After leading off with the Tampa Bay Rays, ranking the rest of the American League playoff teams sounds almost as appealing as grading everyone’s favorite household mishaps. But let’s be fair about it. The AL playoff teams aren’t all bad, like Statler and Waldorf might describe them on “The Muppets.” Most are just flawed. Thoroughly and deeply flawed.
The Rays are good. The New York Yankees would be, too, if Aaron Judge were functioning closer to 100%. The Boston Red Sox were really good in July and August. The Chicago White Sox make for a really good story. The Cleveland Guardians have been great — at making everyone wonder how they keep doing this. The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers are tied for first place in the AL West, with the division champion and final postseason spot to be decided Sunday. How can a champion of something be bad?
Before the mediocre regular season ends and the playoffs start things afresh, let’s make some lemonade with the AL postseason field.
The Rays (1) look so decent, you’d swear they played in the National League. Fortunately for Tampa Bay, the road to the World Series won’t go through the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Atlanta Braves or San Diego Padres.
Heading into the final scheduled day of the regular season, their starters have the third-lowest ERA. They’ve scored the 11th-most runs. They rank 10th-11th on defense. Teams that reach the World Series typically hit a good amount of home runs in the postseason, and they’re 22nd. It’s hard to score runs in the playoffs without the dinger.
The Yankees (2) won’t have the best of Judge available, but even if you take him out of their lineup entirely, New York still hit more homers than all but six teams. Cam Schlittler is the best starting pitcher. The Yankees also have home-field advantage against the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card round.
The Red Sox (3) went a combined 38-16 in July and August, mostly thanks to a 15-game winning streak July 3-July 22. They’re 49-58 over the rest of the season. They rank 22nd in runs scored and 26th in home runs. Their pitching was about as good as expected, considering left-hander Garrett Crochet missed about 25 starts and is still questionable to appear next week because of a sore shoulder.
After making the postseason for the eighth time in 11 seasons, the Guardians (4) have a first-round bye, and they can pitch Gavin Williams and Parker Messick in two of the first three ALDS games. They probably have the best defense in the AL after the Red Sox. But they struggle to score runs. After enduring his worst season since 2015, no doubt linked to a hamate injury, Jose Ramirez seems to be heating up. They’ll need it to win a series.
The White Sox (5) went from losing 100-plus in three straight seasons to making the playoffs, which had never been done before. They stumbled down the stretch and clearly don’t have the starting pitching required to get to the World Series or win it. But they do score runs and hit a lot of home runs doing it, so maybe they have one or two more surprises left.
The AL West winner (6) won’t have a winning record, the first team ever to make the playoffs in a full season with such a distinction. But the Astros or Rangers will host in the first round, and both franchises still hear echoes from recent-ish championship seasons. Houston is dangerous (to other AL teams) because they have AL MVP in-waiting Yordan Alvarez, and collectively lead the league in home runs.
