Halfway through: A Look at the MLB's American League

With the All Star Game come and gone, baseball now looks towards the trade deadline and the second half where the playoff teams rule and the rest drop like flies in an attempt to look to the future. If you aren't a fan of one of the competing teams in 2019, this is where the year becomes miserable to watch and attend games. This has always been one of the biggest problems with baseball, the season is way too long and teams quit once they fall too far out of contention. Most seasons, only a couple of divisional races are still relevant in late August and every now and then the wildcard spot is locked up around then too. The MLB created a second wildcard spot and the one game playoff to try and spice things up and get more teams in the mix so that they don't tank midway through the year (creating this boring wasteland of second half baseball), and were on the right track. Rather than just dipping your toes in the waters of change though, why not jump all the way in with three wildcard teams? Why can't you shorten the regular season a few weeks (you could take away inter-league play which never existed in the old days anyway to do this), allow the two top division winners to have a first round playoff bye a la the NFL, and have a wildcard round of either three or five game series? So in my new league the regular season would end around the first or second week of September, then the worst division winner out of the three would have home field against the worst wildcard team and the two better wildcard teams would face off (obviously the better record of the two would have the home advantage). I would make this wildcard round five games, and every round after seven. In total there would be four playoff rounds including the World Series. If you look at leagues like the NHL or the NFL that have more exciting playoff series than any other sport, you'll see that the model of allowing more teams to compete not only helps for playoff excitement but adds regular season drama too! Division winners will NOT want to be in that third seed, they'll fight for a first round bye. Teams who are under .500 won't give up by the all star break when you add another wildcard to each league and have a full series rather than a one game playoff. It would create more competition and parity, two things the American League desperately needs right now.

My predictions (screenshotted from texts I sent to friends back before the season began) for the 2019 MLB season are on the left. I hadn't started the Nightcap blog yet, otherwise I would post a link to an article. The National League can still be a wild ride at times (especially when I stupidly pick the Mets with plenty of bias corrupting my vision... my NL East is a mess), and we'll get to the NL, but I find the AL to be pretty predictable these last few years. It's getting to be too similar to the NBA where you know which teams are going to be in the league's championship series at the start of the season. I can't speak for everyone, but I hate that in sports. To me, predictability is the destroyer of the sports industry... it completely takes the thrill out of it for me as a fan. Unfortunately, baseball in the AL has become predictable.

Anyway, let's quickly hash out where things stand and how I did...

AL East: The NY Yankees have a 6.5 game lead on the TB Rays and a 9 game lead on the reigning champion Boston Red Sox. The Blue Jays and Orioles are eliminated already, not mathematically, but they're done. The major surprise here was the horrid opening months from the Sox who played impeccable baseball last season and have a similar roster this year aside from letting Kimbrel go. They have gotten back on track however and remain in the hunt. Aside from the Rays and Sox swap I am 100% on the money here. I was all about the Yankees going into 2019 (and I'm not a Yanks fan trust me), and so far they have been the best team in the AL.

AL Central: My Minnesota Twins prediction is looking great. I got to admit I mostly picked the Twins not because I believed in them but because I thought the rest of the division was flawed, including the sinking Indians roster that has dominated the Central in recent years. The division has held up slightly better than I thought with the Twins 5.5 up on the Indians (both have impressive records), and the White Sox proving to have a dangerous young roster. Even so, my picks were on the money again with the only mistake being a last place flip-flop between two awful teams, but with one win percentage point separating the Tigers and Royals right now that has little importance in the grand scheme of things.

AL West: The Houston Astros were another lock pick for the division (like the Yankees were in my opinion). After that this division was probably the trickiest of the three, but I had the Stros in a landslide and I was pretty confident the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers would finish last after the yard sale off-season in Seattle and Texas' washed up roster. I was right about two of those things but the Rangers have been a major surprise. More on that later. So I was wrong about the Rangers who are currently in third with a shot at a wildcard (3 games back), I had the A's in second (correct), and the Angels third who slot down to fourth after the success in Texas. My order was perfect take away the Rangers, I'll take that! But I do enjoy being wrong more often because like I said, predictability in sports shouldn't be simple.

So what were the huge shocks of the first half?

Well aside from the juiced ball fiasco which has finally taken the headlines by storm (I'd like to point out I wrote about this weeks ago in the link above)... there have been a few in this half of the league, albeit less than the NL, but first let me show respect to some constants.

