Your Stance On the Team Projections (American League)

Time to kick off the latest edition of what’s always my favorite polling project every year. For a while, on the site, we’ve been showing you the Steamer projections. Just in the last day or two, we’ve folded in all the ZiPS data, meaning now we’ve got projections that shouldn’t budge anymore, barring injuries or roster moves. Here is the projected American League landscape!

Overall, I assume things look more or less acceptable. Every division has a clear favorite, and we know the White Sox have initiated a rebuild that’s likely to cause them to suck in the short-term. The Twins, also, could suck in the short-term. The A’s and Rays are forever projecting to play around .500. And so on and so forth. But every year I like to see what the community thinks, because there isn’t otherwise an easy way to express disagreement with the numbers being provided. Do some of the projections just feel wrong to you? Say that in the polls below. We’ll look at the National League on Wednesday, and then I’ll examine all the results at the end of the week.

Something I’d like for you to keep in mind: Please vote according to what we know now. Don’t vote anticipating midseason additions or subtractions. It’s one thing if you think a team will or will not call up a top prospect, but don’t vote planning on trades. I think everything else is self-explanatory, so, have fun. For each team and each poll, I’ll offer brief commentary that serves little purpose since I don’t want to actually bias anything myself. I think that’s it for the intro. Thank you and I love you!

To proceed directly to a specific team projection poll, click on the team’s name below.

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

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Angels

• Team Projection: 83-79

The Angels are projected for the AL’s fifth-best record. Last year they finished with the AL’s fourth-worst record. So this might feel surprising, but two years ago the Angels won 85 games, and the year before that they won 98, so it’s not like they’ve been down in the doldrums for a while. Billy Eppler spent much of the offseason trying to surround his best player(s) with affordable depth. It’s unsexy, but it’s progress, and yet so much could come down to whether Garrett Richards‘ elbow holds up. Your guess is literally as good as mine.

Astros

• Team Projection: 91-71

It feels like just yesterday the Astros were visibly tanking. Now, not only are they good — they’re proven-good, established-good, the kind of good that decides to add veteran players like Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, and Josh Reddick. The lineup, at present, is deep. The bullpen, at present, is deep. It’s the rotation that might have a few too many question marks, but that’s entirely up to your own perspective. There’s a reason they’ve been linked to Jose Quintana; there’s a reason Jose Quintana isn’t on the Astros yet.

Athletics

• Team Projection: 79-83

Marcus Semien leads all Oakland position players with a projected 2.2 WAR. I don’t…really…want to talk about that anymore. The upside here is almost exclusively on the side of the pitching staff, where the rotation includes Jharel Cotton, Sean Manaea, Andrew Triggs, and the potentially resurgent Sonny Gray and Jesse Hahn. I know they have Kendall Graveman, too, and he’s fine, but he’s less exciting than the others, and I’m searching for excitement. With the A’s, people have long been searching for excitement.

Blue Jays

• Team Projection: 86-76

It’s easy to say, okay, the team can be only so good when it’s starting Justin Smoak and platooning Ezequiel Carrera and Melvin Upton. I don’t think many people would expect the Blue Jays atop the AL East. But Josh Donaldson is still one of the very best everyday baseball players in the world, and the starting rotation goes five deep, if you’re a believer in Francisco Liriano’s late-season turnaround. Depth, perhaps, could become an issue, but it isn’t an issue today. Depth becomes necessary only when things go wrong.

Indians

• Team Projection: 92-70

Well, let’s see. The Indians won 94 games. They added Edwin Encarnacion and they’re bringing back whatever version of Michael Brantley might presently exist. Boone Logan makes the bullpen deeper. I’m not sure baseball has a clearer division favorite, but I don’t want to get into a Cubs-vs.-Indians argument. I think we’ve had enough of those. Forget it, I’m done here. Just vote in the damn poll.

Mariners

• Team Projection: 83-79

My sense is that the Jerry Dipoto offseason drew favorable reviews, but still the team is projected to finish with a worse record by three games. Looking over the roster, there are certain particularly volatile assets. What do you personally make of Mike Zunino? What do you personally make of Jean Segura? What about Mitch Haniger? What about Felix Hernandez? Maybe they’re all core players, or maybe they’re all vulnerabilities. There’s only one way to find out! (Aside from being God. That would be a second way.)

