AL East: A Beast or a Feast?

Every year, it is expected that four of the five American League East teams will compete for first place in the division. Between the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays and Orioles it seems to be a crapshoot who will eventually take the crown. This year the Blue Jays have jumped into the fray and are vying for first in the division. Notoriously the division has been considered one of the strongest in baseball and they’ve manhandled opponents seemingly at will. While MLB pundits predicted the same thing this year, a different trend is beginning to take place inside the powerful confines of the AL East.

Right now the Yankees lead the division with a 15 and 10 record, the O’s are second with a .500 record at 12 and 12, two-and-a-half games out and the Blue Jays (12-13), Red Sox (12-14) and Rays (11-14) respectively follow. At this juncture in the season, everyone expects division to be close as the good teams haven’t been able to separate from the bad teams. Things will change and one or two teams in the division will separate from the rest. While the Yankees are the only team above .500 currently, none of these teams have a positive run differential. This means each of these teams have given up more runs than they’ve scored.

Why is that interesting, though? Each team is within eight runs of each other. The Rays and Red Sox each have scored division low 105 runs and the Blue Jays have scored the most with 113. The fewest runs allowed by any team is 114 by both the O’s and the Jays. This means none of the AL East teams have scored more runs than any AL East team has allowed. This begs to question just how good this division really is.

Of the other ten American League teams, only three have a negative run differential making eight total AL teams with fewer runs scored than given up.  Of the eight teams, only two teams have a .500 record or better; the O’s and the Yankees. Those records might be indicative of the division though. The Yankees are 10 and 7 against AL East foes and the Orioles are 10 and 8. Those are hardly great numbers but they contribute to the idea that the only teams that are playing relatively well with a negative run differential are teams in a weak division. The Yankees have feasted on the Red Sox in the early season and are 5 and 2 against their rivals, including a 14 to 5 blowout.

The Yankees, Orioles and Rays have also played well in one-run games and while winning those games is good for your record they don’t really help out your run differential. A trend of winning one-run games though isn’t ideal for good teams because in those contests anything can happen. The old baseball adage of “a bloop and a blast” could quickly change your fortunes. Good teams need to win by a wider margin of victory than one run. It will lessen the wear on your bullpen of always pitching in high pressure situations and it also proves your offense is capable of carrying the load when needed.

As the season continues, this trend will almost assuredly change and all these teams need to hope it does. Only four teams since 2009 have a winning record and a negative run differential. Simply put, the rule is teams need to have positive run differentials to be competitive. Right now, the AL East is proving the rule true with the Yankees as the exception.

The AL East is notoriously known as the “Beast of the East” because it’s such a difficult division to win. One of these teams will win the division with a positive run differential but the rest of the league might continue to feast on the beast until one team can separate themselves from the pack.

Did Red Sox Manager Sabotage his own team?

By calling out the 25-year-old Michael Pineda and his obvious use of pine tar last Wednesday night, John Farrell, the Red Sox manager, won the battle against the Yankees. If Thursday’s game was any indication, though, he is losing his grip (no pun intended) on the war. The Red Sox started their own mid-20’s pitcher Felix Doubront, 26, in Thursday’s rubber game of the series and the young pitcher failed to make it out of the third inning. Doubront was largely ineffective in the contest and his team’s five errors didn’t help in the cause. Is it possible that by Farrell calling out Pineda the previous night he really only sabotaged his own ball club?

The only thing dumber than Pineda putting pine tar on his neck Wednesday night would have been Doubront or CC Sabathia, the Yankees Thursday starter, to have used pine tar during the game. Sabathia’s outing wasn’t spectacular but it was still very strong, he struck out eight Red Sox hitters in six innings and was certainly much better than Doubront. While this is complete speculation; is it possible that Doubront’s command was minimized by not using pine tar? Of course you can say Sabathia’s command should have been diminished also. While that’s true Sabathia has 14 years of experience, including a Cy Young award, to fall back on if he can’t use pine tar to help his grip. Doubront has five years of mediocre major league experience to fall back on when he is in trouble. Farrell knew who the following day starters would be when he asked the umpires to check on Pineda. He knew he had a young pitcher going up against a possible future Hall-of-Famer who doesn’t rattle easily. Why call attention to pine tar at that moment?

