One Thought on Every American League Team

This is the time of year to go through Opening Day projected lineups ... and just let the mind wander.

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One of my favorite spring-training things to do is go through all 30 projected lineups and just kind of notice things. Sometimes, this leads to interesting insights; I so vividly remember doing this before the 2008 season and thinking to myself: “Holy cow, the Tampa Bay Rays are good RIGHT NOW!” And they were good; they went from last to the World Series. More often, it leads to nonsense thoughts, such as the multiple times I decided that José Berríos was going to win the Cy Young Award.

Either way, it’s a lot of fun for me. MLB.com has put up the projected lineups for 2026 Opening Day. I thought I’d run through it and give you one quick thought on each team, right off the top of my head. Today, we’ll do the American League. Friday, we’ll have the National League in The Clubhouse.

AL East

Blue Jays: I totally forgot that the Blue Jays signed Japanese superstar Kazuma Okamoto to play third base.

With the acquisition of Dylan Cease and the projected ascendance of Trey Yesavage, the Blue Jays look better to me than last year. And Okamoto, who averaged 33 homers per year for the Yomiuri Giants since 2018, could be a force. If I’m a Blue Jays fan, I’m SO excited about this season.

Orioles: It’s weird to see Pete Alonso in the middle of that lineup.

It was nice to see the Orioles go out and make a few moves this offseason rather than just hoping that every one of their prospects would turn into a star. I have a good feeling about Alonso in the cleanup spot, and have this powerful hope that it will somehow help Adley Rutschman find himself again.

Rays: This lineup feels so utterly old-school — but they’re the Rays so it will probably work out.

Think about what an 1980s-style baseball lineup would look like. You’d have a no-walk speedster at the top who gets thrown out trying to steal a lot. That’s Chandler Simpson. You’d have a No. 2 hitter who can “handle the bat.” That’s Yandy Diaz. You’d have a good-hitting, moderate power guy in the No. 3 spot. That’s Jonathan Aranda. You’d have your monster slugger at cleanup. That’s Junior Caminero. You’d have a veteran trying to recapture better days hitting fifth. That’s Cedric Mullins. And so on. Is the new Moneyball going back to before Moneyball?

Red Sox: Those top three starters look awfully, awfully good.

I don’t love what the Red Sox are doing with their lineup — it feels a lot like what the Orioles did, where they are counting on the kids — Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Caleb Durbin, probably Kristian Campbell — to all come through. It doesn’t usually work that way. The difference, though, is the Red Sox have potentially the best rotation in the league with Garret Crochet, Ranger Suarez, and Sonny Gray at the top.

Yankees: There’s danger everywhere, but I suspect it will all work out fine.

I could give you about 500 disaster scenarios for the Yankees. Aaron Judge gets hurt is obviously the most disastrous of them all, but Trent Grisham returning to 2024 form, Coby Bellinger declining at 30, Giancarlo Stanton dealing with some new health calamity, Gerrit Cole not returning to form after Tommy John surgery, Ben Rice not panning out the way they hope, all these and many more are not just possible but plausible. But you know what? The Yankees stockpile so much talent that, in the end, they never collapse and almost always make the playoffs, where they’ve got as good a shot as anybody.

AL Central

Guardians: Different verse, same as the first — José Ramirez better be great again.

I have no idea how they scored any runs last year, and I have no idea how they will score any runs this year. José is now the all-time leader in MVP Shares for a player who hasn’t won an MVP. I imagine he will have another year of continually jump-starting this dead battery offense, the Guardians will somehow make the playoffs again, and he’ll finish third in the MVP voting behind Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr.

Royals: The fences are in, it’s Vinnie time!

I know that we don’t think about home runs and RBI the way we used to, but Vinnie Pasquantino had a classic 1970s slugger season last year, with 32 home runs and 113 RBI. I mean, that’s RIGHT out of the Richie Zisk, Greg Luzinski, Lee May, Jeff Burroughs playbook. Kansas City brought in the fences, so maybe Pasquantino (Italian for “Little Dan Pasqua”*) can add a few a bit more to those totals.

*Vinnie is actually quite a bit larger than Dan Pasqua, but hey, Italian is a baffling language.

Tigers: When was the last time a team had two lefties at the top of their rotation as good as Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez?

Someone on Instagram, I can’t find it now, does a funny take on how the movie Moneyball and the book to a slightly lesser degree — both of which I absolutely love, by the way — somehow manages to tell the story of those awesome early 2000s A’s teams without mentioning, you know, Miguel Tejada and Tim Hudson and Barry Zito and, you know, their best players. It’s very funny to think that the A’s won because of Scott Hatteberg at first base and the acquisition of a 36-year-old David Justice. So it’s interesting to me that when I look back for a comp for Skubal and Valdez as lefties at the top of the rotation, the one that makes the most sense to me is Barry Zito and Mark Mulder around 2002-2003. Before that, maybe you go to the early 1990s Braves with Steve Avery and Tom Glavine? Maybe Tommy John teaming up with Ron Guidry in 1979? There really aren’t many good comparisons to this kind of awesomeness.

