Y2K 2007 Season Preview: AL East

What up, y'all? The season is rapidly approaching, and as such, Y2K wanted to give you a heads-up as to what's going on in the big, bad baseball world. There's a lot of teams out there, and a lot of ground to cover. But there are exciting, Y2K-approved storylines everywhere; there are heroes to madly root for, and villains to throw bottle caps at.

We'll take you through each division over the next several weeks. Previously: the AL West, NL West, AL Central, and NL Central. Today? We go downtown to the AL East. In expected order of finish ...

The Bronx Bombers
2006 record: 97-65
Peace: LHP Randy Johnson, RHP Cory Lidle (R.I.P.), OF/1B Gary Sheffield, RHP Jaret Wright, OF/DH Bernie Williams, CF Bubba Crosby
What's up?: LHP Kei Igawa, LHP Andy Pettitte, 1B Doug Mientkiewicz, 1B Josh Phelps

Half-full: For all the A-Rod and Unit-related griping one heard last year, the team scored 930 runs and gave up 767, which is very good. But obviously, you're not going to see the same type of performances by most of the Yanks again in 2007. By that I mean you can't really expect Robby Cano to hit like Rogers Hornsby again, or count on Chien-Ming Wang or the Moose to post sub-4.00 ERAs like they did last year. You can pencil in DJ to be the best shortstop in the American League again, but you can't expect him to have another "MVP" (hah!) year. That little bitch Posada quietly had another great year, and the Giambino had a much more productive campaign than anyone anticipated -- both of them are due for slippage. So, things are looking grim, right? Not really, mostly because the Bombers are likely to make up quite a bit of ground in the areas where injuries killed them last season. With Matsui and the Iron Sheff out, having to give ol' Bernie 427 at-bats last year was a drag on the offense. This year, Matsui (who had, of course, never missed a game before that) and a presumably improved Melky Cabrera will soak up all those plate appearances that went to Bernie, Bubba Crosby and Aaron Guiel. Bobby Abreu looked rejuvented in the Bronx, and Traitor Johnny played better a lot better than we thought he would. The offense will be there. And again, while the Yanks might not have an ace to boast of (at least until the Rocket walks through the door, goddamn it), you can count on some combination of the Jesus Freak, the Money Pit and the new Jap to be more productive than was the likes of Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small, Lidle, etc. I figure it all balances out, and they stay about the same, which is better than everyone else in the division can manage.

Half-empty: Wang's out for a while, making the Money Pit the Opening Day starter. While utterly hilarious, I'm trying not to overreact and predict utter doom. I don't think Igawa's going to do shit, which won't necessarily be a killer blow, but will certainly drag down the back of the rotation in an all-too-familiar manner. First base is a potential problem area, given that Phelps washed out with the D-Rays and Minky, um, sucks. The rotation is old and injury-prone, and the bullpen is apparently going to be Mo and Krazy Kyle again, which seems like a recipe for disaster. I'm not counting Scott Proctor, whose arm is due to fly into the dugout seats any second now. There's a hell of a souvenir for the Guiliani kid to take back to his golf team. Maybe we'll finally get a chance to see the Human Land Mass, Colter Bean, pitch in the bigs for more than a moment.

Guide to hating: If you needed to be told how to hate the Yankees, you wouldn't be at this site, now would you? (That was a compliment. Enjoy it.) All the same, it looks from here as if the Yanks will have two clear-cut good dudes on the roster (Minky and Tank Pratt), three allegedly good dudes (Proctor, Rivera and Mike Myers), two closet douchebags (Posada and Mussina), three out-and-out lunatics (Pettitte, Farnsworth, Luis Vizcaino), four "Scum of the Earth" nominees (Giambi, Jeter, Pavano, Damon), a couple of head cases (A-Rod, Abreu), two inscrutable Asians (Wang, Igawa) and a quotient of young punks who think the world owes them something (Cano, Cabrera, Phillips.) Not a lot of winners thurr, and plenty to follow over the course of the season.

Additional reading: Steve Goldman

The Boston Red Sox
2006 record: 86-76
Peace: SS Alex Gonzalez, 2B Mark Loretta
What's up?: RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka, SS Julio Lugo, OF J.D. Drew, RHP Brendan Donnelly, RHP Joel Piniero

Half-full: Well, at full strength, they're better than the Yankees. The positive case is actually very exciting -- on offense, Jason Varitek rebounds, and Coco Crisp and Lugo in 2005 form become a great speed tandem. Manny and Papi do their thing, Drew is effective for 135 games, Mike Lowell stays on track, Eric Hinske slugs .475 in a utility role, Wily Mo Pena hits a couple of home runs to Providence, etc. A rotation featuring healthy Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield, plus Matsuzaka and whoever the fifth starter happens to be (Julian Tavarez, Jon "Blow Me, Cancer" Lester, Manny Delcarmen, Matt Clement should he happen to piece himself back together) is frankly outstanding. Papelbon is moving back to the closer's role, where he had some success last year, and there's at least a couple of live bodies behind him this time in Donnelly, J.C. Romero and such. There's a goodly amount of talent, and a decent amount of depth. It's a team with a better-than-average chance of getting to the playoffs.

