Ever since the dawn of time, all baseball fans know that the AL East is the toughest division in baseball. All fans of the AL East teams know that at the beginning of the season, any one of these 5 teams have a chance to end out on top. In fact, in the past 7 years the wild card team has been from the AL East.  Currently, the top 4 AL East teams are within 2.5 games with each other. Talk about a little too close for comfort. So why have these 5 teams been so good that it makes this division arguably the toughest in sports?

Well it all starts with the under-dog Tampa Bay Rays, who have really been a force over the last 6 years, as they have made the playoffs 4 times, won the division twice, and made it to the World Series. Despite having a payroll at only $81 million, the Rays; have some of the best pitching scouts in baseball, as they keep producing one of the best pitching rotations without much talent. There is only one problem for the Rays, once they find talent it is very hard for them to keep it. When a player is a success in the MLB, they want big money, and that is in the department for the Yankees or Red Sox, not necessarily the Rays. When the Rays are paying only 2/5 of what the Yankees are paying for nearly identical records, it tells you right there that spending money is only a factor to winning a championship.

Our next team is the Toronto Blue Jays who have the talent, but don’t know how to use it in the best way. Toronto is always the team that is overrated in the AL East, especially after the 2012 offseason when they acquired a boat load of talent from the Marlins which included Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle. With their star center fielder Jose Bautista in his prime, the Blue Jays are definitely in a “win now” situation. Over the past few years even with their talent something goes wrong, from injury to just not playing well. The Blue Jays can never get all of the right pieces together at the right time. That is the main reason they get torn apart in games versus their division.

Our third team is the Baltimore Orioles who never had over 71 wins since Cal Ripken retired in 2001, but in 2012 the Orioles shocked the whole MLB by posting a 93-69 record, which put them into the playoffs for the first time since 1997. Now the Orioles are finding talent that was never there before inside their organization, like their outfielders Nick Markakis who has been with the team since 2006 and Adam Jones who has been with the team since 2008. After the 2012 season Baltimore was starting to become an attraction for players, as the Orioles signed Nelson Cruz, their last outfielder who hits for power. Right now Baltimore sits at the top of the standings in the AL East, but with the Yankees and Toronto right on their tail, they might not be at the top much longer.

That brings us to the reigning world champs Boston Red Sox, who haven’t started the season like they wanted to, with a 17-18 record. The Red Sox won last year due to desire, passion, and motivation. After the tragic Boston Marathon bombing, the Red Sox dedicated the season to a simple, yet strong motto, “Boston Strong.” That motto carried the team through the playoffs as they kept fighting no matter what. They eventually beat the St. Louis Cardinals in six games, to win their third championship in the last 10 years.

Now our final team is the New York Yankees, one of the greatest teams in all sports. The biggest news for the Yankees was going on another spending spree this past offseason as they signed some of the best free agents on the market. Those players have made a huge difference for this team that didn’t make the playoffs last season, which was only the second time in the past 19 years. The Yankees are currently second in the division standings with a 19-17 record, only 1½ games behind Baltimore, but right now it’s still anybody’s game in the AL East.

So, as I said, it’s anybody’s game in the AL East. With all of these teams equally strong to each other, this could cause a problem in the MLB. Since these teams will have close to equal records by the end of the season, that could  cause another team from another division to make a jump for 1 of the 2 wild card spots. If a team from the East was not in the wild card round, that would end the 7-year streak that the AL East has of the wild card team being a team from the AL East. So the question still remains, who will be crowned king of the AL East?