Orioles

• Team Projection: 81-81

Yes, this would be an eight-win decline. But then, just two years ago, the Orioles finished at 81-81, so what are you going to do? This feels like it was a classic Orioles offseason, complete with re-signing Mark Trumbo and addressing pitching problems by bringing in random mediocrities. This year’s mediocrities include Vidal Nuno and Gabriel Ynoa, but if there’s one manager who knows how to squeeze every last drop out of a pitching staff, it’s Buck Showalter. The crazy bullpen is still the crazy bullpen. The lineup is still slow and over-aggressive. It’s a familiar-looking team, in other words.

Rangers

• Team Projection: 83-79

A new season means hitting the reset button, after a year in which the Rangers as a team were historically clutch. One benefit is that now the Rangers get to play the whole year with Jonathan Lucroy, and they’re returning that rotation topped by Yu Darvish and Cole Hamels. The question marks are elsewhere. How much do you expect further development from Jurickson Profar and Nomar Mazara? Is Carlos Gomez more his awful Astros self, or his astonishing Rangers self? Is Tyson Ross going to look good when he finally returns from major surgery? Every team, I know, is volatile, but the Rangers might be a standard deviation above the mean in that regard.

Rays

• Team Projection: 82-80

I don’t know how it happens, but every damn year it’s like the Rays have one or two too many starters. In this case it might be Jose De Leon who opens in Triple-A, and that speaks well to the team’s pitching depth. The bullpen might hinge on Brad Boxberger bouncing back, but he’s been marvelous in the recent past. On the position-player side, the outfield defense might be second to none, and Matt Duffy is a forgotten player who was worth 4.8 WAR just in 2015. You might have gotten accustomed to thinking of the Rays as boring. They’re not as boring as you want to assume.

Red Sox

• Team Projection: 93-69

The Red Sox’ third starter just won the Cy Young. The Red Sox’ second starter was the runner-up in 2015, and the Red Sox’ first starter has gotten voter support for five straight years. The stars on this roster are obvious, and the talent is such that Andrew Benintendi shouldn’t have to try to do too much on his own. The question, unavoidably, is how well the Red Sox will cope with no longer having David Ortiz, and there’s no single player who could hope to replace him. Maybe that’ll have an effect in the clubhouse. Maybe it won’t. I think that about covers the options.

Royals

• Team Projection: 75-87

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on! I know how easy it would be to automatically vote that the Royals’ projection is low. We’ve been over all that. But how much are the Royals actually still those Royals of yore? The bullpen now is a lot less deep. The lineup now has a lot more strikeouts. It’s a different sort of team, kind of out of necessity. Still, I’ll grant they have many of the core pieces. Mike Moustakas is coming back healthy. Let’s just say the Royals themselves probably wouldn’t think twice about this projection.

Tigers

• Team Projection: 81-81

The offseason began with people speculating about a Tigers rebuild, but instead we’re here, with the Tigers a little in-between. And, realistically, there was only so much for them to do, given how little surplus value there is attached to the bigger names. The Tigers’ biggest advantage might be their divisional context, since the projections don’t like the Royals, Twins, or White Sox. That potentially soft schedule alone might help the Tigers pursue a wild-card spot. But it’s not like their roster doesn’t have its own drawbacks. The Indians are well out in the lead.

Twins

• Team Projection: 74-88

Well, let’s try that again. Let’s try to forget all about what happened to Jose Berrios. Let’s try to forget all about Byron Buxton before September. Let’s try to forget all about Miguel Sano in the outfield. All three players remain massively intriguing, so it’s not like there’s nothing to dream on. With luck, Jason Castro will help to make the pitching staff more consistently palatable. There’s just a different feeling you get when you have a new front office. It’s not like everything actually gets to start over, but patience is easier to come by.

White Sox

• Team Projection: 69-93

They finally chose a direction! Hey, look at that, the direction sucks. In terms of being competitive, at least. But there should be plenty to watch for, so long as White Sox fans don’t hold out too much hope for the ultimate results. I’ll issue that same reminder again: Vote as if the roster isn’t going to change. The roster, of course, will change, maybe as soon as tomorrow morning, but I’m not interested in the fact that you think the White Sox will be worse after they trade Jose Quintana. I don’t need to poll you on that.

Yankees

• Team Projection: 81-81

The team projection would probably be 102-60 if it weren’t for Dellin Betances, eh, Randy Levine? The bullpen will once again be carried by an impossible one-two punch, and the rotation could be okay if Michael Pineda gets his shit together. Gary Sanchez is probably already the best of the position players. That’s either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about Gary Sanchez. I’ll note that the last time we saw Gregory Bird, he slugged .529. I’m done writing now!