Last, but not least, in the AL East are the Toronto Blue Jays who have been regularly competitive but not quite enough to see the playoffs since their back-to-back World Series wins in '92 and '93.
Offensively the Blue Jays aren't particularly promising with rightfielder Alexis Rios - newly signed to an extension which will keep him north of the border until 2014 - as the only real plus offensive player.
Vernon Wells remains in centerfield after a dreadful 2007 and should bounce back. Most of his downturn last year was a huge spike in his infield fly rate and a sharp drop in HR per flyball, neither of which should be indicative of a change in talent level.
Matt Stairs and Shannon Stewart will platoon in leftfield though Steward has been getting all the starts so far due to a hip flexor injury to Stairs. It is likely Stairs will be placed on the DL for it though, since the move can be made retroactive to 23rd March, he would be eligible to come back from Tuesday anyway.
Lyle Overbay at first is another candidate for a bounceback from a horrible 2007 season. A large part of his poor season was a low average on balls in play (pretty much the reverse of his excellent 2006 season) and he should hope to find some middle ground this year.
Aaron Hill returns at second but with a new double play partner in David Eckstein at short.
Eckstein is a below average defender and hitter at short but bad as he is he is still a massive upgrade on offense over John McDonald who played there last year. Defensively though he's a big hit.
Along with Eckstein the Jays brought Scott Rolen on board, but with him out to injury (big surprise!) Marco Scutaro will see the bulk of the playing time for now until Rolen returns, probably towards the end of this month or early May.
Like Eckstein, Rolen has more name recognition than actual ability these days though he, at least, still has a decent glove - though nothing like he used to.
Gregg Zaun returns at catcher backed up by Rob Barajas and Frank Thomas will delay retirement for another year at DH.
The bench consists of Barajas, McDonald as a utility infield defensive replacement, rookie Buck Coats and whichever of Stewart and Stairs aren't starting.
Judged against their peers in the East this is a very weak lineup but, in truth, it's only a little below average for the league as a whole much of which is made up by the excellence of their defense (especially when McDonald subs in for Eckstein).
The strength of that defense may make a nice complement to their pitching staff as well.
Roy Halladay, of course, returns as the staff ace with A.J. Burnett hoping to staff healthy enough to give a great 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation.
Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum fill the third and fourth spots now with a full season under their belts.
McGowan in particular has the promise of joining Halladay and Burnett in making the rotation extremely strong and deep whilst Marcum could but will probably simply be good in his first full year of starting after being used in both the bullpen and rotation last year.
Jesse Litsch as the fifth starter is also above average making this possibly the best rotation in the AL. The key will be getting enough innings from these guys but then the bullpen is reasonably deep in talent too.
B.J. Ryan will close (insert obligatory when healthy comment here), with Jeremy Accardo, Jason Frasor and Scott Downs sharing setup duty.
The Brians - Tallett and Wolfe - are joined in middle relief by Brandon League all of whom are respectable.
With Ryan still on the DL, Accardo has taken his spot as the closer and Randy Wells fills in in the bullpen for now but will likely be sent back to the minors once Ryan is reactivated, possibly as soon as next week.
If Ryan comes back and stays healthy and the young guns continue to progress this pitching staff is going to do very well, even against the powerhouse offenses in their division.
Rough estimates for offense: 770 runs scored +/-39 and defense: 710 runs allowed +/-36.
Pythag W-L based on those estimates would be:
High: 96-66
Medium: 88-74
Low: 79-83
Hmm, so Toronto join Boston and Tampa with almost identical record projections (though in a very different way, especially from the Sox).
Next up: AL East predictions
