With the 2024 MLB season less than a month away, fans of every team are beginning to feel the excitement coming back to them. The MLB season is always one with many ups and downs. After the dust settles in October, here is what I believe will be the final standing for the American League East division.
AL East
- Baltimore Orioles
- Tampa Bay Rays
- New York Yankees
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Boston Red Sox
The AL East is the most competitive division in the MLB right now. The Orioles have a fantastic roster of players and a great pipeline of prospects like Jackson Holliday to fall back on. They had a decisive 101-win season last year and should be around the same mark if not better this year. I do not feel that any another team can really play up to the level of the Orioles, so it will be more on the Orioles to maintain excellence through the season to win back-to-back division titles.
The Rays should be pretty reliable again this season as they have been for the last few seasons. The one thing that could hurt them is that Shane McClanahan will most likely be out for the entire 2024 season. I am still optimistic of their playoff chances because the Rays pitching staff always goes above and beyond with getting their pitchers to do extraordinary things. They recently signed relief pitcher Phil Maton and infielder Amed Rosario who should both boost the team with their veteran presence.
The Yankees will most likely have a rebound season after a terrible showing in 2023. Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge will be the best players on the team again this year. The Yankees need both of them to help lead the rest of the team back to games in October. They have a near bottomless spending budget and a team that is hungry for a deep postseason push. Another season like 2023 will be unacceptable for Yankees fans and management alike.
This year, the Blue Jays will not be a bad team, but they also will not be a World Series contender. If they were in any other division, it could be argued that they could win that division. Players like Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will need to perform at the highest level that they are able to try to secure the Blue Jays a Wild Card spot. The Blue Jays dropped the ball with signings during the offseason, so management seems to have faith in the way the team is now. Hopefully the team can play up to whatever expectations that management has, or it will be a very long season for everyone in the Blue Jays organization.
Red Sox fans are not going to have a good season. They are playing in a stacked division. The Red Sox will almost certainly not make the playoffs. They seem to be in a rebuild phase because of the lack of signings in the offseason. Most of the players that they have on the team are either rushed prospects or leftover players from their 2018 World Series win. At least the fans have that, because that is as good as the Red Sox will be for the foreseeable future.
