Changing faces make AL East a beast
- All five teams see chance to win suddenly vulnerable division
- Blue Jays seize moment with trades
- Rays have winning formula
Terry Francona is out of the American League East, but the new Cleveland Indians manager lends some perspective to the division that might no longer be baseball's best but certainly has become the game's most volatile.
"As I found out the hard way, the team that wins the winter doesn't always win the season," says Francona, who won two World Series while in charge of the Boston Red Sox. "Sometimes it makes you an analyst."
Francona is back to managing after a year on TV, and his timing is good — taking over the Indians can't be any more difficult than analyzing what's going on in his old division, where roles certainly are confused, if not reversed.
"I think it is about as wide open as it's been," Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon says. "What Toronto did was very substantial. The injuries and the age of the Yankees, obviously. It's going to have a different look. All five teams, heads up. It's going to be very tight. I love that. It's going to be fun, man."
And different:
The Red Sox still haven't recovered from the four-week implosion that ended their 2011 season and Francona's tenure there but are actively, if not yet emphatically, trying to reverse the spiral that resulted in 2012's last-place finish, their first in 20 years.
The New York Yankees are division champs but, for the time being at least, have as many unknowns and significant concerns as their archrivals at the other end of the division standings. Those worries include lineup holes created because they've become free agency victims rather than vultures and because their two most expensive players will have to prove they're healthy enough to contribute.
The Baltimore Orioles came out of nowhere to make the playoffs last season — a year manager Buck Showalter admits even surprised him — and now they'll try to use that momentum to be taken seriously long term.
The Rays, who finished third and five games behind the Yankees, used their deep pitching staff to acquire outfielder and 2012 USA TODAY Sports Minor League Player of the Year Wil Myers from the Kansas City Royals. They dealt All-Star starting pitcher James Shields and steady starter-reliever Wade Davis but also received two notable pitching prospects.
And then there are the Toronto Blue Jays, the team that so far has won the offseason but is trying to temper the accompanying optimism with the reality of the 20 games it needs to make up just to reach its first playoff spot in two decades.
"We're feeling good right now," says John Gibbons, who returns to manage the Blue Jays less than five years after they fired him.
"I don't know if it's our time, but we think we're very competitive," says Gibbons, who was hired after the Blue Jays acquired Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio and John Buck in a trade with the Miami Marlins and then signed Melky Cabrera.
"I sit back, look at the team and dream," Gibbons says, admitting he already has jotted down a batting order that begins with Reyes, Cabrera, two-time home run champ Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, last year's 42-homer breakout hitter.
"It's an exciting time," Gibbons says. "But you can talk all you want. You have to go out and do it. It's still the toughest division in baseball."
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Blue Jays seize moment
But not in a long time has the division been so potentially vulnerable — with the Red Sox's tumble, the Yankees' inhibiting trifecta of age, injuries and a self-imposed (albeit still formidable) $189million payroll limit, and the low-budget Rays beginning to cycle out their stars again (center fielder B.J. Upton also signed with the Atlanta Braves).
What better moment to seize, as Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos did.
"We didn't look at it from a divisional standpoint," he says. "We looked at our team. The team is getting better. The core of our team is in the prime of their careers. We have some good young guys as well. The extra playoff spot adds to it from a competition standpoint."
And he's savvy enough to understand how the AL East works.
"You never worry about what the other teams are doing, especially with teams like Boston and New York and the resources they have," Anthopoulos says. "They don't go into slumps. They have an off year here and there, but they're going to be perennial contenders."
But, in the case of the Red Sox, are new signings Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes, David Ross and Ryan Dempster really slump-busters? Is hoping starter John Lackey can be productive after Tommy John elbow surgery enough, along with assuming relievers Andrew Bailey, Daniel Bard and Alfredo Aceves can have bounce-back seasons?
Since Toronto's pre-emptive strike, Boston has been the AL East's most active team.
"Given the number of needs that we have, the additions add to that," says John Farrell, who'll manage the Red Sox instead of the Blue Jays after Toronto acquiesced via trade to his wishes to switch teams. "Not only with just the ability to create more offense but a definite intent to bring in guys that are proven team guys, guys of high character. I think we're making the progress that we've hoped."
