American League: Big Questions After a Quarter Season of Baseball

Though it seems like the season just began, we are over a quarter of the way done.   While we have a lot of answers as to how it seems teams are going to perform we are still left with a lot of big questions as we have 75 percent of the season left to play.

Will the Chicago White Sox Mount A Come Back?

It looks like they just might…

It was a little over a week ago that we were wondering whether or not the Chicago White Sox might be the Chicago Cubs of the AL division.  Now it appears that the White Sox may still reclaim their spot as one of the top teams in the AL Central Division.

Last year they battle with the Detroit Tigers up until the last game to see who would get the final spot in the playoffs.  After getting off to a terrible start the White Sox have now won four in a row, they sit just four games behind the division leaders, the Cleavland Indians, and are only two wins away from a .500 winning percentage.

However, White Sox fans and those looking to bet on the White Sox shouldn’t get too excited.  While they have improved their odds at an AL Penneent from 50/1 to 40/1 over at Bovada those are still terrible odds.  Not to mention the White Sox have a history of inconsistencies and it looks like they are not going to be changing this season.

What Happened to the Angels?

If you will recall the Los Angeles Angels opened the season with the third best odds of winning the World Series.  We pointed out the those odds may be a bit over-zealous as they were in a tough division, but we had no idea how truly overrated they were coming into this season until we looked back on this first quarter of baseball.

They currently sit at 15-27 in the win/loss department with a winning percentage hovering near the .300 mark.  They would be last place in their division, but they have the luxury of sharing their division with the most disappointing team in the MLB the Houston Astros.

How this happened to a team that was being touted as one of the best at the begging of the season is easy to pin point in perspective.  For one, the offseason acquisition of slugger Josh Hamilton has been underwhelming to say the least.  Hamilton is currently batting a terrible .214.  Also, Albert Pujols has not been playing like the human highlight reel he has played like in the past.  This means that the entire Angels offense has been relying completely on Mark Trumbo.

Regardless of where you place the blame, the front office is going to blame manager Mike Scioscia, who may be looking for a new job come the All Star Break if things do not turn around quick for the Angels.

Will We See The Red Sox and New York Yankees Battle for the AL Pennant?

This is still a hard question to answer given we are a quarter of the way through the season despite the narrative being preached by all the talking heads and baseball “experts” out there.

First let’s look at the odds.  The New York Yankees currently sit as the third team most likely to get the AL pennant with 8/1 odds.  The Boston Red Soxsit with the fourth best odds at 9/1.  That looks like the odds of seeing these old rivals go at for the Pennant seem pretty good.  However, just like last year, everyone is disregrading a very dangerous team that is very likely to disrupt this romantic narrative.

Right on the heels of both the Red Sox and the Yankees in terms of win/loss (only 2.5 games behind the Yankees) and tied as the fourth team most likely to take the AL Pennant (9/1 odds) is the Baltimore Orioles.  This team seemed to catch everyone by surprise last year and this year while everyone’s attention is on the notion of another Red Sox, Yankees battle for city superiority, the Orioles have been quietly making their move.  The Orioles won their first series with the Red Sox 2-1 and while they lost in their series with the Yankees they did get one big win in that series 5-3.   They also only lost their series with the Yankees by a total of six runs, showing they know how to hang with the best in the division.  In other words, this team is one hot streak away from claiming the spot on top of their division and disrupting all this Yankees-Red Sox talk.