Procrastinating Prognostication: American League

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While a week has passed, I can't honestly say I am in a different frame of mind with my projections then I was a week or two ago.

In fact, teams have simply cemented what I already thought of them in most cases, with the exception of the Marlins, whom I still don't trust.

This will be brief, but hopefully it gets the ball rolling on further posts.

American League East

1. Toronto Blue Jays

Last year I had the Jays taking second and winning the wild card, this year I have them winning what is easily the toughest division in baseball, and arguably North American sports.

The Jays were five games below .500 before Cito Gaston arrived and ended the season six games above. That's an 11-game turnaround in a little over half the season.

Projecting a 90-win season out of the Jays is easy, projecting 95 games will rely on a decent amount of luck.

Offensively the Jays are deep, Travis Snider and Adam Lind fill holes that the team had for more than half of last year, Vernon Wells and Scott Rolen need to stay healthy, and Aaron Hill will provide a marked improvement over the Eckstein/McDonald mess that the Jays went with for much of last year.

Gaston pushes a more aggressive style at the plate which certainly helped the Jays in the second half of last year.

What do the Jays need? Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum aren't coming back, that's the end of that. Why not kick the tires of Pedro Martinez?

2. Boston Red Sox

I simply cannot deny it, the depth of the Sox bullpen and rotation makes them a fierce opponent whom no one would want to face.

Offensively, the Sox are deep but are aging and have some major holes (see Varitek and Lowrie). The Sox shouldn't expect Pedroia and Youkilis to repeat 2008, but they will be spectacular hitters no matter what.

What is scary about this Sox team is the fact that this could quite possibly be the club's worst team over the next decade.

What the Sox Need?Forget tradition, forget being faithful, Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield should no longer be taking on vital roles within this organization. The Sox have fine replacements for both players, and they should be using them.

3. Tampa Bay Rays - On paper this team is as good as any, where they have offensive weaknesses, they have defensive gems. The club has a deep rotation and bullpen with plenty of backups within the system.

I am cautious in not putting the Rays in second and fighting for the wild card, considering all that went wrong for this club in 2008, but I simply prefer the Jays and Sox over the course of 162 games.

Despite ranking third, I feel Tampa Bay is the best team in baseball and will make it very close, with the potential at winning the division if the Jays and Sox hit some roadblocks.

What the Rays need? Not much really. If anything they need to make some organization decisions like the one they made with Jason Hammel.

Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus recently proposed a situation where the Rays move Scott Kazmir to the Indians for Carlos Santana, this is the sort of active move I would expect the Rays to make.

4. New York Yankees

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