In the final installment of my baseball preview, I will look at the most interesting division in baseball, the AL East. Sure, as a Red Sox fan I am biased, but when the World Champion comes out of your division more often than not, I can make that claim.
The Yankees are the team to beat in all of baseball, not the just the league or the division. Sure, they fell in the World Series last season to Arizona, but no team can win every year. However, the Yankees don't subscribe to that theory, as they believe that they should win every year. So in the offseason they went out and got Jason Giambi, the best free agent on the market, and bolstered their pitching staff with the return of David Wells. Wells will be the fifth starter-after being an All-Star two years ago in Toronto-behind Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and El Duque, so right off the bat the Yankees have from top to bottom the best starting rotation in the league. Add in stars like Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and the Yankees are the class of the major leagues. It doesn't matter that they have more resources than anyone else, or that they spend more money than anyone else, because they produce on the field and that is what counts in the end.
The Red Sox had a disappointing year in 2001 and a big rebound is possible. Unfortunately the probability of this rebound is hinged greatly upon the return to health of Pedro Martinez, which is always an iffy proposition. If Pedro is healthy, the Sox can challenge for the Wild Card or even the division title. If not, it will be another year of waiting for Boston fans. With that said, I think that the rest of the team is much improved over last year. Nomar is back from injury, Manny appears to be happy and healthy, Johnny Damon is a huge upgrade in center field, Trot Nixon is an emerging star and other spare parts like Tony Clark, Jason Varitek and Rickey Henderson should contribute. The Sox's season will follow the health and performance of Pedro.
The Blue Jays have been a middle of the pack franchise since 1994 and they should be the same this year. In the offseason the Blue Jays remade their front office, and acquired a new organizational strategy regarding player development, but these changes won't reap rewards for at least a season or two. The Jays have a good mixture of established stars and unproven rookies; however, this combination will not be enough to finish in the top two in the division. Carlos Delgado is the Jays' best hitte, and he must rebound from a disappointing 2001 season for the Jays to have any chance. Jose Cruz, Jr., Shannon Stewart and Raul Mondesi must all continue to improve their production as well. In the end their pitching will be their Achilles heel.
The bottom two teams in the division, the Devil Rays and the Orioles are two of the worst teams and franchises in all of baseball. Neither team has much chance of improving this year. The Rays have floundered since their inception and this year should be no different. They do not have a great wealth of talent on their roster, nor can they expect more to come soon from their minor league system and this season should be another example of why major league baseball should have never expanded to the Tampa area. The Orioles are near the bottom of the pack because of inept ownership and management and, unfortunately, it is the same people that run the team now that got the team in so much trouble. As recently as the mid-90s the Orioles were a playoff team, but now they are a joke.
Bonds away!
Barry Bonds continues to astound everyone who has ever studied the game of baseball. While his ridiculous home run pace that he set in the first four games this year will not last, it looks as if he is just as dialed in as last year and we all know what that resulted in.
The most amazing aspect of Bonds' success is that he is almost robotic in his perfection. Whenever a pitcher makes a mistake with a pitch, Bonds hits it out of the ballpark. In this day and age, many fans take for granted how hard it is to hit a baseball out of the park, seeing that even second basemen and weak hitting catchers do so with regularity. It is a tremendously hard task to even hit a baseball solidly, never mind out of the park, but Bonds seems to do that with every swing that he takes.
As fans, we are watching a true master, even an artist, at work. Bonds studies the game intently, knows his own swing inside and out and has even become more receptive to fan attention over the last year. Currently he is making a case for himself as not only the greatest player of his generation, which he should have locked up in a landslide by now, but as one of the five-greatest players of all time. I am hesitant to say that he is the best of all time at this point in his career, but if he continues his current production for a few more years it would not be sacrilege for Bonds' name to be heard in the same breath as Ruth, Williams, Cobb and some of the other greats of the game.
Hopefully, fans can all appreciate what is happening right now and also realize that it can not last forever. Barry will not hit 100 home runs this year, even if his current pace says that he will hit 200. Recently on espn.com there was a poll asking readers to guess how many homers Bonds would end up with this year. The winning tally was the range from 61-70, but even if Bonds doesn't approach these lofty numbers again, we should appreciate what is happening before our eyes.
West is where it's at
With the NBA season coming to a close in the next few weeks it looks as if four teams are the best in the league. Unfortunately, all of these teams are in the Western Conference, so we might as well stop watching the NBA Playoffs before the Finals even begin.
All season long, the Lakers, Kings, Spurs and Mavericks have battled for the top spot in the West. Right now these are the top four teams in the league and they have been taking turns beating up on each other in recent weeks. While their play near the end of the regular season may give a psychological edge to the victor, it means little in the overall scheme of the playoffs.
What does matter is how well the Lakers can pull together, because they are clearly the most talented and unstoppable team in the league. Shaq is coming off of wrist and foot injuries, and Kobe has been inconsistent at times this season, but if these two can play well together, it is lights out for everyone else.
The Mavs may have the best chance at beating the Lakers, just because they can trot out five All-Star caliber players every night, but even with this firepower they probably cannot match the best two players in the league.
Good teams play in the Eastern Conference, but I don't believe that any of them can play with the powers of the West in a seven game series. This balance of power changes often and, at some point, it will swing back towards an equilibrium, but right now the best teams knock each other off well before the first jump ball of the finals is thrown skyward.