We have come to the Mother’s Day junction of the baseball season and while, granted, Aaron Judge is having a Ruthian MVP season for the ages, who among us could have envisioned the Yankees holding down first place in the American League East since April 14 without the
services of their two top starting pitchers from a year ago, Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil?
Even without Cole and Gil, and the remaining glaring hole at third base, this is perhaps a better Yankee team than one could have expected, thanks in large part to the emergence of Trent Grisham in center field — whose 1.017 OPS, 10 homers and 20 RBI were dwarfing Juan Soto’s .863, seven homers and 17 RBI as of Friday — and the sheer dominance of Max Fried as Cole’s top-of-the-rotation successor.
But the primary reason they have been able to hold onto first place with only two dependable starting pitchers is because nobody in the AL East has managed to mount a challenge to them.
This may be a flawed Yankee team with serious needs, but the rest of the division appears to be far worse.
Taking it team-by-team:
Red Sox — At the start of the season, the Red Sox looked like the team to beat, having boldly addressed their big weakness — starting pitching — with the trade for Garrett Crochet and the signing of Walker Buehler.
But while Crochet has certainly done his part (2.02 ERA as Friday), he had only three wins to show for it. Meanwhile, Buehler was sidelined again with a shoulder issue, come-backing Lucas Giolito was awful in his first two starts, and last year’s No. 2 Tanner Houck has regressed mightily (6.10 ERA, 8 HR). In addition, the Red Sox hitters are third in the majors in strikeouts, first in runners left on, and they lead the majors in errors. Not the look of a World Series-caliber team.
Blue Jays — After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (who himself had only four homers as of Friday), there’s always something missing in Toronto. This year they rank 25th in the majors in runs, 28th in homers and had the fourth-most runners left on base. The Blue Jays do have three solid starting pitchers in Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt — but not much else behind them.
Orioles — One wonders if new Orioles owner David Rubenstein has come to realize what a fraud his GM, Mike Elias, is. When Elias — who was assistant to Jeff Luhnow, the so called “father of analytics” in Houston — was hired as Orioles GM in 2019, the first thing he did was fire all of their longtime scouts and minor league coaches and replace them with analytics geeks.
He then followed the same formula Luhnow used in Houston by subjecting Oriole fans to three-plus years of 100-loss tanking in order to procure a bunch of first-round draft picks. When the Orioles improved to a 101-win season in 2023, Elias was voted Major League Executive of the Year by his peers, even though the core of that Baltimore team had all been acquired by his predecessor, Dan Duquette.
In six years on the job, Elias has failed to draft or develop a single quality frontline starting pitcher. At the same time, his first-round draft picks, catcher Adley Rutschman, left fielder Heston Kjersted, and infielder Jordan Westburg have all greatly regressed, while the other, Colton Cowser, is out indefinitely with a broken thumb. They have the second-highest ERA in baseball this year, and now the Orioles are back in last place in the AL East — the reason being Elias and his analytics staff have done a terrible job of scouting.
Rays — For years, the Rays have managed to field contending teams through judicious under-the-radar trades by GM Erik Neander despite one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. But finally the constant turnover and dumping their highest salary players every year has caught up with them. There is no one in the Rays’ lineup that scares anyone, nor is there a bona fide No. 1 on their pitching staff. This is just a bad team living up to its 28th-ranked $90 million payroll.
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
The pathetic Pirates finally fired manager Derek Shelton last week with the team careening toward its sixth straight losing season under his direction. They replaced him with bench coach Don Kelly because, as owner Bob Nutting explained, they needed to “act with a sense of urgency and take the steps necessary to fix this now and get back on track as a team and organization.” But make no mistake: Replacing Shelton with Kelly, a nice guy whom all the players like, isn’t going to fix anything in Pittsburgh. Shelton is merely the fall guy for his boss, Ben Cherington, the general manager and architect of all these perennial losing seasons — and for Nutting himself, the No. 1 cheapskate owner in all of baseball. The Pirate payroll ranks 26th in baseball, and since buying control of the Pirates in 2007, the biggest free-agent contract Nutting ever paid out was three years, $39 million for Francisco Liriano in 2014. Nothing is ever going to change with the Pirates until or unless Nutting hires himself an astute, real, not-so-analytical baseball man with a vision to head up his baseball operations (this is just me but I would suggest he call in a Buck Showalter or Dan Jennings, a top assistant with Nationals, and get their thoughts) — but beyond that he needs to give his next GM the financial resources to compete. As things stand presently with the Pirates, it’s hard to see Paul Skenes agreeing to any long-term extension with them, and if Nutting isn’t willing to spend, he needs to sell the team for the good of baseball. … Baseball suffered a huge loss last Thursday with the passing of former White Sox and Tigers All-Star center fielder Chet Lemon. For the uninitiated, Lemon was beloved by all who knew him, as fine a person as he was a ballplayer, who hit .273 lifetime with 215 career homers and had more center field assists than Mickey Mantle, Kirby Puckett, Duke Snider and Curt Flood. RIP Chet. Sweetheart.