Twins: I’m kind of getting a luxury car theme with this team? Is that anything?

Batting second is Austin Martin. Batting fifth is Royce Lewis. Bailey Ober kind of sounds like a new luxury car brand out of the Netherlands. OK, I admit it isn’t much, but the Twins are not really giving me much to go on. They do have a pitcher named Zebby, which is fun.

White Sox: I’m utterly fascinated by their 3-4 hitters — Colson Montgomery and Munetaka Murakami.

I’ve written before that I pretty obsessively watched Colson Montgomery falter for two years with the Triple-A Charlotte Knights — he looked entirely and irredeemably overmatched, it was like watching that haunting final skate by Ilia Malinin over and over — and then he went up to the big leagues and bashed 21 homers in 71 games. I couldn’t be more hyped for him. And Murakami was Japan’s greatest slugger; but many scouts think he won’t be able to adjust to the harder-throwing pitchers in MLB. So I’m rooting hard for those scouts to be wrong.

AL West

Angels: Mike Trout back to center doesn’t sound like a bad idea. It sounds like an impossibly bad idea.

My old friend Bob Dutton, when he was covering the Kansas City Royals, used to have this little routine he’d do every time the team threw out some lame-brained idea. He’d hear the idea, pause for a minute, shrug his shoulders, and say, “It could work” — emphasizing the word “could” the way you might when saying, “I could win the lottery,” or “the Cleveland Browns could go to the Super Bowl,” or “Tom Brady could get better as an announcer.”*

*I threw in this little sideswipe not to pile on Tom Brady, who I hope is living his best life, but because I feel utterly gaslit by all the people who say Brady improved dramatically as an announcer in 2025. I didn’t see that AT ALL. I mean, not even a little bit. Every single thing he says is a cliché. Every single thing; I once tried to count all the clichés in a Tom Brady game, and I gave up with 12 minutes left in the first quarter. It was astonishing.

Anyway, I wish I could say the Mike Trout move to center “could work,” even in the most skeptical way imaginable. But I can’t. I honestly don’t think it can work. First of all, he will get hurt. Of course, he will get hurt. Trout’s line, “Honestly, I felt like when I was in center, it was a lot less on my body than the corners,” is wishful thinking of the highest order. We have 100-plus years of baseball history to tell us just how demanding playing center is on the body. But secondly, Mike Trout was fading as a defensive center fielder years ago. In 2019, when he was 27 and won the MVP, he was a well-below-average center fielder. What’s it going to look like now that he’s held together by duct tape and heart? Mike Trout is one of my favorite players ever. I desperately want to see him recapture his youth at age 34. This isn’t it, though.

Astros: Carlos Correa is their cleanup hitter? Huh?

Carlos Correa has had an odd career, right? I mean, when he won Rookie of the Year in 2015, he seemed like a generational talent, a future MVP, the best young shortstop in the game. I remember having a savage argument with an Astros fan friend about Correa vs. Francisco Lindor — I was very much on the Lindor side. I’m not bringing that up to declare victory in the argument (though, yeah, I obviously won the argument), but to say that at one point it WAS an argument, and I was very much in the minority with Lindor. Now, Correa is entering his 12th year, and he’s certainly had some terrific seasons — like 2021, when he led the league in bWAR — but you look back and see a guy who has never hit more than 26 home runs, never driven in 100 RBI, only once scored 100 runs, has not played 150 games in a season since 2016 and has not stolen a single base since 2019. He’s back with the Astros, now at third base, now hitting cleanup, and I don’t know, it just seems odd.

Athletics: Am I wrong or does this lineup suddenly look shockingly good?

The Sacramento A’s owner John Fisher does not deserve anything good, but his Oakland A’s front office just stubbornly refuses to be mediocre. I’m looking at this lineup — with Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Tyler Sodestrom, Jacob Wilson and Shea Langeliers among others — and I can’t help but think: “Yikes, they’re going to score a bunch of runs.” The pitching looks shaky, sure, but I wouldn’t sleep on these A’s.

Mariners: Please, please, please, let them get what they want this time.

What the Mariners need is a magical season where everything goes right. After almost 50 years in the desert, this team has all the pieces to win a World Series. But their pitching could be dominant, if they stay healthy. Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez could finish 1-2 (or 2-1) in the MVP voting, if they play at their best. Brendan Donovan, Josh Naylor, and J.P. Crawford could all be those valuable veterans who push the team over the top. It’s all happening! Unless, you know, it doesn’t happen. Please. This time.

Rangers: Wyatt Langford is my breakout AL MVP candidate this year.

The Rangers as a team feel disjointed to me; I’m not really sure what to make of their mix of injury-prone stars (Corey Seager, Jacob deGrom) and solid vets (Brandon Nimmo, Nathan Eovaldi), and their collection of Joshes (Jung, Smith). But I have a good feeling about Wyatt Langford breaking out. You could argue he broke out in 2025 with a 5.0 combo-WAR season, but I see bigger things. He hits with power, he steals bases, he plays Gold Glove outfield defense.