MLB Notebook: AL East again dominated by Sox, Yanks as others rebuild; Hot Stove, like in-season action, moves too slow

Last season, the American League East had two teams (Red Sox and Yankees) qualify for the playoffs and three others (Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays) finish with losing records.

In retrospect, that was a preview of coming attractions.

Don’t look now, but suddenly, it’s the early 2000s again in the division: the Yankees and Red Sox are the class of the group, and the other three teams are in various stages of teardowns.

It wasn’t always this way. After the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, the East underwent something of a sea change.

From 1998 through 2007, covering 10 seasons, some combination of the Red Sox and Yankees finished 1-2 in the East a stunning nine times. Only 2006, when the Yankees finished first and Toronto finished second, did the two rivals fail to occupy the top two spots in the division.

For eight of those seasons, the Yankees won the division and the Red Sox second, with the Red Sox qualifying for the wild card spot six times. In 2007, when the Red Sox won their second World Series in the span of four seasons, the Yankees finished second and captured the wild card entry.

Put another way, the Red Sox and Yankees nailed down 19 of the 20 top two spots in that decade.

Then, in 2008, the power began to shift in the division. From 2008 through 2016, the Red Sox and Yankees only took the top two spots once: in 2009, when the Yankees won the division (and subsequently, the World Series for the first time since 2000) while the Red Sox won the wild card and were summarily swept by the Angels in the wild card round.

Not until this past season – when the Red Sox won the division and the Yankees finished second in one of (now) two available wild card slots – did the teams resume their traditional co-dominance of the division.

In between, the other three teams each tasted some success:

* Tampa Bay won the division in 2008 and 2010 and claimed wild card spots in 2011 and 2013.

* Baltimore, after a prolonged absence from the post-season, grabbed a wild card spot in 2012 and won the division outright in 2-14.

* Toronto, which had the longest playoff drought in the American League, having not made the post-season since 1993, won the division in 2015, and while finishing third in the East 2016, still qualified for the wild card and made it all the way to the ALCS before being bounced.

But the 2017 season seemed like old times, with the Sox winning the division, just barely holding off the Yankees, wild card entrants, by a two-game margin. It now feels like that the Yankees and Red Sox can nail down the top two spots in the East for at least a a few years.

The Yankees seem poised to go on an extended run, with a powerful nucleus that includes Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez, to say nothing of a farm system brimming with fine young talent.

And while the Red Sox have unquestionably slipped behind the Yankees in terms of personnel, their core position player group (Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers) combined with a strong rotation (Chris Sale, David Price, Drew Pomeranz) should make them wild-card contenders for the next few years.

For the rest, it’s time to rebuild and reload.

The Rays are ready to trade off anyone who’s not nailed down, including Evan Longoria, Chris Archer, Kevin Kiermaier,  and Alex Colome.   Tampa has experienced four consecutive losing seasons, and with no stadium solution on the horizon, seems doomed to repeat that cycle. At this point, the thinking seems to be: why not start over?

Baltimore, similarly, is in trouble. It’s two most valuable and marketable stars – closer Zach Britton and third baseman Manny Machado – are eligible for free agency after 2018 and the O’s are already aggressively shopping Machado.  A trade is expected soon, and Britton, who was nearly dealt off at the trade deadline last July, could follow soon after – if not this winter, then by mid-season.

The Orioles are in desperate need of starting pitching and must re-stock a minor league system which is perilously thin.

Finally, there’s the Blue Jays, for whom a rebuild is a trickier proposition. Unlike the Rays, who qualified for the post-season four times in a six-year span , or the Orioles, who  had three playoff appearances in four seasons, the Jays’ window was open briefly.

They reached the playoffs twice (in 2015 as division champs and again in 2016 as the second wild card) and made it to the ALCS both times, but didn’t win a pennant on either trip. In a market the size of Toronto – which was the first MLB franchise to draw four million fans in a season – the expectations are greater.

Worse, by trading for Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki and Price, the Jays essentially emptied their inventory of top prospects and are only now restocking the system.

Throw in the uncertainty over ownership – Rogers Communications is said to be contemplating putting the ballclub up for sale – and you have a mess. The Jays seem stuck in middle gear – listening to offers on free-agent-to-be Donaldson while acting aggressively on some free agents.

