Baseball 2020: American League
One of the side effects of the new paradigm of baseball in 2020 — where teams are no longer investing in older guys by paying for past performance, where making money and competing for a title are mutually exclusive, where the playoffs are increasingly a toss-up — is the lack of an effort to really put together a great team. If you can make just as much money winning 83 games as 103, if your playoff odds are about the same either way, and if a guy making $20 million is giving you the production you can get for $500,000, why, the (unspoken) argument goes, bother going for the ceiling?
Nowhere is that more evident right now than in the American League in 2020. The Red Sox traded away one of the best couple of players in baseball and a still-above-average pitcher in what amounted to a salary dump. Cleveland got to the extra innings of a World Series Game 7 four years ago and have gradually torn apart that roster ever since, for no other reason than “Hey, money.” The Astros said in the middle of last season that they wouldn’t be in the conversation to bring back Gerrit Cole, not necessarily because he didn’t want to be there, but because he was expensive and they already had Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke, and never mind that Cole would still likely be their best pitcher.
The end result is an American League with no team I’d be comfortable predicting even 95 wins for, but 10 teams I have winning 80-plus. Basically, unless you’re Baltimore, Detroit, Kansas City, or Seattle, I can make an argument for you squinting and being a playoff team.
Which brings me to my divisional previews for the American League for 2020. I’ll hit each team to varying depths and offer up projected records and standings. I’ll offer up each team’s within-reason floor and ceiling for the 2020 season and a key storyline or two. Wednesday, I’ll hit the National League.
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American League East
1. Tampa Bay Rays (projected record: 93-69, division winner)
Starting this whole thing off with what might be a surprise. The Rays could legitimately have the best record in the American League without a single player getting MVP votes, without a single obvious All-Star, and without anyone who would be bothered walking into the Rays team store in Tropicana Field. But what they offer is incredible depth, perhaps the best outfield defense we’ve ever seen, and a bullpen that could strike out … just everybody.
Best-case scenario: The ridiculous depth is complemented by some true breakouts from guys like Willy Adames and Hunter Renfroe, the best versions of Blake Snell and Charlie Morton and Tyler Glasnow, and the arrival of Wander Franco. The Rays run away with the East and finish with a record of 104-58.
Worst-case scenario: Injuries chip away at the lineup depth. Neither Glasnow nor Snell can pitch enough innings, Morton looks like a 36-year-old, and the breakouts just don’t happen. The Rays are smart and resourceful enough to avoid an absolute implosion season, but if things go wrong they slip to 78-84.
Interesting storylines:
Are the Rays going to spend the entire year trying to goad hitters into flyballs and line drives? The team has a good defense overall, but the outfield defense could legitimately be insane. (Also, Adames.)
An impossible Sporcle quiz would be trying to name all 14 Rays who had an above-average OPS+ last year, and that would be even with crediting you for the four who did it in 11 or fewer plate appearances. Be honest, would you have gotten Mike Brousseau? Travis d’Arnaud? Avisail Garcia? Austin Meadows and the half-season of Brandon Lowe were the only ones you could call star hitters, but the team is chock full of contributors, and that list has only gotten deeper this offseason.
Of Blake Snell’s 10.7 career bWAR, 7.4 came in 2018. Of Tyler Glasnow’s 1.5 career bWAR, 2.6 (yes) came in 2019. Of Charlie Morton’s 10.1 career bWAR, 5.1 came in 2019. If this starting rotation is firing on all cylinders, it could be the best in the game. If it isn’t? The depth could really be tested.
2. New York Yankees (92-70, 1 game back, first Wild Card)
If I had set a Jan. 1 publish on this, I’d have had the Yankees winning the division and in the conversation for being a genuinely dominant team. Since then, we’ve found out that Luis Severino is gone for the year, James Paxton is gone for a chunk of it, and there are genuine question marks around the long-term availability of Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, and Aaron Hicks. We’re only a year removed from this team having almost comical injury luck and winning 100 games anyway, but man, I just can’t bet on that twice.
Best-case scenario: Severino is done for the year, but the other names here miss as little time as possible and play like they missed none. The Gio Urshela/Mike Tauchman types continue to save the team in the interim, Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu are still stars, and all in all everything comes together for the Yankees to go 108-54.
Worst-case scenario: Paxton can’t get healthy. Stanton can’t get healthy. Hicks can’t get healthy. Urshela and Tauchman were mirages, LeMahieu had a career year, and Brett Gardner is suddenly old. The team’s lack of depth gets seriously tested, and the team scuffles to 81-81.
Interesting storylines:
Obviously, nobody is happy about the Yankees’ outfield injuries. But the one person who has to be a little cautiously excited is Clint Frazier, who will probably get his (last?) chance to make it as a Yankee to start the season. He’s hit .254 with a .308 on-base percentage in sporadic play over the last three years, but he’s still only 25.
The most watched player in baseball in 2020 is going to be Gerrit Cole. I don’t for even a second think he’s likely to be one of the guys who can’t handle New York (if such a thing actually exists and isn’t just confirmation bias), but with the other pitching injuries, he’s going to have to be a Cy Young winner or close for the Yankees to make a real run.
3. Boston Red Sox (85-77, 8 games back)
The Red Sox finished in first place every year 2016-2018. It was, believe it or not, the team’s first back-to-back first-place finishes since (I really can’t believe this) 1915 and 1916, when they won consecutive World Series. Seriously, for all the Red Sox historical success, only accentuated by the advent of the Wild Card, and the team went 100 years between consecutive division titles. And then things went bad in 2019, and the Red Sox decided it was time to go into money-saving mode. It’s frustrating, but it’s baseball in 2020.
Best-case scenario: Chris Sale’s injury is short-lived, Nathan Eovaldi can be a competent No. 3, Alex Verdugo develops into a star, and the Red Sox make a go of things to get to 91-71.
Worst-case scenario: Sale doesn’t play at all, Verdugo is overmatched, Andrew Benitendi continues to be average-and-not-much-more, and the Red Sox scuffle to 76-86.
Interesting storylines:
This team is suddenly very top-heavy. Mitch Moreland is currently slated to open the year as the No. 5 hitter. So the Boston fortunes are going to ride heavily on Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, and J.D. Martinez. There are obviously worse threesomes to build around, but the hole created by Betts’ departure is a significant one.
As I write this, the Red Sox rotation (per FanGraphs) is slated to be Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, Martin Perez, Ryan Weber, and Brian Johnson. There are vintage Rangers rotations that were better than that. So, uh, good luck.
4. Toronto Blue Jays (81-81, 12 games back)
Craig Biggio’s kid is here. Vladimir Guerrero’s kid is here. Dante Bichette’s kid is here. If I told you that, like, Darin Erstad’s kid was due to be called up by midseason, you’d at least skip over to Wikipedia or something to check. (I just checked, to make sure I wasn’t being strangle prophetic; his oldest son only turns 14 this year. We got time.) This is the legacy team in MLB.
Best-case scenario: The kids all reach their reasonable ceilings, and Hyun-Jin Ryu and Nate Pearson head up a rejuvenated rotation. The Blue Jays hang in the race all year and finish 91-71.
Worst-case scenario: Vladito continues to be marginally disappointing, Cavan Biggio can’t follow up on his 2019, Ryu and Pearson combine for under 100 big-league innings, and the Blue Jays scuffle to 68-94.
Interesting storylines:
Every single person who tunes into Blue Jays games this year will be to watch the kids first and foremost. Even if one of Cavan Biggio, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Bo Bichette struggles, it’s hard to imagine all three do, and if for no other reason than nostalgia, that’s fun.
Ken Giles’ ERA by year in the big leagues, starting in 2014: 1.18, 1.80, 4.11, 2.30, 4.65, 1.87. I guess we have to hope he can buck that trend.
5. Baltimore Orioles (54-108, 39 games back)
The Orioles had three regulars top a 100 OPS+ last year — Jonathan Villar (gone), Trey Mancini (leave of absence for we-have-no-idea-how-long), and Renato Nunez (do you trust him? I don’t). They had two pitchers with an ERA under 4.00 — John Means (hey, he’s still here!) and Andrew Cashner (gone, and that was a mirage anyway. Baltimore is rightly in the depths of a rebuilding process, but man, things are bad.
Best-case scenario: Means does it again, Mancini comes back quickly with no ill effects, and the young players start to show up. Even with that, there’s no path to playoff contention, but everything breaks right and the Orioles go 72-90.
Worst-case scenario: Mancini’s health issues are prolonged, the pitching staff implodes, and things get just so, so bad as the Orioles fall all the way to 41-121.
Interesting storylines:
God help me, I’m intrigued by Chris Davis this year. He’s reportedly added some weight back this offseason, and he’s absolutely destroying the ball this spring training. Nobody not named Angelos or Davis thought his contract was anything resembling a good idea, but not many people thought it would be this bad (-3.8 WAR the last three years, -0.5 over the four years of the deal), but even a bounceback to competence would be a big deal.
If there’s a silver lining to Mancini’s issues (there aren’t, mysterious undisclosed medical problems suck), it could lead to room for Ryan Mountcastle to come up. He’s the first of the Orioles’ interesting future.
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American League Central
1. Minnesota Twins (89-73, division winner)
The Twins had 15 guys with OPS+ numbers over 100 last year. Of those, 13 had at least 200 plate appearances. Every last bit of that feels impossible. On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine that happening again, but on the other, Josh Donaldson’s arrival and (hopefully) some more health from Byron Buxton could offset some of the regression.
Best-case scenario: The Twins are really that good an offense, Rich Hill and Michael Pineda return in midseason to bolster the starting rotation, and the Twins roll all the way to a record of 102-60.
Worst-case scenario: The Twins get surprisingly old — they only have three projected offensive players under 27, and two of those are the brittle Buxton and the unpredictable Miguel Sano. It only takes a little bit of aging for the team to fall off, that happens, and they fall out of the playoff race and finish 80-82.
Interesting storylines:
Nelson Cruz, man. The Rangers weren’t particularly interested in bringing him back after his contract expired there, so they let him walk. That was after 2013. In the six years since, he’s had at least 37 home runs every year and put up 25.9 WAR. He will get old at some point. But when?
If you can handpick the best career season for every one of these starting pitchers — Homer Bailey’s 2013, Pineda’s 2014, Hill’s 2007 — you could really have something. You obviously can’t do that. There is such a range of potential outcomes in this rotation.
2. Chicago White Sox (87-75, 2 games back)
I’m legitimately excited for the 2021 or 2022 White Sox. For 2020? It’s definitely going to be a building year, but it might not be the real arrival year, especially given the chances of at least some regression from Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada. Still, man, there are a lot of exciting young players here.
Best-case scenario: As the aging curve around baseball gets younger, we could see the rebuilds that are done right get accomplished more quickly. The 2020 White Sox are an excellent test case for that. There is a scenario here where everything clicks and this team not only wins the division, but runs away with it at 98-64.
Worst-case scenario: And man, it could easily go the other way. Anderson and Moncada regress. Lucas Giolito isn’t as good as he was last year. An admittedly questionable bullpen continues being questionable. Michael Kopech doesn’t come back. There are so many ways this team could struggle that the floor could be as bad as 68-94.
Interesting storylines:
Luis Robert has the potential to be one of the most fun stories of the year. Now that the team has him under contract long-term, Robert will definitely start the season with the big-league club, and while early lineup projections have him starting out low in the order, he could rise in a hurry.
Dallas Keuchel was worth 2.1 WAR for the Braves last year despite only 112.2 innings, a low total that came in part because of how late he signed. He’s been worth 2.0-plus WAR and had an ERA under 4.00 in five of the last six years. He’s now more or less expected to be the veteran leader of an up-and-coming rotation, and if he can do that, the White Sox have a really high ceiling.
3. Cleveland Indians (86-76, 3 games back)
There is an alternate universe out there where Cleveland saw how close the team came to the World Series title in 2016 and went all-in. Big bidding for Lorenzo Cain or J.D. Martinez after 2017. Keeping their big names and adding more. All in all shooting for dynasty status. Instead, the team tried to toe the line between winning and saving, and while they have won 90-plus games each of the last four years, we saw the team get leapfrogged by the Twins last year. Now, Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez are the last remaining huge offensive names from that team, and Lindor could go at any moment.
Best-case scenario: Shane Bieber continues to be a star, Carlos Carrasco comes back fine, Mike Clevinger doesn’t miss much time. Cleveland gets off to a fast start while the other Central teams struggle, more or less forcing them to hold on to Lindor despite their financial desires, and the team goes 95-67.
Worst-case scenario: An awful start to the season has the team move into sell mode early. Lindor heads out by June. The starting rotation can’t hold up. The team continues to make money in the most annoying way possible, but profits along to a record of 75-87.
Interesting storylines:
Lindor’s ultimate destination is going to be the storyline of the season in Cleveland, which is annoying but no less true.
Very quietly, Carlos Santana had the best year of his career last year, setting highs in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and WAR, making his first All-Star team, winning a Silver Slugger, and getting MVP votes for only the second time. He’ll be 34 next month, so betting on that continuing is a dicey proposition, but as he goes, so goes this team.
4. Kansas City Royals (65-97, 24 games back)
The Royals won the World Series in 2015. Their best record since was 81-81 in 2016. The last two years they have won 117 games combined. Even with that, the team only has two likely starting position players (Adalberto Mondesi and Nicky Lopez) under 26, only four under 28. There will be a time when the Royals nail the rebuild (assuming Mike Matheny can manage a rebuild), but that time is not 2020, 2021, or 2022.
Best-case scenario: Mondesi stays healthy and electric on the basepaths, also figuring out how to, you know, hit. Whit Merrifield keeps chugging along despite being 31 now, and Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler’s big 2019 prove to be for real. The pitching still isn’t anything, but the team punches its way to 77-85.
Worst-case scenario: Mondesi still can’t stay healthy. Alex Gordon is well and truly done, and Merrifield can’t keep his roll going. The pitching, which is expected to bad, is instead really really bad, and the team allows a whole boatload of runs en route to a record of 50-112.
Interesting storylines:
Man, this is hard. I wanted to say Bubba Starling, but after a respectable-but-definitely-not-good July debut last year, he hit .188/.230/.297 over the last two months. That ain’t gonna be a thing. So our best answer has to be Soler, who had 0.6 career WAR before last year and then erupted with a 3.7 and, somehow, 48 home runs. Dude turned 28 last month. If he can do that again … well, the Royals are gonna trade him. But it’ll be interesting until then!
5. Detroit Tigers (50-112, 39 games back)
Remember a few paragraphs back, when I marveled how the Royals will have a surprisingly old lineup for a rebuilding team? Well, the Tigers have zero projected starters under 26, and the only ones under 28 are Jeimer Candelario, Christin Stewart, and JaCoby Jones. You find a future producer in there. I dare you. The rotation, with Jordan Zimmermann and Ivan Nova two of the anchors, ain’t much better. My dad was a die-hard Tigers fan his whole life. He did in December of 2016, with the team coming off an 86-win season. In the three years since, the Tigers have put up a .360 winning percentage, with no more than 64 wins in a season. And while I appreciate them not running out and winning right away and making it seem like my dad’s death was poorly timed, but I think the statute of limitations has run out.
Best-case scenario: Miguel Cabrera has a rebound season, the additions of Jonathan Schoop and C.J. Cron provide some value, the bunch of mid-range starters are competent, and the minor league pitchers make great strides. If everything goes perfectly, the Tigers could get themselves as high as 75-87.
Worst-case scenario: Cabrera is done-done (with four more years on his contract). The Zimmermann/Nova crew isn’t offering much either. Casey Mize’s injury troubles last year (that appear to be past) pop back up. Finding a Tigers All-Star is the hardest thing we do all year as the team falls all the way to 40-122.
Interesting storylines:
Really, it’s just Miggy. Reports early this spring training are positive, but then reports early in spring training are always positive. But man, baseball’s more fun when Miguel Cabrera’s good.
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American League West
1. Houston Astros (94-68, division winner)
The storylines around this Astros team all year are going to be so damn tedious. If they start 0-3, there will be a hundred different stories about the effect of them being found out for cheating. If they start 3-0, there will be close to that many about how they must still be cheating. It’s one of those no-win situations for us, which is especially annoying since the Astros actually did win.
(A sidebar, which is probably annoying since I’m already 3,000 words into this: The conversation around the Astros cheating is ridiculously myopic, with so many thinkpieces presenting it as “Would you cheat if it meant you’d win a World Series?”, which is so very not the math involved here. The Astros without cheating had an X% chance at winning the World Series. The Astros with cheating made that percentage X+Y. It wasn’t 0% without cheating; it wasn’t 100% with. Now, the question to ask is what the variables were. If X was 5 and Y was another 60, well yeah, that’s insane and all the anger is justified. But in reality, the X was probably more like 10, and the Y was … we don’t really know. Another 10? Cheating — assuming they were the only ones doing it — took the Astros from among the favorites to the favorites, but it didn’t make them overwhelming favorites, and most of the talk around the story forgets that.)
Anyway, this is still a very good team. The cheating sucked, and it’s going to make for a long, tedious season, but it doesn’t make them bad. They’re still excellent.
Best-case scenario: Justin Verlander is healthy (suddenly a worry). Yordan Alvarez wasn’t a fluke. Everything worth liking about the Astros when they were cheating is still worth liking, and they go 108-54.
Worst-case scenario: Verlander’s sudden arm worries are significant, and the non-Zack Greinke starters on the team can’t even pretend to approximate a Gerrit Cole replacement. Alvarez was a fluke, and a starting lineup that will have six 30-somethings by the end of the first week of May when Jose Altuve gets there suddenly looks old. It’s a long, annoying year of told-ya-sos as the Astros go 85-77.
Interesting storylines:
I can’t. I just can’t. The storylines are so annoying.
2. Oakland Athletics (88-74, 6 games back, second Wild Card)
I really hate projecting the same five playoff teams in 2020 as there were in 2019, but here we are. The A’s are the magic team that somehow MacGyvers its way to a successful season every year (Oakland has won 90-plus games 10 times in 20 years of the 2000s, had a winning record 13 times). And despite that, the team is 1-10 in playoff series, with its lone win coming over the similarly snakebitten Twins in 2006. Does that mean Billy Beane’s shit doesn’t work in the playoffs? I don’t think so. Does it mean the A’s have been getting as close as you can get to being a great team without actually being a great team for a lot of that time? Definitely.
Best-case scenario: The Astros worst-case scenario above happens. Khris Davis’ awful 2019 was the fluke and not a sign of him hitting his 30s. The team has more than three pitchers top 100 innings (that’s amazing) and the Sean Manaea/Frankie Montas/A.J. Puk types pitch like we hoped as the A’s surge to 97-65.
Worst-case scenario: Davis falls off further. The lineup outside of the Matts (Chapman and Olson) and Marcus Semien is bad, and the pitchers can’t stay healthy. Billy Beane’s shit doesn’t even work in the regular season, and the team falls to 76-86.
Interesting storylines:
“Hitter Matt Chapman” is a good-not-great ballplayer. “Fielder Matt Chapman” is one of the best players in the game. “Baseball player Matt Chapman” is probably the most underrated player in the game, and I say that despite him finishing top-seven in MVP voting each of the last two years. He’s so good.
Check this nonsense out: The A’s haven’t had more than three pitchers get to 100 innings pitched since 2015. They haven’t had more than three get to 112 since 2013, when the team had A.J. Griffin (out of MLB), Jarrod Parker (out of MLB), Bartolo Colon (out of MLB), Dan Straily (out of MLB), and Tommy Milone (fighting for a big-league spot with the freaking Orioles) all reach 150. This is a team that has pieced together a pitching staff for the better part of a decade. Eventually, either that stops working or they finally get some pitchers to, you know, pitch.
3. Los Angeles Angels (84-78, 10 games back)
Mike Trout! And finally, Trout has backing, in the form of Anthony Rendon and a healthy Shohei Ohtani. This team is going to be fun as hell to watch on offense. There’s a really good chance, though, that the offenses facing the Angels will be close to as fun, because this pitching staff could be rough. It’s a format that brought the Rangers to the playoffs a few times in the ‘90s, the Rockies a few times in the 2000s. It can work. But man, is it a tough path.
Best-case scenario: The flyers taken on guys like Julio Teheran and Dylan Bundy pay off. Griffin Canning’s injuries aren’t as bad as they sound. Trout and company actually get some pitching support and the Angels make it as high as 94-68.
Worst-case scenario: Ohtani can’t handle the double duty of pitching and hitting. Albert Pujols continues being “old Albert Pujols.” The pitching staff is as bad as it looks like it could be. Trout and Rendon can’t do it all and the team struggles to 74-88.
Interesting storylines:
C’mon, the Shohei Ohtani story is the most interesting thing in all of baseball. He’s been worth more than 6.0 wins over his two years despite barely 100 games each year, and now he’ll apparently be back on the mound for at least a good chunk of 2020. If you aren’t fascinated, you aren’t paying attention.
Oh, and Mike Trout still exists.
4. Texas Rangers (77-85, 17 games back)
As much as it pains me to say, there isn’t really a less interesting team (for better or worse) in the league right now than the Rangers. They’re the only American League team I have with a win total in the 70s, one of only two in baseball. The league right now has a lot of “eh, decent,” .500-plus teams, a handful of garbage fires that will be fascinating in a trainwreck sense, and the Rangers. I love them. I’ll be rooting for them. But the list of “interesting” in Texas right now doesn’t go much further than Joey Gallo and Corey Kluber.
Best-case scenario: Kluber bounces back from injury and ineffectiveness to recapture his former success, while the 2019s of Mike Minor and Lance Lynn continue. Gallo stays healthy, Willie Calhoun gets healthy, and the rest of the lineup gives enough support. The team hangs around the race for most of the year and finishes 87-75.
Worst-case scenario: At least two of Kluber, Minor, and Lynn falter, while Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles fail to step up to help. The infield, which failed to produce a single guy with an OPS+ over 100 last year, continues to disappoint, and the team slumps to 67-95.
Interesting storylines:
People like to act like Kluber has been a ghost for a while now, an old guy who last had his success in the early teens. This is a dude who put up 5.9 WAR in 2018 and finished third in the Cy Young voting. He had 35.2 bad innings last year (two good starts, one mediocre one, three bad ones) and then got hurt. This isn’t “Jose Rijo is making a comeback!”
Greg Bird put up a .261/.343/.529 slash line in 2015 as a 22-year-old, and the Yankees had their next big name. He missed 2016 to injury and has hit .194/.287/.388 in 140 games over the last three years. On the flip side, dude’s still only 27, and while we don’t know how the Rangers new ballpark will play, it’s easy to wishcast that becoming a Ranger is a good sign. Odds are against Bird ever being a star, but it would be super fascinating.
5. Seattle Mariners (68-94, 26 games back)
The Mariners starting last year 6-1 and 13-2 will forever be one of the most random occurrences of recent baseball history. They went 55-92 the rest of the way and were so, so bad. The Mariners had no players reach 3.0 WAR, and of the four that reached 2.0, only two (Tom Murphy and Kyle Seager) are even still around. The Mariners have alternated over- and under-.500 seasons every year since 2013, but let’s just say that trend probably won’t continue this year.
Best-case scenario: Mitch Haniger gets healthy by June, the mishmash of so-so pitchers on the roster put something together, and some of the young players start to make their way up. It’s still a bad year, but the Mariners find their way to 76-86.
Worst-case scenario: Haniger misses the whole year. Jerry Dipoto continues to sell off anyone with a pulse (not without reason), and a bad start just snowballs as the Mariners fall to 59-103.
Interesting storylines:
Seager had a miserable 2018 season, but he rebounded with a competent 112 OPS+ last year. If he’s any good at all, Dipoto will find a taker for him, but as a career Mariner who has now outlasted Felix Hernandez, he’s the guy the fans are tied to.
Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez might not see the big leagues in 2020, but man, that could be a dynamic duo before long. Just look to the future, Mariners fans. It’ll get here eventually.