MLB AL East Futures Betting Preview
The NL Division Futures previews are complete. We broke down the NL Central, NL West, and NL East divisions and are now shifting our focus to the American League. We’re starting in the AL East, where three of the five teams have a legitimate chance of walking away with the division crown.
Here’s how we’re entering the AL East futures market!
Baltimore Orioles
Win Total: 63.5
Odds to Win the Division: +7500
It’s pretty easy to dismiss the Baltimore Orioles’ chances in the AL East. They enter the season with the longest odds on the board, and their win total implies that wins will be few and far between for the Orioles.
Stopping runs is the first order of business, and there’s lots of work to be done. John Means figures to be the staff ace, and he finished last season with a 5.60 FIP. If that’s the best it gets, then you know it’s going to be a long season. Keegan Akin will be another top of the rotation arm with big strikeout potential. Akin struggled with command at times last season, leading to a 1.44 WHIP. His 1.80 WHIP in Spring Training suggests that allowing baserunners might be a persistent issue this season. Felix Hernandez will anchor the back of the rotation that could also feature Jorge Lopez and Dean Kremer. The last time King Felix had a FIP below 4.63 was 2015, and it’s only gotten worse since then. The bullpen might have a few messes to clean up, but their 3.90 ERA from 2020 was one of the few positives for the Orioles.
Baltimore’s batting lineup will feature some talented young bats. Ryan Mountcastle should start to earn league-wide recognition, Anthony Santander should build off a successful 2020, and the baseball world will be hoping that Trey Mancini can pick up where he left off in 2019. The rest of the batting order will be scrappy, if nothing else. Chance Sisco struggles to make good contact but showed a lot of patience last season, improving his OBP to .364. Austin Hays is having a productive spring, and if he carries that momentum into the regular season, it could help the O’s surprise a few teams early. Freddy Galvis and Maikel Franco are cut from the same cloth and will provide slightly above replacement level production.
The O’s have some exciting young bats that will establish themselves at the major league level this season. But they are a few years away from competing with the AL East’s best. The combination of sub-par pitching with big pop bats could lead to some high-scoring games for the Orioles.
New York Yankees
Win Total: 95.5
Odds to Win the Division: -220
If we’re relying on win totals and odds to win the division, there’s no better team than the New York Yankees. The Yankees are chalk to win the AL East and feature some prominent bats.
The top of the Yankees order will haunt opposing pitchers. DJ LeMahieu has thrived since joining the Yankees, putting up a .386 OBP, .922 OPS, and winning two Silver Slugger awards. Even if pitchers find a way to get past LeMahieu, they then have to run a gauntlet of Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit Gleyber Torres to get to Clint Frazier and Gio Urshela who had respective OBPs of .394 and .368. Gary Sanchez is hiding at the bottom of the order but can still be expected to crush 30 dingers. The Yankees will hit bombs this season, and few teams will be able to keep up.
The Yankees rotation was in the bottom half of the league in ERA last season. They signed a couple of reclamation projects in Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon, who have pitched a combined 74.0 innings over the last two seasons to address the issue. Domingo German will return as a bottom of the rotation and how he responds to missing over a year of game action remains to be seen. Jordan Montgomery wasn’t as bad as his ERA suggested last season, but we can’t continue to make excuses for his lack of production. There’s no disputing what Gerrit Cole brings to the Yankees. The one concerning metric from last season, Cole gave up a career-worst 1.7 home runs per nine innings, which has been trending in the wrong direction for several years.
The Yankees bats will bail out their pitching staff more often than they should have to, but their staff will also cost them a few games. -220 is too steep of a price for a team that has pitching concerns.
Boston Red Sox
Win Total: 79.5
Odds to Win the Division: +2000
The Boston Red Sox have fallen on hard times since winning the World Series in 2018. They failed to make the postseason in 2019, dealt with a cheating scandal, and then traded away two of their best players for pennies on the dollar. And so the Red Sox open the 2021 season with a win total of 79.5 and the fourth-longest odds to win the division.
Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez highlight an otherwise unimpressive batting order. Rafael Devers and Alex Verdugo are expected to be big contributors. Devers has more power, Verdugo is a solid contact hitter, but both will be less protected in the lineup and expected to produce. Christian Vazquez was above his career-averages across the board last season and will be expected to match his accomplishments which may be a tall ask. The bottom of the order features all-or-nothing type hitters. Franchy Cordero, Hunter Renfroe, and Bobby Dalbec will either crush homers and strike out trying. The Red Sox lack top-to-bottom consistency to compete with the upper-echelon.
