Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the season’s final month halfway over, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.
(Note: Records and standings are up to date through games played on Sunday, September
14th.)
First Place: Seattle Mariners (82-68)
Top Position Player: Cal Raleigh (7.8 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Bryan Woo (3.4 fWAR)
We have a new outright leader atop the AL West standings for the first time since May 29th, the Mariners riding a nine-game winning streak to finally reclaim first from the Astros. The trend over the last handful of seasons has seen the Mariners lean heavily on their mostly homegrown starting rotation to paper over the cracks of a perennially underwhelming offense, but that narrative has been flipped on its head at least for the last few weeks of this season.
The story obviously begins with Cal Raleigh and his MLB-leading 54 home runs, the switch-hitting backstop making a serious case to deny Aaron Judge his third AL MVP in the last four years. However, even Raleigh takes a back seat to the impact a resurgent Julio Rodríguez has had on the team’s fortunes of late, the center fielder reclaiming the form of his first two years in the Show after a disappointing season-and-a-half.
Similar praise must be paid to several of the team’s signings and mid-season acquisitions of the last year-plus. Randy Arozarena is back to the version that terrorized pitchers with the Rays, Jorge Polanco has cemented himself as a middle of the order mainstay, Josh Naylor raises the floor significantly, and even the scuffling Eugenio Suárez has at least hit nine home runs since joining at the deadline from Arizona alongside Naylor.
It’s a scary order to navigate top to bottom and has helped mitigate the surprising underperformance of the rotation. Bryan Woo has emerged as one of the top starting pitchers in the game, but former staff ace Luis Castillo has regressed for a second straight year. The same goes for George Kirby — entrant on several preseason shortlists for the AL Cy Young — both he and Logan Gilbert failing to supply the same value as recent campaigns as both missed about two months with injury.
If Kirby and Gilbert can hit their stride down the stretch, this is a formidable ball club now that they finally have an offense to match their rotation.
Second Place: Houston Astros (81-69, 1.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Jeremy Peña (5.0 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Hunter Brown (4.5 fWAR)
Despite Yordan Alvarez’s return from a lengthy injury layoff and near-immediate return to peak form, the Astros haven’t quite been able to keep pace with the surging Mariners and thus find themselves in the unfamiliar position of second place with just two weeks of games to go. Houston has failed to win their division just once in the last eight seasons, and given the crowded nature of the AL Wild Card race, they face a not insignificant possibility of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
However, it would be foolish to write off a team with as much experience in getting to the postseason as anyone in the league. The offense obviously misses Kyle Tucker and Isaac Paredes, though trade deadline acquisitions Jesús Sánchez and Carlos Correa have deputized ably if less impactfully in their stead. Alvarez is one of the few players in baseball who can carry an offense, and alongside star shortstop Jeremy Peña and the veteran presences of Jose Altuve and Christian Walker, I wouldn’t bet against this lineup putting together a late run.
Despite suffering a litany of injuries, the Houston rotation is still one that can dominate an entire postseason series, led by co-aces Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez. Jason Alexander has been a revelation with a 2.82 ERA in 11 appearances since being claimed off waivers. Cristian Javier has looked rusty since returning from a lengthy Tommy John rehab but still has game breaking stuff on his day. The bullpen is a bigger concern with closer Josh Hader shut down for the rest of the regular season but I’m not discounting the Astros until they are well and truly out of contention.
Third Place: Texas Rangers (79-71, 3.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Corey Seager (4.0 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Nathan Eovaldi (3.7 fWAR)
The Rangers have performed admirably to force themselves back into the Wild Card race after sitting below .500 as recently as August 25th. They are one of the hottest teams in baseball with a pair of recent six-game winning streaks and a 16-5 record over the last three weeks and change. However, they face a season-defining series against the Astros that will all but cement the Wild Card picture.
Losing Nathan Eovaldi and his 1.73 ERA obviously stings, and outside of Jacob deGrom it is hard to find a pitcher one would trust to start a playoff game, though Tyler Mahle’s looming return from injury figures to be a sizable boost after the righty began his campaign with a 2.34 ERA in 14 starts. Jack Leiter, Patrick Corbin, and Merrill Kelly profile more as back of the rotation arms based on recent form.
If the Rangers are going to have any shot of making noise in the final weeks, they will need Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford to continue carrying the team. And even that might not be enough, as Joc Pederson’s August surge is looking like a mirage, Marcus Semien is looking his age, and below average bats lurk pretty much everywhere else in the lineup.
Fourth Place: Athletics (70-80, 12.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Nick Kurtz (4.2 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Luis Severino (2.1 fWAR)
The top of the division is not the only place where we have seen movement of late. After spending just three days not in last place since May 19th, the Athletics have finally extricated themselves from the meager shadow of the Angels to bump themselves out of the bottom of the division. This comes courtesy of a modest four-game winning streak to finish the first half of September.
This season is all about building for the future and it must be said that there are more than a few reasons to be excited by the Athletics’ young position players. They boast the likely first and second place finishers in the AL Rookie of the Year race in Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson. Kurtz has been the best hitter in baseball since May 20th with 30 home runs and a 202 wRC+ while Wilson was a serious challenger for the AL batting crown until he missed a month with a fractured forearm. Supplementing that pair are Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom, and Brent Rooker — all at least 25-percent better than league average with the bat — and it’s easy to see how the Athletics are tied for the fifth-best record in baseball (17-13) over the last 30 games.
However, we all know that even the most dominant offense cannot survive a porous pitching staff, and the A’s pitchers rank in the bottom-five of the league in most metrics including ERA, FIP, and fWAR. That Luis Severino is their most valuable pitcher with a mere 2.1 fWAR shows it’s easy to see how a team that scores the sixth-most runs per game in the AL is just one game out of last place.
Last Place: Los Angeles Angels (69-81, 13.0 GB)
Top Position Player: Zach Neto (3.1 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Jose Soriano (3.0 fWAR)
Hey, at least the weather’s nice.
Between Arte Moreno’s continued ownership, a career-worst mostly-healthy season from Mike Trout, and the second-worst pitching staff in the majors, there have been scarcely few reasons to attend Angels games as a home fan. There is zero vision for the future and they have one of the worst farm systems in the league, yet Moreno’s erratic spending continues to hamstring the team despite them reaping zero benefit from the outlay.
I suppose the one silver lining is that the pair of Zach Neto and Jo Adell have provided the few fans who have shown up some happy memories from an otherwise drab season. Neto has solidified himself as one of the bright young shortstops in the league, and with a strong finish could become the first Angel since Trout in 2012 to post a 30-30 season. Even more heartening has been the completion of Adell’s redemption arc. Once one of the top regarded prospects in baseball, he became a much maligned figure in LA after failing for years to fulfill his prospect pedigree, but with 36 home runs and a much more manageable strikeout rate, Adell appears to finally be enjoying his baseball.
