Still new to baseball. I know enough to recall that the Rockies and Athletics weren’t strong teams last season, probably aren’t strong this season. Would just going by the standings from last season be a good place to get a casual idea of which opponents will be better tests for the Blue Jays? Or any pitchers on weaker teams?
Any upcoming games you’re particularly curious about in that vein?
Thanks for this, makes sense! It’s very strange adjusting to this fluidity coming from hockey where a lot of teams stay good for years and some teams just exist to break my heart glares at the Canucks.
Had no idea about the difficulty of the division even but looking at the standings from last year, that is wild!
Appreciate the explanation and thoughts!
MyBrainHurts The AL East consists of the Blue Jays, who even on years where they have not been competitive in the division have been potentially good enough to win other divisions, the Yankees and Redsox, two very old teams from major US markets with shit tons of money, the Rays, who are possibly the most efficient team in all of professional sports when it comes to Wins/Dollar, and Baltimore, who are also sometimes a problem.
Most years, if you were to spread those teams out around the league, 4 out of 5 of them would make the playoffs. Meanwhile, there are divisions in baseball that if their leaders were in the AL East, they’d be in the basement.
It’s an absolutely crazy alignment.
When it comes to actually winning in the post season, differences between teams matters. That’s really where the good vs bad teams really stand out. During the course of the season, though? There are 162 game. Getting into the playoffs is very often just about being marginally better than whoever you’re playing all season long, not about being crazy dominant powerhouses.
Unless you’re the current Dodgers team, which has like a half-billion dollar payroll. They truly are juggernauts.