AL Spoilers
By Joe Nelson
These teams have been huge disappointments this season but despite making some trades before the deadline these are teams that seem to be playing well right now. Down the stretch these teams will serve as tough opponents and even spoilers, and will likely sit in the underdog role more often than not. Backing these clubs could be beneficial in the coming weeks and there could be significant value in many situations. Although these teams are not playing for the playoffs, the influx of young players should bring strong efforts and they could be teams that play .500 or better the rest of the way despite being losing teams for the season.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays have out-scored opponents by 40 runs this season yet are sitting five games below .500 and 16 games out of the division lead. Such is life in the AL East and Toronto will continue to be a decent team that ends up with a worse record than it deserves due to playing such a tough schedule. The Blue Jays are 32-21 against the rest of the AL but just 15-27 against the AL East which features three playoff contenders.
Statistically the Blue Jays have the resume of a team with a much stronger record. Toronto is 10th in baseball in runs scored per game and fifth in baseball in team batting average. Toronto lacks clear sluggers in the lineup but the Jays have hit 135 home runs this season, ranking 7th in all of baseball. With Toronto keeping ace Roy Halladay they have one of the few true #1 starters in baseball and rookie starter Ricky Romero has had a great year and should be a Rookie of the Year finalist. Toronto ranks 10th in baseball in ERA and 5th in quality starts. The bullpen has had some rough patches but overall has had decent results. Toronto also has committed the fewest errors in baseball, yet this is a losing team.
Aside from a three-game set with the Orioles in late September the Blue Jays will only play playoff contenders the rest of the season so they will play an intricate role in the playoff race. Aside from series with the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays, the Blue Jays will play Seattle, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Texas, and Detroit, leaving a brutal finish to the season that will likely cause their record to fall even further. That said, Toronto still has a quality team and this will be a tough match-up for any of those contending squads.
Oakland Athletics
The A’s were a trendy pick to compete in the AL West this season as they signed several bigger-name, but past their prime batters in the off-season and were featuring young but promising pitching. The season has not gone as expected for the A’s as the pitching staff dealt with injuries and perhaps took a bit longer to develop than hoped at the big league level. The A’s lineup has struggled all season but finally rid of costly veterans like Matt Holliday and Jason Giambi, young players are stepping up to produce.
Despite featuring one of the worst team batting averages in baseball, a number deflated by playing home games in a great pitcher’s park, the A’s have been in the middle of the pack for scoring runs. Oakland has scored 4.6 runs per game and in great contrast to A’s teams of the past this is one of the top base stealing teams in the AL. Oakland’s pitching has not been great but the young rotation is starting to gel as Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, and Vin Mazzaro have come a long ways since this spring. Dallas Braden recently hit the DL but he has had a fine season and veteran Justin Duchscherer should be back in action soon. Andrew Bailey has also emerged as a solid closer for the A’s making this a formidable pitching staff.
Since the All Star Break the A’s are 14-14 despite playing though arguably the toughest scheduling stretch of the season. Oakland faced consecutive series against the Angels, Twins, Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Rangers, and yet managed to compete. The A’s are in the midst of a long home stand that could provide some excellent underdog situations as they will be facing top teams and in September the schedule will soften a bit, and Oakland should be a team that finishes well and provides some momentum for the young team heading into next season.
Cleveland Indians
Cleveland is actually on a 12-7 run and the offense has produced the numbers that many expected to see all season. Cleveland has scored over 5.7 runs per game in that span despite losing several key players in trades as Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko and Ben Francisco have all been dealt, not to mention pitchers Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano. The current Indians lineup still features several proven young hitters that were with the team for the playoff run two years ago and has now integrated some promising young talent. With the AL Central race still up in the air, Cleveland could be a spoiler team as they may benefit from addition by subtraction after underachieving most of the season.
The offense is scoring over five runs per game for the season ranking sixth in baseball, so pitching has been the key problem. Cleveland owns the worst team ERA in baseball, and quality starts have been very tough to come by particularly now without its two most reliable starters. No current Cleveland pitcher has topped 90 innings on the season and no pitcher has more than six wins. Still, there have been some promising results. Jeremy Sowers and Aaron Laffey have both been up and down in the past few years with the Indians and both appear much more comfortable at this juncture, looking like legitimate big league pitchers and producing better results. Justin Masterson was acquired from Boston and he has been effective so far. Fausto Carmona has not recaptured his past form, but he has had a few encouraging results and still has tremendous potential on any given night.
18 of the last 25 games for Cleveland will be at home so they will have the opportunity to finish the season strong. Cleveland will play Minnesota nine times, Detroit six times, and Chicago three times before the season ends so they will play a pivotal role in deciding the division champion in a race that the current leading Tigers have not been able to pull away from. The Indians also will play two series each with Kansas City and Baltimore and the Orioles are the only remaining AL East team on the schedule so Cleveland’s record can partially be blamed on playing the best teams early in the year. Cleveland is 16 games below .500 but could actually climb significantly closer to the even water mark in the final weeks despite looking like a worse team on paper.
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