Preseason projections are the name of the game in the early going of spring, as camp gets going but the games have yet to start. Barring some last-second news dropping, the AL East has their rosters lined up for another year of chasing one of the hardest crowns to claim in baseball. We’ve talked about their overall strengths a couple of days ago, but every contender aims to stockpile as much pitching as they can, and it’s worth its own breakdown.
The Yankees didn’t make many changes to their rotation,
saving their tinkering for a bullpen that was far more volatile in 2025. Max Fried leads the charge again, but this time with Gerrit Cole set to lead beside him at last. Carlos Rodón builds the bridge to the younger part of the staff, where Cam Schlittler hopes to live up to some star potential and both Will Warren and Luis Gil hope to make a mark before Clarke Schmidt is ready to return. Ryan Weathers is the one new addition on board for 2026, brought in to help cover the innings workload while Cole and Rodón get their legs back under them. It’s a strong staff, one of the best in the league if the dice roll in their favor, but there’s a lot of uncertainty built into just how many of their arms are returning from significant injuries.
And, just as their competition has built some all-around competitive rosters, there are some strong staffs around the East specifically. Boston matched up particularly well against the Yankees with Garrett Crochet atop their rotation, and they’ve augmented themselves with Ranger Suárez and Sonny Gray to go alongside Kutter Crawford and Brayan Bello. That’s a rotation that carries a high floor, and should be a driving factor in whether Boston makes it back to the postseason.
Toronto were no slouches in free agency this year, signing Dylan Cease to be the new ace of their staff. While Cease had a down year in his final season as a Padre, his overall body of work has been elite and he got rewarded handsomely for it — now he’ll hurl alongside Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, and Shane Bieber. The Rays continue to pump out gems on the mound and last year was Drew Rasmussen’s time to shine, but they also have a high-risk, high-reward ace candidate in Shane McClanahan as well when healthy. The Orioles have the potential to contend this year, but their rotation looks the most questionable with Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish trying to prove that their fantastic stretch of play can last an entire season.
It’s a tough call to make on who bests who in a given series, but over the course of the season I’d expect the Yankees to slightly edge out Boston for the top rotation in the East, closely followed by Toronto before Tampa and Baltimore round it out. There’s always a need for pitching, however, so we’ll see if these rotations look similar enough to what they were now by the end of the year or if the trade deadline will inspire a transformation or two.
It’ll be a quiet day on the site as we head into the weekend. Kevin celebrates the birthday of a Yankee that made a sizeable impact despite his short stay in pinstripes in Russell Martin, and then later on John has the social media spotlight to cap off the offseason and get us into spring mode at long last.
