2008 mlb season preview: a.l. east

predicted order of finish:

boston red sox 100-62
tampa bay rays 82-80
new york yankees 81-81
toronto blue jays 80-82
baltimore orioles 61-101

it's kind of weird how the red sox went from the beloved "idiots" everyone in america was rooting for in 2004 to a team that's now mostly loathed by anyone outside of their "nation." i think their hitting and pitching will be far superior to anyone else in this division and they'll win it again for the second year in a row. hopefully some other team will beat them in the playoffs or else we'll have to deal with even more insufferable red sox fans. the tampa bay rays have been predicted by baseball prospectus to win 88 games this year, an improvement of 22 wins over last season. to put this in some perspective, the rays have not won more than 70 games in any year of their existence. i'll be honest here: i'd really like to see this. i want to see the rays succeed. but i do have a hard time believing this. their hitting will be really good, but what about their pitching (especially their bullpen)? however, i do think they're better than both the yankees and blue jays, and i do think joe maddon is a good manager. hopefully my prediction doesn't look ridiculous in september. the yankees have too much talent to not win at least 80 games, and new manager joe girardi doesn't seem like a guy that's going to get in the way of things. it will be the same formula as the past six years, good hitting, average pitching, mariano rivera at the end of games. however, i have them missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993. the blue jays have enough pitching and hitting talent, but manager john gibbons seems to rub some of his guys the wrong way. i could see him being anything from manager of the year to fired by july 1st. my money is on the latter. what can i say about the baltimore orioles? this is a really young team, which is usually viewed as a good thing, but they're going to struggle a lot this year. they don't have much in the way of hitting, and their starting pitching will be pretty lousy, too. i'll give new GM andy macphail some credit-- he's trying to rebuild the farm system, depleted after years of ill-advised moves under the peter angelos regime. but this team is at least two years away from even being respectable again, let alone competitive.