How Did You Feel About the 2015 Season? (American League)

With the World Series a week and change behind us, but with the offseason still almost entirely ahead and unknown, now seems like the right time to try a little project I’ve had on my mind for a month or so. The annoying(?) bit is that the project requires your participation, in the form of voting in a poll, but then that’s a really easy thing to do, and the question should be pretty simple, and on my end, I get to spend a couple posts embedding polls for your own feedback. Something easy for you, and something easy for me? Everybody wins!

This post is for fans of teams in the American League. The National League post will go up Tuesday morning. If there are multiple teams you hold near and dear, feel free to vote in multiple polls. If you consider yourself more a fan of the game in general, then you can either sit this out, or vote in the poll for the team you feel most strongly about.

All I want to know: how did you feel about the 2015 season? As far as following your favorite team was concerned, how would you rate your overall fan experience? Use whatever criteria you like. How you feel is how you feel — vote according to that feeling. How was the regular season? Did the end spoil the middle? Did your team have a bunch of exciting young players? Did you love going to the ballpark? I understand there’s a lot of input here — there are months of individual days, each day with its own feeling. I just want to know your overall grade, as you reflect on the season that was. There are no wrong answers. Except probably in the Royals poll.

All the polls are below. Hopefully the anchor text works to send you to your team directly!

Angels
Astros
Athletics
Blue Jays
Indians
Mariners
Orioles
Rangers
Rays
Red Sox
Royals
Tigers
Twins
White Sox
Yankees

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Angels

Ultimately, no trip to the playoffs, but in playoff contention through to the last day of the regular season. Got to watch the best player in baseball patrol center field. Lost a general manager! He walked away of his own volition!

Astros

Breakthrough season that took the Astros to the playoffs maybe a year or two ahead of schedule. Carlos Correa arrived, supporting so many other impressive young talents. Yet a September slump threatened to spoil everything, and the playoffs featured a memorable meltdown against the eventual champs.

Athletics

Oh, sure, some people thought the A’s would be worse than some other people, but not very many people figured the A’s for the worst final record in the American League. On the plus side, the BaseRuns record wasn’t so bad.

Blue Jays

So long, longest playoff drought in baseball! A frustrating first few months led to a magical last few months, spurred along by an exhilarating trade-deadline week. Unfortunately only one team ends a winner, and the Jays lost what felt like a winnable series against the Royals. How long does it take to get over a couple bad strike calls?

Indians

The Indians never mounted that serious a run to contention, but the second half was still strong, and Francisco Lindor arrived to join the incredible collection of arms. Lindor subsequently slugged .482 and knocked 12 home runs, topping Michael Bourn by 12 home runs.

Mariners

So many looked at the Mariners and saw on-paper favorites. They went into the All-Star break second-worst in the league. Felix Hernandez had an uncharacteristic stretch leading people to wonder if he’s beginning his decline. Robinson Cano was dreadful for the first couple months, leading people to wonder if he’s beginning his decline. Cano snapped out of it, though. And Nelson Cruz was fantastic. For the first time in a while, the Mariners hit.

Orioles

The Orioles dropped by 15 wins, and it felt to some like all those wins were lost in the three weeks following the middle of August. On the plus side, Orioles fans got to watch Chris Davis, and they also got to watch Manny Machado establish himself as truly one of the league’s young elites. It still felt like a team caught in between.

Rangers

Division winners, all of a sudden. Only once since 2009 have the Rangers failed to win at least 87 games, and that was 2014, when the whole team got hurt. The injuries didn’t exactly go away this time around, but the team overcame so many of them, or, in the case of Adrian Beltre, somehow played through them. A series of deadline acquisitions drove home that the Rangers were playing for both the present and the future, and they caught fire, right up until they held a two-games-to-none ALDS lead over Toronto. Then what happened happened.

Rays

If I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t really know what the Rays did. But browsing the Internet has taught me at one point the Rays were 40-30 and leading the East. From then on they underachieved, dropping again below .500. (July was rough.) On the plus side, Rays fans most got to witness Kevin Kiermaier and Chris Archer. Fans of other teams didn’t appreciate those experiences so much.

Red Sox

A season that both punished the Red Sox for their rotation plan, and then justified it, when it no longer mattered. The Red Sox dropped out of relevance quick, despite having looked pretty good before the year. In that sense they were a terrible disappointment. Potentially mitigating that somewhat were the contributions made by several young players who could help for a long time.

Royals

Unfortunately, Jason Vargas got hurt and didn’t pitch after July.

Tigers

People have long forecast doom and gloom for the Tigers’ future, but it wasn’t supposed to come yet. The Tigers just couldn’t get good enough, so they sold, beginning a rebuilding process that might’ve been overdue. Perhaps it’s not rebuilding, though; more likely, it’s just attempted reloading. It helps to seemingly have Justin Verlander back.

Twins

The Twins were written off in February and then they spent almost the entire regular season close to the wild card. So they were a surprising success story, and they got to introduce the world to Miguel Sano, for which the world is thankful. The Twins seldom looked good, which might’ve been annoying. But it’s its own kind of satisfying to watch a team spend nearly six months overachieving. It made success feel not that far away.

White Sox

The White Sox were what they were going to be. But then, why should it be fair the Sox had their holes exposed, while, say, the Twins didn’t? Why couldn’t it have been the White Sox who got lucky? In any case, the core talent was there, and it was special. Carlos Rodon got himself to the majors. This wouldn’t have been so bad had Jeff Samardzija not somehow struggled under the watch of Don Cooper, but in that way the impossible was possible.

Yankees

Technically, a playoff team. Somehow, the Yankees kind of felt like the gritty underdogs. The rotation always felt like it was one more break from disaster, but the bullpen kept the team afloat, and Alex Rodriguez, improbably, wound up playing to cheers and widespread support. I don’t think that necessarily says good things about fans; I do think that inarguably says something about fans. And it’s not like I’m here to judge, either, because I wound up cheering for him too. What do I care? It’s sports.