Doubront pitched 2-2/3 innings in his start. While only three of the seven runs he gave up were earned, he clearly didn’t have the control he needed. He walked two batters in the short appearance which by no means is terrible but he also surrendered two wild pitches when he’d only thrown one in his previous four starts combined. The Yankees also got six hits against Doubront in the outing suggesting the pitcher couldn’t hit his spots. One of those hits was a homerun by Mark Teixeira over the Green Monster in left field on a hanging breaking ball. On top of that homerun, of the eight outs he recorded only one came via strikeout.

It all boils down to one thing, Doubront couldn’t command his pitches. The question remains, though, why couldn’t Doubront control his pitches? Every pitcher has a bad game occasionally, there’s no getting around that. But Doubront was coming off a very strong outing against a powerful Baltimore Orioles lineup in which he only gave up two runs in 6-2/3 innings while issuing only two walks. Oftentimes when a pitcher has one strong start they’re able to push it into a second good start and get on a groove. Doubront wasn’t able to do that, though. Granted his defense failed him by making five errors, including one of his own. Five errors or not, though, Doubront still pitched poorly.

After Pineda’s ejection on Wednesday pitchers across the league, both retired and active, said that “everyone” uses some sort of agent to help get a grip on the ball to help their control. On Thursday night the Red Sox starter couldn’t get into the fourth inning. That could; of course, be a coincidence but the pitcher’s lack of command makes a coincidence seem unlikely.

On Wednesday, Farrell opened up a can of worms by having Pineda ejected. It may have helped his team win the game but the season is long and it’s quite possible the ejection will lead to sabotage instead of success.

Foreign Success making Baseball World's Pastime

There is no question that baseball is behind the times. It’s 2014 and they finally instituted a real system of instant replay to help with umpire decisions. In doing so though they’ve increased length of games which was always the concern from the beginning. In a county where people want immediate, fast-paced results baseball offers the exact opposite. It’s a game that is played at a slow pace and is worked through in methodical and deliberate ways. Baseball has always been known as America’s favorite pastime but if you look closely the sport has become too worldly to be called America’s anything.

Prior to the 2014 baseball season ESPN released a list of the top 100 players in MLB. Of the top-10 players five of them were born outside the United States and 35 of the top-100 were either born outside the US or of direct descent of another country. According to MLB, only 26.1 percent of major leaguers were born outside the country. Of every player in the league, only 26 percent are from another country while 35 percent of the top 100 are from another country. That’s almost 10 percent higher than the league average. That shows an increase in talent from other parts of the world.

Look at the three World Baseball Classics that have been played. The first two were won by Japan and the Dominican Republic dominated the third. In fact the USA has never placed above fourth in the event. Yes, there are outside reasons why US players don’t perform well in the event but the point stands that they haven’t ever medaled in the three tournaments. Baseball is being played all across the world. Teams are getting in bidding wars over prospects from Cuba. Teams throw heaps of money at players that have never played a big league game.

The top two free agents this past offseason were Masahiro Tanaka and Robinson Cano. Cano, a native of the Dominican Republic, landed a 10-year contract after proving to be one of the best players in the world. Tanaka on the other hand was given a seven-year deal worth $155 million and he’d never thrown a pitch in the major leagues. In fact, he played in a country (Japan) where they play with a smaller baseball. The point is that the best players in the world are not coming from the United States. Remember the numbers, 50 percent of the top-10 and 35 percent of the top-100 are of foreign descent. Teams are reaching out to other countries to find the next best talent.

Mike Trout is arguably the best player in the game and he is from New Jersey. But for how great Trout is Miguel Cabrera from Venezuela is right on his tail. Sure Clayton Kershaw is probably the best pitcher in the game and he’s from Texas. But right behind him is Yu Darvish of Japan and Felix Hernandez of Venezuela. Major League Baseball even went as far as to start the 2014 season in another country, Australia.

Baseball has realized their brand is failing in the United States. The reasons are quite simple, length of games and lack of action. Football has become, by far, the model sports business in the US and its left baseball behind. In order for MLB to find a way to compete they’ve realized they need a world market. The only way to get the world market is to get players from other countries and promote their sport in those countries.

Becoming a more worldly game might be the only chance baseball can compete with the ever-growing NFL. But by doing so it can never again be America’s Favorite Pastime, which might not be that bad after all.