2019 MLB Divisional Predictions: American League

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Baseball season is officially back. Well, it’s been back for a few weeks now, but the series in Japan was on so early in the morning that many of us, myself included, missed most of it. But the beautiful, meticulous, thinking-man’s sport that we call baseball is back nonetheless, and that means it’s time for predictions. These well thought out, discussed, studied decisions of mine, which will, in time, go down in flames, are something I enjoy doing each year, despite relatively little success.

I understand that the season has already started, and you’re probably thinking, “Tyler, why weren’t these out prior to the start of the season?” And in full transparency, I don’t have a great answer for you. Sometimes life gets murky, I guess. So, while the season is officially two games in for most, and more for the Mariners, I’d like to believe that a 162 game season leads to the ability to bring these predictions just a few days after Opening Day, and still hold some sort of credibility. That, or you can all be mad at me. That works too.

I’ve used the word already today, and it’s going to be the Sesame Street style sponsored word of the day: transparency. I believe all journalists should operate under that word, and I bring you that word today in honesty more than in journalistic integrity. I hate this year’s predictions. Not because I feel as if I don’t know what I’m talking about (because any sports fan worth their weight would convince you that their ideas are correct) but because there are multiple divisions in which two, three or, in the case of the NL East, four teams could win. It’ll be difficult to go undefeated in a sense this season. But let’s give it a shot. We’ll break things down into a two-part series. Today, as you can see by the headline, we’ll take a look at the American League.