The real concerns set in when we examine the Red Sox pitching staff. Eduardo Rodriguez tested positive for COVID-19 last season and had to sit out the entire season due to complications. E-Rod has looked good through his spring starts and will re-establish himself as the rotation’s top arm. Outside of Rodriguez, there isn’t a lot of stability in the Sox rotation. Nathan Eovaldi is the lone holdover from last season, but he’s lacked consistency since coming to Boston. Since 2018 Eovaldi has posted FIPs of 2.88, 5.90, and 3.87. Overall his time in Boston has led to increased FIP and ERAs compared to career averages. Garrett Richards, Martin Perez, and Nick Pivetta are all replacement-level pitchers that fail to get Boston closer to the top of the division.
There are some big bats in this division, and the Red Sox pitching will do them no favors. Look past Boston on the futures board.
Tampa Bay Rays
Win Total: 86
Odds to Win the Division: +450
The reigning AL Champs enter the 2021 season with the third-highest odds to win the division. As is the case every off-season with the Tampa Bay Rays, this summer was about what pieces of their roster they were willing to retain.
Blake Snell and Charlie Morton were pieces that the Rays felt they could part with, which may come at the expense of their rotation. Tyler Glasnow will have to recapture the magic of his 2019 season if the Rays have any hopes of competing. From there, they’ll have to make things work with a patchwork rotation. Chris Archer returns to the Rays, which basically means that the Rays got Austin Meadows and Tyler Glasnow for free but has had declining metrics for years. Hopefully, being reunited with the Rays will help him rekindle the best seasons of his career. Rich Hill will pitch until his arm falls off, and Michael Wacha will benefit from the Rays pitching staff that seemingly gets the best out of everybody. That leaves Ryan Yarborough and one of the best bullpens in the game to hold things together late in games or be deployed as openers to give starters a day off.
Brandon Lowe and Randy Arozarena had coming out parties last season. Both will be a huge part of the Rays’ success this season, and their production will go a long way in determining how competitive Tampa is this season. Manual Margot and Yandy Diaz provide stability and pop at the top end of the batting order. But Meadows has to be better than his .296 OBP and .371 SLG last season. Willy Adames and Kevin Kiermaier are mainstays on the defensive end with limited offensive upside. One of the x-factors for the Rays this season will be Yoshi Tsutsugo and how he responds to his second year in the bigs. Tsutsugo was expected to be a big bat for the Rays and failed to live up to the hype. We can’t forget about scrappy Joey Wendle, who epitomizes what it means to be a Ray by doing a little bit of everything right.
The Rays strength has always been getting production from top to bottom. They have a plug and replace mentality where anyone can step into the lineup and contribute. Last season the Rays had 16 batters with at least 10 RBI. To have a chance in this division, they will need that type of production through a full 162 game schedule.
Tampa has a history of making the most with the least but whether they can duplicate the heights they reached in 2020 depends a lot on what they get out of their starting rotation. Taking a flyer on the Rays to win the division may not be a bad strategy, but there may be a better option.
Toronto Blue Jays
Win Total: 86
Odds to Win the Division: +400
When the Toronto Blue Jays tore it all down after 2016, this is what they were building for. The Jays have spent the last few seasons building, and now is the time for this team to compete.
Vladdy Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio will all figure prominently in this lineup after growing with this organization for the last several seasons. Those youngsters are complemented by Teoscar Hernandez, Randal Grichuk, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who are slightly more seasoned but with less upside than the Jays big trio. Toronto’s management acknowledged that this team is in win-now mode by going out and signing veterans George Springer and Marcus Semien to fill the remaining holes in this team’s roster. Defensively and offensively, this team is complete.
The Jays have an uncelebrated group of starters. Hyun-Jin Ryu will be relied on most heavily among the starting pitchers. Ryu will be expected to replicate his success from last season when he pitched a 2.69 ERA, 3.01 FIP, and 164 ERA+. Robbie Ray adapted well when he arrived in Toronto midway through last season. He’s throwing the light’s out this spring, which should be a good omen for the Jays. Big things are expected from Nate Pearson, but if he doesn’t develop as projected this season, the Jays will have to find a middle-of-the-rotation replacement. Ross Stripling, Tanner Roark, and Steven Matz are all in a similar position. None of these pitchers panned out the way the Jays were hoping, and two of the three will have to be much better if the Jays want to catch the Yankees atop the division.
This division is a three-horse race, and the Jays have the benefit of playing 13 of their final 23 games against the Rays and Yankees. If we’re expecting this division to be as close as the betting market implies, they can use a late push to propel themselves to AL East Champions. At +400, it’s a wager worth making.