and young fireballer Zack Wheeler. They’ve also got one of the best pitching prospects in the game in Noah Syndergaard, who spent all of 2014 in Class AAA ball and should be ready for the show as soon as a need arises.
Philadelphia Phillies
Long-awaited realism: Growing trade talks around Cole Hamels appear to indicate that Ruben Amaro Jr. and the Phillies are finally ready to enter a rebuilding phase, with the core of their 2008 championship team growing increasingly injury prone and ineffective. Suggesting you’ll rebuild and actually rebuilding are two very different things, but at least they’re thinking about it now.
Washington Nationals
A thoroughly winnable division, again: The Marlins and Mets both seem like they’re on the way up, but since neither team finished above .500 in 2014, the Nationals remain the obvious favorite to repeat as NL East champs. They’ve got a deep set of position players and great starting pitching, though nothing is guaranteed.
NL Central
Chicago Cubs
Javier Baez (PHOTO: David Zalubowski/AP Photo)
All of the prospects: The Cubs have too many stud prospects to bother listing. And, in Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro, they’ve got a pair of All-Star, cornerstone players still in their mid-20s. The Cubs will probably be real good real soon, and it’s going to be real weird.
Cincinnati Reds
Johnny Cueto’s 2014: There’s talk the Reds could trade ace Johnny Cueto this offseason, which kind of stinks for Reds fans because Cueto is great. But the good news is that Cueto’s coming off the best season of his career, so if he’s moved, he should fetch a ton of value.
Milwaukee Brewers
Everything about Carlos Gomez: Carlos Gomez rules. Rules, rules, rules, rules, rules.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Two straight postseason appearances: Who saw that coming? Remember when the Pirates endured 20 straight losing seasons? Now they look well-positioned for a third straight postseason run in 2015.
St. Louis Cardinals
(Jeff Curry / USA Today Sports)
Perennial excellence: Haters gonna hate. Fans of all 29 other teams gripe about the Cardinals and their apparent sense of entitlement and all the hoopla around the Cardinal Way. No one would care if the Cardinals weren’t so good every darn year.
NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks
A change at the top: The D-backs last administration proved, ahh… not so effective. The new one, helmed by chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and new GM Dave Stewart, will ideally focus on acquiring good players over gritty ones.
Colorado Rockies
Same as the D-backs: Playing home games at altitude is a tough nut to crack. The Rockies promoted Jeff Bridich to GM to try to do just that. There’s no easy answer, but they have at the very least got a few excellent players to work with.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Giant stars, massive payroll, promising prospects, Yasiel Puig’s instagram, your good looks (probably): It didn’t end well for the Dodgers in 2014, but Dodgers fans really have nothing to complain about at this point. Oh no, we have too many good outfielders! Someone will help you with that problem, for sure.
San Diego Padres
(PHOTO: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Actual offseason rumors: The Padres, under new GM A.J. Preller, turned a lot of heads when they reportedly made an offer to free agent Pablo Sandoval before he ultimately signed with the Red Sox. And they were rumored to be pursuing Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas before he signed with the D-backs on Tuesday. Though the Padres have nothing to show for it yet, the rumors alone suggest the new San Diego front office is atypically — and refreshingly — aggressive. Arguably their biggest move last offseason was bringing in starter Josh Johnson, and he did not throw a pitch for San Diego in 2014.
San Francisco Giants
You probably think it’s that World Series win: But you’re wrong. Flags fly forever, but Giants’ championships are old news at this point. Instead, be thankful for this photo, one of the greatest of all time. Cherish it:
