ESPN Projections – AL East

Switching the order up a bit, as I don’t believe I’ve ever covered the most interesting division as the 3rd review.

Projection Overview:

AL East 1st Place – Fajita Eaters

Record: 172/140/24 – 0.548 Win%
CPL Record Rank: 7th
Roto Rankings: 9th
Strengths: BBs, HDs and ERA
Weaknesses: Runs, RBIs, Batting Average, OPS
(for the remaining 7 categories the Fajita Eaters are either projected to finish 8th or 9th)

Summary: And thus the Rem-Build is complete….? I mean, technically the Fajita Eaters won their division in 2020, but I’m not sure how satisfying that is for the Fajita Eaters considering the environment. And, as we all know, projections are inherently meaningless, so maybe the Fajita Eaters will wait until these predictions come to fruition before declaring a job well done. But, I’m presuming if you take your division, then that’s when a rebuild is officially over. So, premature congratulations to the Fajita Eaters in a rebuild well done. Now they can strive to becoming one of the good teams in the league as opposed to the shiniest turd in the AL East. And there’s no reason at this point to think that that won’t happen. Young, lots of potential, and key pieces still on their way, the Fajita Eaters have set themselves up to take center stage in the AL for quite a few years. 2020 will likely be looked at as the beginning of the Mexican themed era of dominance. But 2021 is looking to be the year where the Fajita Eaters solidify their position, and put questions of legitimacy to rest.

X-Factor – Alec Bohm: Similar to the Rollin’ Goats, the Fajita Eaters have a lineup of good, but not necessarily great players. Their rotation features so many question marks that it’s impossible to just pick one arm as an x-factor. By default then, turning to the bats, the question becomes who has the best chance of becoming a legitimate star. Now, there are certainly several options that deserve attention (the Seager’s, Happ, Schwarber, Riley, Taveras maybe?), but Bohm is the least established of the first 4, and has arguably more potential than the last 2. If Bohm can take a step forward, and surpass his already high expectations to step into super-stardom, it will go a long ways to establishing the Fajita Eaters for years to come, and give the franchise a much needed face around which to establish a marketing campaign. Winning goes a long way, but you gotta have that face to plaster on billboards and star in poorly funded Land O’Lakes commercials to know you’ve truly made it.

AL East 2nd Place – Tom Cat’s

Record: 161/152/23 – 0.513 Win%
CPL Record Rank: 10th
Roto Rankings: 10th
Strengths: SBs, W’s, L’s, SV’s, HD’s, ERA and WHIP
Weaknesses: Every remaining offensive category

Summary: I will save the 10,000 word essay and summarize it to “things were not supposed to go this way”. While the prestige of making it to two world series in a row (albeit losing both in painfully close matchups), is nice, the lack of division titles and overall shortness of the Tom Cat’s reign over the AL East is difficult to swallow. Now, it’s not necessarily the end, as the projected lead by the Fajita Eaters is definitely not insurmountable, but the harsh cold reality is that if this isn’t the last year of competitiveness, then next year most likely will be. I never intended to build a squad that had pitching as a strength, but here we are. Re-tooling on the fly hasn’t helped the offensive projections, and if half of the recently acquired youth movement vastly exceed their expectations there could still be some years of relevance left, but more likely than not at some point in the next 24 months, pride will have to be swallowed and some high quality players will be shipped off to the highest bidder (prob the Banocolates) rather than waste away on a bubble squad. All good things, etc, etc.

X-Factor – Chris Flexen/Kohei Arihara: I had no intention of drafting 2 of the higher ranked available pitchers with a rotation job in the 2021 draft, but felt that they had both managed to fall into my lap later than anticipated. Now, going into the 2021 season, both will likely play a pivotal role in 2021, and both have exceptionally poor ESPN projections. If one or both of these arms can turn in 150 IP of strong ratios and K’s, then that could propel an already strong batch of arms towards the top of the league. If they flounder, there are still other options with potential that can fill in, but the flexibility of having 3 options puts that much more value and potential on these particular names.
Honorable mentions because I’m the author and can do that: Omar Narvaez, Garrett Hampson, Jorge Polanco, Randy Arozarena, Raimel Tapia, Hunter Renfroe and Adam Duvall. All acquired in the last two years (except Renfroe), all have shown some level of potential, and all have fairly lukewarm 2021 projections. Time will tell.

AL East 3rd Place – Banocolates

Record: 151/162/23 – 0.484 Win%
CPL Record Rank: 11th
Roto Rankings: 11th
Strengths: Hits, Runs, RBIs, SBs, Batting Average, L’s
Weaknesses: HRs, OPS, IP, K, W, SV, ERA and WHIP

Summary: Somehow stuck in limbo of rationalizing that the 2021 season is one step closer to being a truly competitive team, but insisting that 2021 will also be a competitive season, the Banocolates are projected to miss out on the playoffs by a cool 20+ games, while still setting a franchise record for Win%, and projecting to establish themselves as an offensive force in the CPL. All things considered, I would think that would be right on schedule for establishing a dominant franchise after a gloriously brutal burn down and rebuild. But that’s just me. There are still some holes in the offense, but those will likely be fixed by the scores of prospects in the high minors that are yet still on their way to claim their fair share of credit for the Banocolates 2025 world series championship. And maybe by then the Banocolates are able to scrape together a competitive rotation. The alternative is that we have the first ever championship squad with a AAAA set of starters. Which would be pretty neat. 2021 is not likely to be the year of the Bano’s, but we should all be intimidated by the bats that are coming for 2022 and beyond.

X-Factor – Luis Robert: Nearly every single hitter on this squad could qualify as an x-factor candidate, but I went with Luis Robert as he has a strangely poor 2021 projection. A 25/25 season is nothing to sneeze at, but a .235/.747 season with only 128 hits just doesn’t mesh well with my internal expectations. The counting stats will be there for Robert (and damn near everyone else on the Banocolates roster), but if he’s able to up his rate stats, that would go a long ways in propping up this franchise to make a 2021 playoff run. That and stumbling into 2 or 3 more competent rotation arms. Even if exceeding these projections doesn’t end in a playoff appearance, gaining confidence in a potential MLB superstar will be a fine consolation prize to carry into 2022.

AL East 4th Place – G.I. Zo’s

Record: 66/250/20 – 0.225 Win%
CPL Record Rank: 16th
Roto Rankings: 16th
Strengths: IP, K, W, L
Weaknesses: Dead last in every other category, except HDs (2nd to last)

Summary: Not sure what needs to be said. Zo has a plan. Make the worst team imaginable, rebuild predominantly through the resulting high draft picks, pick the highest ceiling players (or furthest away players depending on how you look at it), and wait for them to develop. He is in year two of this strategy, and the result is exactly as you would expect. An absolutely terrible pro team, and a burgeoning farm that is heavily stocked from his last two drafts. Once the Pro Bowlers and Banocolates franchises start seeing their highly touted prospects graduate, the Zo’s will be racing to the top of the farm system rankings. Zo’s keeping an eye on his arms and stocking just enough to meet minimums. Otherwise I doubt he’s even setting his lineup everyday. Just keep drooling over your young Dominican’s Zo, and we’ll check back in a few years to see how the progress is going.

X-Factor – Jarred Kelenic: I don’t anticipate Zo being willing to trade off any SP this year, and there don’t appear to be a whole lot of promising RP to trade at the deadline (at least not from the ESPN projections). Kelenic is expected to be an absolute stud, and is set to start accruing the first stats of his Hall-of-Fame career any month now. The reason I picked him though, aside from being one of the only interesting hitters on the G.I. Zo’s opening day roster, is that I’m not sure how well Kelenic matches up with the Zo’s advertised timeline. It’s possible that Kelenic is so good that he’s worth keeping until the rest of the Zo teenage brigade makes it to The Show. But conceivably, Kelenic himself could be a trade chip before then. He would command a huge haul in return, and it would flip the Zo farm from top 4 to bonafide #1 overall by the end of the 2021 season, and potentially allow Zo to acquire pieces that fit more neatly into his timeline. Perhaps this is a dumb idea, as the Kelenic’s of the world are so rare, but he does seem to be a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the “Low’s” and the “No Go’s”. Could just be me though.