When the 2022 season began, the Tampa Bay Rays were the two-time defending champions and seemingly the model for what works, the Toronto Blue Jays were the young upstart, the New York Yankees were the uncertain team, the Boston Red Sox were seemingly a contender and the Baltimore Orioles were in an endless cycle of rebuilding.
As 2023 approaches with many of the major free agents off the board, the roles for the AL East will be similar to how the five teams ended the 2022 season.
Four teams finished with winning records, marking the second straight season the AL East featured four winning teams. It was the first time in the wild-card era that the AL East had four winning teams in consecutive seasons.
As for the teams, the Yankees were the class of the division despite their extreme hitting woes during their nine-game postseason run. The woes appeared when they struggled to get past Cleveland in five games during the ALDS and were even more noticeable during the four-game sweep against the Astros in the ALCS that continued to highlight their inability to change the narrative against the Astros.
So far, the Yankees did the move they had to by retaining Aaron Judge on a nine-year, $360 million deal after his spectacular 62-homer season. It was hard to envision the Yankees without him and scary enough for owner Hal Steinbrenner to envision the lineup without him that the deal was seemingly done or on the way to being closed from a rest stop somewhere in Italy. Retaining Judge on the largest free agent contract in team history was such a monumental occurrence that the YES Network started running commercials highlighting Judge with classical music with the tagline: “He Said Yes” offering a keen awareness of the significance of the move for its ratings.
The Yankees also added a potential co-ace for their rotation to pair with Gerrit Cole when they signed Carlos Rodon to a six-year, $162 million deal. Rodon’s addition slides Nestor Cortes into the third spot which adds to the depth highlighted by the former 36th-round pick into stardom and one of the great stories of the season.
As for the Blue Jays, they fell just short in 2021 and then were so mediocre for a majority of the first half Charlie Montoyo took the fall in the managerial seat. Toronto were a middling 46-42 when Montoyo was shown the door and then went 46-28 under John Schneider.
They did not wind up with the blockbuster movie Vladimir Guerrero Jr. joked about in spring training but did inch closer to the levels of the veteran-laden 2015 and 2016 teams who reached the ALCS in consecutive seasons, losing to the Seattle Mariners in an epic elimination game in the wild-card round.
Besides Guerrero, the Blue Jays also saw a full season from Alek Manoah, who won 16 games and was willing to meet Gerrit Cole by the advertisement in front of the Yankee dugout after dusting Judge with a pitch on Aug. 21.
Tampa Bay never could overcome the spate of injuries that resulted in countless trips to the injured list costing them a chance at a three-peat for the division title. The Rays wound up scoring one run in 24 innings during the postseason after getting 86 wins but ultimately their lack of consistent offensive firepower beyond Randy Arozarena’s 20 homers and 89 RBIs cost them another division title.
Baltimore perhaps was the feel-good story of the whole division if not all of baseball. During the previous four seasons, the Orioles were a combined 178-368 as they tore down the rosters who won a combined 519 games from 2012 through 2017.
This year, they were competitive early in most losses while falling 10 games under but a 10-game winning streak in July moved them over .500 and the Orioles never spent the rest of the season under .500 and wound up with 83 wins. It provided fans with an updated version of the 1989 team who stayed in contention after losing the first 21 games of the 1988 season thanks to a young core highlighted by Adley Rutschman and enough pitching, highlighted by some decent finds for the bullpen, including the cool show for closer Felix Bautista’s trot to the mound, a scene as energetic as Edwin Diaz coming in to get saves for the Mets.
The Red Sox regressed to 78 wins after an unexpected run to the ALCS in 2021. With few pitches from Chris Sale, their pitching never took off and they provided plenty of bad optics in not coming close to meeting the market for Xander Bogaerts, who signed with the San Diego Padres.
It is hard to know the direction the Red Sox are taking and while they remade a bullpen, whose 4.59 ERA was among the AL’s worst, they may encounter more issues with how fans perceive the team if they cannot retain Rafael Devers.
In his penultimate season before reaching free agency, Devers put up respectable numbers of a .295 average, an .879 OPS to go along with 27 homers and 88 RBIs but as of earlier this month the sides were far apart in contract talks.
While the Red Sox may not view Devers in the same stratosphere as Judge, they might wind up being forced into a high end contract negotiation depending on how his contract year unfolds.
The AL East is often considered among the gold standards in the six divisions and with four of the teams posting winning records last season a similar outcome may occur next season.