2-time MVP winner, LA Angel Mike Trout. Photo Credit: Business Insider

1. Mike Trout. The best player in baseball leads the AL in a boatload of stats (WAR, slugging, on-base percentage, HR's, RBI's, walks, extra base hits, and more) and is having another MVP season, yet the LA Angels find themselves in a familiar position. One game under .500 in baseball purgatory. If I were the Angels I would blow it up this trade deadline and try to rebuild one last time before Trout enters his twilight years. I mean has any other franchise in the history of sports wasted an all-time great as much as this team has WASTED Mike Trout? The only one that comes to mind at a similar magnitude is Barry Sanders football career with the Detroit Lions.

2. Justin Verlander. The seemingly ageless starter continues to dominate the sport. He leads the league in WHIP and hits per 9 innings, is tied for second in strikeouts and wins, fourth in ERA and pitcher WAR among other tremendous statistics. By the way, Verlander also called out Commissioner Manfred publicly for changing the way the baseballs are manufactured and ruining the game for fans and his fellow pitchers so bravo Justin, big-time respect... and for anyone saying he did it to get paid more money, please, Verlander has already made enough money to retire comfortably for the rest of his life. He did it because it's a joke right now how easy it is to hit home runs, and he has the prestige around the league to do something about it. Every other pitcher in baseball is probably thanking Verlander right now, and us fans should be too.

3. Rich get richer. The Yankees, Astros, Red Sox opened spring training with stacked rosters, especially NY and Houston as Boston had to cut its spending slightly after the World Series victory. All three of these teams have had their fair share of injury disasters this season but because they have depth, youth, and star power that most fans can only dream about, they still remain as two division leaders and the worst is only 2 games back of the wildcard.

4. The Orioles still STINK. We knew this team would be bad, they're 27-62 in another full on tank season to stockpile draft picks and prospects. The Houston Astros model of success, but can you blame Baltimore when they're no incentive to win meaningless games besides fan revenue?

New Yankee DJ LeMahieu in pinstripes. Photo Credit: SNY

THE UNFORESEEN:

1. DJ LeMahieu. I liked the LeMahieu pickup by Cashman as a solid value move for the Yankees while most fans called into radio stations and complained that they should have gone after Machado or Harper. I CALLED that Machado and Harper would NOT play up to the value of their contracts (more on that in the NL discussion). I did not necessarily believe DJ would be this good and remind Yankee fans of a different DJ with his MVP caliber play and quietly strong leadership around the clubhouse, but I did defend this signing as a brilliant move. Well, Cashman agains looks like the genius of the league. LeMahieu is first in batting average at .336, fourth in RBI's at 63 which for him is out of this world, and seventh in WAR at 3.8, which by the means a calculated percentage of how many wins the player is responsible for. Trout leads with 5.9 WAR. Michael Brantley has been a similarly shrewd pickup by the Astros, a solid player tearing it up who was undervalued in free agency.

Texas Rangers starter Mike Minor is having a career season. Photo Credit: The Athletic

2. The Texas pitching staff... & veteran play. Mike Minor and Lance Lynn, two veterans who have had up and down careers currently lead the AL in pitcher WAR. Minor also has an ERA of 2.54 and is pitching his way into CY Young candidacy. Lynn is tied for first in wins with 11 and has 123 strikeouts (8th in AL). Not to mention closer Shawn Kelley has had a renaissance with 11 saves and a 3.09 ERA. My problem with this team going into the season was that they were too old, but with vets like these three, Hunter Pence, Elvis Andrus, Jesse Chavez, Shin-Soo Choo, and Asdrubal Cabrera having throw-back years, this team is somehow smack-dab in the middle.

3. The White Sox are relevant again. I wouldn't say this is unforeseen but I am glad that it happened. That division needed one of the three bottom-feeders to step up and so far it has been Chicago. Top performers are former top prospect Lucas Giolito, tied for the AL lead in wins, 7th in ERA, second in hits per 9, and 8th in strikeouts per 9... a tremendous bullpen centered around Alex Colome (20 saves, 2.02 ERA), Aaron Bummer, Evan Marshall, and Nate Jones... breakout stars Yoan Moncada (.308, 16 HR 48 RBI), Tim Anderson (.317, 11 HR, 37 RBI), and Leury Garcia (.293, 24 RBI)... ultra consistent all star Jose Abreu (.278, 21 HR, 66 RBI)... and a high quality catcher James McCann (.316, 9HR, 30 RBI).

4. Charlie Morton. This dude is STILL killing it after moving to Tampa a year removed from his comeback season in Houston. He has a 2.32 ERA and a 3.8 WAR with 142 K's. In 2019's juiced ball league, that's something to talk about.

5. The reigning champs. I know I included them in the rich get richer and I do think they will eventually surpass the Rays or the Indians and make the playoffs in a one game wildcard, but still. I have to attribute this to a World Series hangover effect because aside from a terrible bullpen (which is something that plagues many baseball teams currently) that got worse when Craig Kimbrel left for more money, this team is almost identical to last years. One could even argue that they added players. It just goes to show that last year every guy on the roster was having a magical season, one that was hard to repeat. This team is still solid though and will be BUYERS at the deadline. Look out sports world, here comes Boston again.

6. Matt Chapman's combination of power and defense. More of a shout-out because defense seems to lose focus in the modern era. It's still very important in baseball, as a Mets fan I know this because ours is one of the worst in the MLB and costs us many games. Chapman has 21 homers, but is also fifth in defensive WAR just 0.2 behind AL leader Kevin Kiermaier. Robinson Chirinos leads catchers in defensive WAR (2nd total), maybe the most crucial defensive position in the sport.

7. Speed demons. Another shout-out to Adalberto Mondesi and Mallex Smith who have 28 and 23 steals so far, the only two over 20 in the AL. Speed used to be a fabric of the game but in the home run era it has become less of a factor... I hope this changes!

Where do we go from here?

The AL should be fairly straightforward the rest of the way, which is boring! The Yankees and Astros fans have already started looking ahead to the playoffs, and how they beat each other in a seven game series if it should come to that... I know because I've heard them doing it. There is one race that I think could come down to the wire, the Central. The Indians have shown they have at least one year left in them after putting Kluber and Bauer on the trade block at various points this season and the Twins still need pitching. If they can land a top starter at the deadline like a Bumgarner, Wheeler, or someone yet to reveal themselves, the one-two of Berrios and that player could be scary (especially when the team hits over five homers every game from what it seems like). The Twins aren't in that upper echelon of the AL unless they add the key pitcher.

SF Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner will be a hot commodity at this year's trade deadline who just might push one of these AL teams over the top. Photo Credit: MSN

Some would argue the same about the Yanks but with a bullpen that is just unreal with experience and talent, they could always lean on that rather than starting pitching if it came down to it in a series. Both teams MASH, but few can pitch like Houston. I took the Red Sox beating the Indians in the wildcard and this could definitely still happen. I don't think the Ray are a phony this year, I actually will be rooting for them to be the wildcard team and switch things up a little. They are unconventional, creative, and young for the most part with a coach who seems to know how to win. I do think these are the three teams to look at down the stretch for those two spots however. The Athletics were a second half team last year but they lose their only decent starter in Montas due to suspension and I just don't think they have enough pitching depth otherwise. They can hit, but pitching will kill them unless they go out and deal for someone (which isn't Billy Bean's style). I also cannot see this Rangers facade continuing. They may be BUYERS at the deadline and with a veteran roster you might as well be I guess, but I see them fading away over the next three months. The Angels may even finish above them when all is said and done, being that the Angels love to hover around .500 every year. The Orioles, Royals, Tigers, and Mariners will continue to spiral, battling it out for worst in the AL and best at tanking. I won't include Toronto or Chicago in this group however. Both these teams have promising rosters with big-name prospects not only being called up, but performing. Vlad Guerrero Jr, Cavan Biggio, Lourdes Gurriel Jr, and Danny Jansen are among the Blue Jays impressive young hitters while pitcher Dylan Cease joins the White Sox team I talked up earlier.

For the AL, the trade deadline should draw the line in the sand, as it always does in general around the league... but after that the dog days of Summer will be upon us fans. Baseball needs to make a change, and fast, otherwise attention will continue turning to football in August. The juiced ball failed Manfred, how about a plan that actually makes sense!

Photo Collage Credit (left to right from top row): AL logos- Sports Mockery, Carlos Correa/George Springer- ABCNews, Aaron Judge/Giancarlo Stanton- Sportsnaut, Jose Berrios- KSTP TV, Benintendi/Bradley/ Betts- CofC Alumni Association, Francisco Lindor- FantraxHQ, Blake Snell- Villages of Citrus Hills