The Yankees aren't certain of who or when. They're fairly confident shortstop Derek Jeter will be back from his broken ankle in time for opening day. There's no such hope for third baseman Alex Rodriguez, whose upcoming hip surgery could keep him out until midseason.
A-Rod's health is what has compounded general manager Brian Cashman's search for solutions.
"We will wait for Alex," Cashman says. "We will cushion the blow. We know we're going to deal with a player that's going to be missing for a period of time, but he'll be back. The bottom line is our job is to improve the entire product on that field. We've had some significant losses in the free agent market on the position player side."
Catcher Russell Martin went to the Pittsburgh Pirates via free agency. Eric Chavez, one potential fill-in for Rodriguez, moved on to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Late-season hero Raul Ibanez is a free agent.
The payroll limit, an attempt to keep from paying a luxury tax, is a bit of a new wrinkle for the Yankees. It could mean shorter-term contracts .
"Some things might seem a little different," manager Joe Girardi says. "There were some guys that came in here on one-year deals that played very well for us. And there were some guys that came on two-year deals that played very well. We're still going to have a high payroll. That's the bottom line. We're still going to have a lot of quality players out there."
Cashman knows nobody is feeling sorry for his team, coming off a season that ended with a thud in the AL Championship Series.
"We lost Mariano Rivera this year from May on," he says. "This stuff happens to every team, and it's how you handle it, how you deal with it.
"And again, I think we've been down this road enough in a lot of different ways that you just have to take the step back, recognize it, deal with it and move forward. One thing I don't want to do is overreact to it."
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Rays have winning formula
Nobody deals with "stuff" quite like the Rays, who continue to mirror the formula that has won two World Series in the last three years for the San Francisco Giants: Pitch, pitch some more, catch the ball and hope to find enough offensive pieces to score enough.
They might have done so with the addition of Myers, a power-hitting prospect with a career .395 on-base percentage in the minors. He has a legitimate shot of making the team out of spring training, and the Rays' overall success could depend on how fast he transitions to the big leagues.
The Rays missed out on the postseason in large part because their one offensive standout — third baseman Evan Longoria — missed much of last season, just as Buster Posey was out for much of the one season in the last three the Giants didn't win it all.
The Rays also have taken a flyer on free agent first baseman James Loney and traded for shortstop Yunel Escboar, now headed for his fourth employer in three years (though he lasted just a few weeks and never played for the Marlins, who acquired him from the Blue Jays and flipped him to the Rays).
The Rays have parted ways with Shields, the most experienced member of the rotation, but still have a strong rotation headed by Cy Young Award winner David Price and Jeremy Hellickson, who has a 2.96 ERA in 64 big-league starts.
Tampa Bay still has four starting pitchers who won 10 or more games last year and gained a prospect (Jake Odorizzi) who went 11-3 with a 2.93 ERA in Class AAA last season. The Rays also got left-hander Mike Montgomery, a former first-round pick who has stalled in the upper levels in the minor leagues, in the deal.
And don't forget about the style that gives us the division's great mystery, a Baltimore team whose re-signing of Nate McLouth is a reminder of the reclamation projects that spurred 2012's magical, 24-game improvement.
"I hope not, but it's great for morale," Showalter says of repeating last season's use of 52 players, of getting by with a record-setting extra-inning record. "The moves that we made — I had a lot of managers tell me they were impressed how proactive our front office was."
The Orioles know they'll have to be proactive to maintain their new contending status. They have emerging stars in third baseman Manny Machado and pitcher Dylan Bundy and established core players such as catcher Matt Wieters and center fielder Adam Jones.
The buzz is back in Baltimore because fans have noticed. But so has the rest of the division.
"It will be different from the surprise factor, I guess," Showalter says. "For who, though? Who was this year a surprise to?
"It wasn't our players. They weren't walking around going, 'Wow.' They were in there every day going, 'Yeah, what's next?'
"So who did it surprise? Me, a little bit."
Showalter and the rest of the AL East can count on more surprises — probably several before they even get to spring training — as its teams continue to maneuver.
White reported from baseball's winter meetings in Nashville