Yankees and Angels have reshaped the baseball landscape

The old order endeth

The AL B-East has been the most successful division in baseball for the last 25 years. And it’s not unusual for the power to shift within the division while the East itself remains preeminent.

That is now ending.

And that’s because two teams entered the off-season thinking of a Yankees style rebuild. Both Toronto and Baltimore can see that the Yankees and Red Sox are better teams, at least on paper.

But both had thoughts of keeping enough talent to be exciting but not serious contenders in 2018. The dream, of course, was to catch lightning in a bottle and reward the fans with an unexpected playoff run.

When the Yankees signed Stanton, they seem to have squashed those dreams.

Now, it looks more likely that the Orioles will trade Manny Machado, against recent precedent. And the Blue Jays are thinking of moving Josh Donaldson. At the very least, neither is making any moves of significance. Both seem like they are preparing for failure, instead of success.

Even Tampa, which came into the hot stove season already committed to decreasing payroll, might be more motivated to move Evan Longoria and Chris Archer now that there seem to be two unbeatable teams in the division. Those moves might make the AL East a two-team division for the first time since the early 2000’s.

21 AL teams have won Wild Card spots since 2003; the AL East has claimed fourteen of those spots and four of the last six. That kind of top to bottom dominance looks less likely in the foreseeable future.

Of course, Boston and New York are not without possible deleterious effects from the Stanton signing.