AL East Preview

Less than 10 games into the season, and the AL East is already shaping up to be a competitive division, with the top 3 squads all tied, and the 4th team only 2 games back at this early point in the season.

The Pawtucket Pawsocks are owned by third season manager lsansoucy, and are looking to rebound from last season's "disappointing" finish, where they had to settle for the wild card, and were then bounced early from the playoffs. Consistency is the name of the game in Pawtucket, as the Socks are returning the majority of last season's lineup, only losing Phillip The Butcher as a type A free agent. Team leader Keith Gates said "we're looking to do some big stuff in the AL this year. We have great team chemistry, and we're a veteran club. You can almost count on one hand how many kids we have in this clubhouse. We really only made one big change to the roster last year, and this year we bought up one or two guys from the minors, but otherwise you're looking at the same faces that you saw at this time last year. And the year before. And that's not at all depressing."

With a pitching staff led by The Big Three (their name, not mine), Josias Dotel, Oswaldo Chavez, and Hal Harper, they're hoping to post solid numbers like last season. "We don't think anyone in our division can really keep up with us," Iowa native Harper said. Chavez and Dotel sat across from us in the locker room, grinning from ear to ear and giving us a big thumbs-up. "Their English is still a little rusty," Harper explained, "we just tell them not to cuss at the ump in Spanish, in case he took a few classes in high school."

After being run by "incompetent ownership" in season 1, the Pittsburgh Steelheads turned things around in season 2, and are hoping to continue building on that success in season 3. "I don't know what those guys were doing before we got here, but they weren't investing their money well. Prospect money? Scouting? Training? What the hell is that?!?" Pitt invested an additional $40M into their player budget in season 2, and have kept a similar number this season, boasting some great players, with great contracts. "Championships don't just happen, you have to go out and get the players to make it happen," mowbs69 told me as we sat in his plush office overlooking PNC Park. We went out and got Franco last season, and then signed him to a deal that will keep him here until he retires, or until we tire of him. Kobayashi wanted to leave, but we made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and now he'll be here until his legs fall off. We bought, er, signed Rijo during the offseason between year 1 and 2, and he hit 25 bombs for us last year." When I asked him about the decrease in training money, and how it might negatively affect some of his older players, mowbs69 laughed it off. "That's just an old wives tale, you don't actually believe in that crap, do you?"

The team seemed to be pretty content with their lineup from last season, as they were very quiet in the free agency market this offseason, and they did not lose any big players either. "I'll give him credit, he spent just enough extra money last year to take away the division title from us," said lsansoucy, "but I don't exactly agree with his methods, and I think we're going to take back that title this season. Those old guys can't play 162 games. They need time off. They're going to get injured. What's he going to do then? Spend more money?" Still led by Graham Herzner as their ace pitcher, his lifetime record of 27-12, with an ERA of only 3.64, and a salary of $9M this season, he might take a few of his dollars and shove them down the Pawtucket owner's throat when they play each other again this season. Clearly shaken by the owner's remarks when they faced off August 25th, the star gave up two runs and six hits in just two innings of work. "He can't talk about our team and ownership like that. He'd better hope he doesn't run in to any of Pittsburgh's faithful the next time they come here."

The Cleveland Storm are the proverbial question wrapped in an enigma. One season they finish 2nd in the division with a player salary budget of just $61M, the next year they add another $15M to the player budget and finish dead last in the division. This year they have $113M in their budget, and yet are currently only spending around $56M. "They only have 7 or 8 guys making more than $1M, only three of them are making more than $5M, and all of them suck," said Cleveland Herald reporter Larry Hughes. "I don't know if they're waiting for some big international prospect to come along, so they can move money into that section of the budget, or if they're just waiting to see how the crappy guys do, and then go make some trades for high-priced guy that can take over from there. It's really odd, I've never seen this before."

Led by all-star and silver slugger Fernando Rodriguez, the rest of the team feels like they can do anything when he is around. After missing 24 games in his first season, and playing 7 games so far this season, Rodriguez has 114 HR's, 284 RBI's, and is batting .295 with an amazing 1.012 OPS, easily besting the rest of his team. "The guy is just amazing," owner tribe_1 said via phone interview. "He's only going to get better too, just wait to see what he does in a year or two."

The most devastating news of the season so far, was when starting SS Brendan Patel was diagnosed with a torn ACL, and put on the 60-Day DL, where he will most likely stay for the majority of the season, if not all of it. "That was really tough on everyone in the clubhouse," said veteran catcher Al Morales. "Nobody really knew what to do when we saw him laying there on the infield. 'Is he going to be okay?' 'Where do we go from here?' A lot of questions that we didn't know the answers to." Can the team rebound from a hit like that? Will ownership decide what to do with their excess cash? Will Rodriguez hit 75 HR's in a losing cause this year?

One of the scariest offenses in all of the major leagues this season, the Norfolk Tides are hoping to continue their rise up the rankings, after finishing season 1 in 4th place, and then 3rd in season 2 in their division. Team owner njohnson78 said to us during an interview in his office that smelled of rich mahogany, "we felt like we were improving as the season went on last year, but we were still missing a piece or two. We had a lot of prospects in the minors, but you can't move everyone to the ML at the same time, and eventually you're going to have a dozen guys who are all up for arbitration or free agency at the same time, so we made a move." That "move" was the trade that sent Jesus Gonzales (37-14 career record in the minors), Javier Roque (75 career ML saves) and Benjamin Booker (43 out of 49 saves in AA in season 1) to Albuquerque, while bringing Will Nixon to Norfolk. Nixon immediately made the standard joke of "wow, I've never seen so many sea-men in one place at one time," as he entered the fine city of Norfolk, but was still welcomed by a large crowd of supporters. "We're all excited to have him here," said team captain Zip Cook. "We already had a solid offense, but bringing that guy in.....wow, we're going to cause some damage this year." Through his translator, Luis Villano said "we could have three guys hit 40 or more HR's this year, with me, Grant, and Will. It's a pretty lethal 1-2-3 punch."

The big question mark for the Tides is their pitching, which many experts think was not addressed sufficiently during the offseason. Virginian-Pilot reporter Rainer Sabin told us "their pitching staff was average at best last season, and it fluctuated almost weekly. And then what did they do during the offseason? They sign a 31-year-old who went 6-19 last season to be their 5th starter. Seriously. Does that fix your problem? Coleman is still their 'ace,' but he hasn't had a winning season here, ever. Velazquez has started well this year, and he finished above .500 his first season, but the guy is 30-years-old now, and not getting any younger. Considering how much money they're paying Cummings over the next few years, he should be an all-star and winning 20 games a year. Unless these guys can score 10 or more runs each game, they'll be lucky to finish 3rd in their division. Pitt and Pawtucket are the class of the division, mostly because their pitching doesn't completely suck."