Half-empty: Of course, that's not the same thing as "likely," now is it? You've got some older folks like Schilling and Tek playing with some folks like Coco and Lugo who just weren't good at all last year, plus the uncertainty surrounding Dice-K and Beckett, plus hoping that Lowell and Kevin Youkilis don't get any worse, plus hoping the bullpen actually comes together. The positive prediction for Drew makes him into a superstar; the widely-predicted alternative is that the Boston media sends him into a total thermonuclear meltdown such that babies born in Andover 50 years from now wake up with Hulk-like superpowers. ("Oh, thank you so much Dr. Banner!") That doesn't seem likely to me, but the fact that dozens of folks are confidently predicting his complete demise makes the best-case scenario seem that much more unlikely. The solid bench makes for a good hedge against any individual failure, but there's a lot of moving parts there, and in a divisional race where there's seldom much room for error, each little failure begets another.

Guide to hating: I don't have the slightest clue why anyone thinks putting Tavarez in the rotation makes sense, but if he sticks there, at least we'll be able to confidently predict when this sociopath will show up on our television sets. With Julian in the 'pen, you never knew when Francona was going to call for him and you'd have to start hissing at your screen. It was slightly nerve-racking. Given what happened with Brett Myers in Boston last year, inviting the wife-beating Lugo to town tempts karma a bit too much for my taste. I'd watch out for falling bricks on that one. Hating on Manny is pretty passe, but feel free if you must, or at the very least keep tuned into whatever Murray Chass is writing. There's a guy who feels you. On the flip side, Papelbon is basically D-Wright with a bit more pudge and a bit less style, neither of which are hanging offenses. In a perfect world, they become friends and eventually meet each other regularly to talk shop and eat ice cream.

Additional reading: Curt Schilling (yep)

The Toronto Blue Jays
2006 record: 87-75
Peace: OF Frank Catalanotto, C Bengie Molina, LHP Ted Lilly
What's up?: DH Frank Thomas, C/1B Jason Phillips, RHP Justin Speier

Half-full: Signing Troy Glaus last year worked out very well, actually. On paper, they've got two studs at the front of the rotation in Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett, who was highly decent (1.30 WHIP, 3.98 ERA, 118K in 136 IP) after coming back from injury. People that know more about this shit say his much-maligned mechanics finally looked as if they'd been straightened out, so that's something to be positive about. The offense should be boosted by the addition of Thomas and a full-season of Alexis Rios, who was tearing the cover off the ball until he got hurt last year. B.J. Ryan is a bonafide killer in the bullpen, and Vernon Wells is Beltran-lite in center field. But ...

Half-empty: ...they get murdered up the middle, with a scheduled double-play combination of 2B Aaron Hill (.291/.349/.386) and SS Royce Clayton (.235/.290/.329, in Cincy!), and the back end of their rotation is highly suspect. Lilly gave them nearly 200 innings of 4.31 ERA pitching last year, and they're counting on Gustavo Chacin, Tomo Okha and the battered John Thomson to get something approximating that done. I don't see it happening, and the backup plan is Josh Towers' 8.42 ERA in 12 starts. Matt Stairs is around to back up Rios and Reed Johnson (who hit .319/.390/.479 in about three-quarters of a season, and won't do that again) in the corner outfield slots, which is a good idea offensively and a hideous one defensively. Any time he DHes puts Thomas on the bench. Gregg Zaun will be fine as a full-time catcher. The problem is, it's a team without much upside, and what they do have innint enough to top the Yanks or Sox.

Guide to hating: The coaching staff, led by the Ultimate Fighting Championship's No. 1 contender John Gibbons (watch your back, Randy Couture), is obviously the main target here. What a maroon. As A.F.O.M.G. has indicated on occasion, I'm a big Frank Thomas guy, and I'll be rooting for him to succeed up in the Great White North. All of you should follow my lead on this. As for the rest of the team, I'd recommend taking a long, hard look at first baseman Lyle Overbay, who has always seemed pretty mouthy for a first baseman who doesn't hit home runs.