But whatever way they go, it’s hard to envision them cracking the glass ceiling in the AL East and competing with the Sox or Yankees anytime soon.

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Baseball has been rightly criticized for its slow pace on the field, as games routinely drift long past the three-hour mark – despite efforts by the commissioner to get hitters into the batter’s box quicker, have pitchers ready to deliver the ball sooner and other measures.

The sometimes glacial pace of game has alienated younger fans and resulted in declining ratings for the sport’s signature events. The recent World Series between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles, while thrilling and featuring plenty of offense, also had one game last five hours and 17 minutes.

That’s bad enough. But now, baseball’s slow pace has infiltrated its off-season, too.  The off-season is now mirroring the product on the field: too many delays, long stretches where nothing at all takes place, and a feeling that it will never end.

This year, the inactivity was blamed on Shohei Ohtani and Stanton. And sure, given the number of teams invested in the pursuit of one or the other (or both, in some cases) put other matters on hold for a number of weeks.

Both executives and agents noted that some discussions taking place at the winter meetings last week would have, in the past, been undertaken in mid-November. So in that sense, the industry is about three-to-four weeks behind its normal off-season schedule.

But while Ohtani and Stanton are the easy-to-blame “culprits’’ this time around, the fact remains that baseball’s off-season has been downshifting for some time.

Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski noted last week that, not long ago, most teams were effectively done with roster construction by Christmas. Then, after a week in which the game nearly shut down for the holidays, January would be limited to some depth signings and tweaking of the roster.

No longer. Now, major moves are made after Jan. 1. Last years, there were more than 50 unsigned major leaguers in mid-January and this year promises to be no different.

That, too, can’t be good for the game. Some MLB officially undoubtedly like the fact the game remains in the news for long stretches of the winter, helping to bolster ticket sales and keep fans engaged all off-season.

But as is the case when the games themselves drift past the four-hour mark, there comes a point of declining interest for even the most invested fan of the sport. With all the other competition for the sports fan’s interest, it’s difficult to sustain attention for several months in the off-season. Eventually, there comes a point of diminishing returns.

No other sports moves so slowly with free agency. In the NHL, the bulk of free agency signings come July 1-2, with a smatter of others in the days that follow. By mid-July, two weeks into free agency, the vast majority of transactions are done.

The NFL is similar. When free agency begins, it’s heralded by a laundry list of first-day signings. Some take a bit longer, but again, the overwhelming number of free agent deals is shoe-horned into a period of a couple of weeks in March.

Only the NBA, with its incessant player drama, takes longer, with stars visiting interested cities, serving as recruiting trips. And yet, even with those, the NBA concludes its business in a far shorter window than baseball.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Every organization has months and months to prepare for the upcoming free agent class. There is plenty of time to analyze data, collect scouting reports and develop a plan for the off-season. And yet, every late fall, teams act as though they haven’t been given a list of available players until Thanksgiving.

It’s not necessary. And like the games themselves, the pace at which the personnel movement proceeds is harmful to the sport itself.
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Suddenly, the Los Angeles Angels look like they mean business.

Soon after the season ended, they extended outfielder Justin Upton, whom they got during the season and who had an opt-out in his contract. Next, they were the surprise winners of the Ohtani Sweeptakes. In this past week, they re-made their infield, obtaining second baseman Ian Kinsler in a trade with Detroit and signed free agent shortstop Zack Cozart, with the intention of moving him to third base.

Finally, it seems, it’s dawned on Angels ownership that perhaps it might be a good idea to surround the game’s best player, Mike Trout, with some actual talent. Trout can become a free agent after 2020, and it makes sense for the Angels to build around him and attempt to win a title or two before he can leave.

It won’t be easy in the AL West, where the world champion Houston Astros reside and are positioned to compete for more rings in the next few years. The Texas Rangers, traditional contenders, are committed to improvement and the Seattle Mariners aren’t far off. Only the perennially rebuilding Oakland A’s are not threats.

There’s more work to be done still for the Angels. They could use a high-end starter (Jake Arrieta? Yu Darvish?) and a top closer to anchor the back of the bullpen. But given the aggressiveness with which they’ve acted so far, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see the Angels continue to reload.