With Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays, It's Anyone's Game in the AL East

A tight race in the American League East it will be indeed. 

With the new found younger, and deeper starting rotation the New York Yankees will exceed their 89 win season by a wide margin. The reasons for that will be all 5 spots in the rotation being rejuvenated and revamped.  Starting with C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.  A.J. with his new-found confidence in hisrepertoire the reinventing is over and he will continue his dominance and finally reach 30 starts consistently. 

Sabathia is already a CY Young award winner in the American League so has he proven himself? Nope. New York pressure in the post season will certainly destroy him or pump him up.  Otherwise his inning eating arm can and will give a team a chance for a run in the standings. 

Onto Chien-Ming Wang (unmentioned) with his ability to keep his pitch count low and now with confidence with a slider he will most likely win 19 games again in 2009 his ankle will have no affect with all the rest and rehab he has gotten since June.

Three powerhouses in the rotation now compared to a very questioned staff last year will most likely give 11 more wins to add onto the appalling 89 wins giving a good looking 100 win season.

The 100 wins are more within reach as well with Mark Teixeira playing gold-glove material at first base and a bigger upgrade over Abreu with the "stick". Next is Cano, worry free pressure will not be on him as much and his simplified swing will make this to be number 8 hitter a number 3 or 5 hitter potential (according to Kevin Long the hitting coach).

Matsui will be productive his knees might bother him but being DH will give him a relaxing role allowing him room to contribute and build another 100 RBI season with many of those being clutch. 

Posada, questionable, can he have the same amazing throwing arm he has had? NO!. Age and his injury will hamper that for one more year or the rest of his career.  Slim chances are with what little pride baseball players have these days, Posada has a lot of it so maybe during summer monthshis arm will be the Posada of old.

Many questions revolve around center field. I say don't worry because they don't necessarily need a productive bat from the position.  Gardner and Melkey are very young leaving room for improvement with the bat, but already have shown many signs of much clutch hitting to come.  Their defense is enough to stabilize the center field showing gold glove caliber defense including Melkeys "cannon" arm. 

With a brand new look this team will be tested by only the Red Sox. Look for the Yankees to finish with at least 99 wins. 100+ if Pettitte miraculously rejoins, and they many promising youngsters in the minors such as Melancon, Brackman, Sanchez, and a personal favorite of mine is the ambidextrouspitcher Pat Venditte, whom is still a few years away from his debut.

Onto the Red Sox. Its been an off-season of "ok's". By signing injury plagued players Brad Penny and John Smoltz.  Including an untested under pressure and aging Takashi Saito. The Red Sox already have an extremely promising roster set so all they are looking for with Smoltz, Penny, and Saito is low-risk, big reward. 

David Ortiz, and Mike Lowell will be productive and scary again. Look for a possible combined 200-240 RBI's from them alone.  Look for Pedroia to slap hits all-over again and continue to get on-base and steal hits away with his gold-glove play. And look for Youklis to establish another potential MVP campaign. This production will give their deep pitching staff enough for probably a 20 game winner. 

My guess would be Jon Lester since he is very consistent and can get the strikeout or ground ball when he needs it. Josh Beckett is overrated he is like J.D. Drew, refuses to play with a tiny ailment. But if Beckett goes down Smoltz and Penny have the ability to step it up that's if their injuries don't comeback and haunt them as well. 

Their is not much to cover with the Red Sox, its just a matter of keeping key players such as Beckett and Drew on the field and if Ortiz and Lowell wont have the same problems again, and if Varitek does not sign - it will put the pitching staff in jeopardy because Varitek is undoubtedly the smartest catcher in baseball these days (a good season of a .250 average would be a bonus though). 

Why question his brains over his batting ability? The 2006 fall would be an answer to that, when 'Tek went down so did the 'Sox. Look for a wild card finish if Varitek doesn't return about 97 wins, if he does look for a close finish of both the Yankees and Red Sox finishing the season with probably both winning 100 games, who wins the East? Something I refuse to predict.

Last, the Tampa Bay Rays were nothing more then a clone of the Rockies, expect no such repeat unless David Price is able to be more then a rookie phenom, Scott Kazmir to carry the rest of the rotation, with Garza being at least average.

For hitting its important that B.J. Upton improves over his triple crown stats from 2008, and for Evan Longoria to be a bit more clutch and same for Carlos Pena who needs to still prove his 2007 was no fluke since this team does not get on-base enough to drive any runs in.