Additional reading: Batter's Box

The Tampa Devil Rays
2006 record: 61-101
Peace: Um, nobody
What's up?: 3B Akinori Iwamura

Half-full: They've got young position players coming out the tookus, not least of which is the projected super-stud outfield of Delmon Young in right, Rocco Baldelli in center and Carl Crawford in left. They're apparently going to use B.J. Upton as a Figginsesque super-utility type, which seems precisely correct. If he don't work out, there's 2006 draftee and desperate 3B prospect Evan Longoria to think about (he may move to 2B, where his bat would be even more impressive), and behind him, you've got Carl Everett clone Elijah Dukes moving up through the system. Joel Guzman, all of 21, may get a look at 1B. The pitching situation is obviously quite a bit more grim once you get past Kazmir, but the best-case scenario is that guys like Jae Seo and Casey Fossum don't KILL you over the first half of the season until prospects like Andrew Sonnastine and Jeff Niemann get called up to anchor the back end of the rotation. The bullpen resembles "The Hills Have Eyes 2," but that's to be expected when you've put no effort into doing something about it. By the time the team is ready to compete, the front office presumably will.

Half-empty: It's the Rays, so feel free to use your imagination here. Young, Dukes and Upton are all head cases, and everyone else is still getting carded at the local malt shoppe. What could go wrong? Everything imaginable. Dukes could show up on "To Catch a Predator;" Young could get tagged with having killed the Pakistani cricket coach. Kazmir could get hurt and never pitch again (stop smiling, Steve Phillips). But expectations are so low that there's really no further to sink here. If more losing is the prescription, then hell, we'll do this again next year.

Guide to hating: All hail Wiggy! At least now that he's on another team, that is. The perfect place for him, as sad as that is. There's a healthy smattering of spoiled brats on the team, but they're at least having the good sense to do their dirt in an intriguingly crazy way. As Chris Rock said, the only exciting relationships are bad ones. "Hey, you gave me crabs! That's exciting! I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring." The next team we'll look at, for example, is awful in the most prosaic way possible, which is about as fun as a regularly scheduled colonoscopy. (To quote Rock's former pal Chris Farley, "I know from experience." Never mind.)

Additional reading: Rays of Light

The Baltimore Orioles
2006 record: 70-92
Peace: RHP LaTroy Hawkins, RHP Russ Ortiz, RHP Rodrigo Lopes
What's up?: OF Jay Payton, RHP Jaret Wright, DH Aubrey Huff, RHP Steve Trashel

Half-full: They also have three overpaid relievers coming in: Danny Baez, Jamie Walker, and former Met groundhog-killer Chad Bradford, each of whom should be better than completely awful, but there's really no guarantees there. One's a LOOGY, the other's a ROOGY; they're puzzle pieces, not building blocks. Otherwise, they've returned their solid up-the-middle infield in Ramon Hernandez, Miggy Tejada and Brian Roberts; if you can get a leadoff man and two power hitters out of those spots, you're ahead of the game. Nick Markakis could turn into Grady Sizemore-lite in right field, or maybe more of a Dwight Evans type, and that's not a bad thing. They've got a handful of interesting young arms.

Half-empty: Fuck these utterly uninteresting cowards. This team blows. Every single player in the starting lineup save Markakis is in obvious decline, unless you're going to hop on the ever-precarious Corey Patterson bandwagon. I love Miggy's attitude and bat, but he's going to stop playing with that same passion one of these days. Melvin Mora, Kevin Millar, Huff, the retarded signing of Jay Payton -- ladies and gentlemen, it's the 2003 All-Stars! How very like the Orioles. Then there's the rotation, which will be without noted ladies man Kris Benson for a while. I am not -- repeat, NOT -- a believer in No. 1 starter Erik Bedard, solid 2006 or not, and after that, things get very shaky very fast. Adam Loewen looks like a lefty A.J. Burnett circa 2000 -- very promising in a haphazard sort of way, but not especially good yet. We may have to accept that Daniel Cabrera is never going to solve his control problems. I think he was the one who put a baseball through my window last night. Then we get to the fun part in the back of the sack, in Jaret Wright and our man Steve Trashel; to put it plainly, these aren't really the guys you want to throw up there against the Yanks and Red Sox of the world.

Guide to hating: Stevie T., you're on the clock. You too, Jay, A.F.O.M.G.'s concerns notwithstanding. I happen to have a thing against corner outfielders who don't do anything particularly well, including defense. You're a very nice backup, and an awful everyday player. You sure found the right team, huh? Speaking of which, it's going to be Year Two of the Maryland Mazzone Era, and it's high time we started seeing some of that famed Pitching Coach Pixie Dust we all heard about ad nauseum for the better part of a decade. Leo, it's not like you're dealing with a bunch of nobodies this season. Your idiot owner went out and got you some parts to make a bullpen out of, and there's three or four dynamite young arms in the system, each in their early or mid-20s. They're impressionable and waiting for your healing touch. Besides, some results would go nicely with that smirk, fella.

Additional reading: Camden Chat

Predictions: Yankees 93-69, Red Sox 93-69, Blue Jays 88-76, Devil Rays 74-88, Orioles 68-94