AL East Divisional All-Stars

With coverage of the National League totally complete, let's jump over to the junior circuit. I begin with the Al East:

POS	NAME	swp	swp/g		TEAM
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury	2,323	15.2		BOS
SS	Derek Jeter	2,306	15.1		NYY
LF	Jason Bay	2,392	15.8		BOS
1B	Mark Teixeira	2,581	16.5		NYY
DH	Adam Lind	2,341	15.5		TOR
3B	Evan Longoria	2,336	14.9		TB
2B	Aaron Hill	2,337	14.8		TOR
RF	Nick Markakis	2,081	12.9		BAL
C	Jorge Posada	1,447	13.0		NYY
SP	Roy Halladay	2,459	76.8		TOR
	C.C. Sabathia	2,266	66.6		NYY
	Jon Lester	2,020	63.1		BOS
	Josh Beckett	1,992	62.3		BOS
	A.J. Burnett	1,515	45.9		NYY
CL	Mariano Rivera	2,141	32.4		NYY
RP	Alfredo Aceves	1,002	23.3		NYY
	Ramon Ramirez	646	9.2		BOS
	Dan Wheeler	645	9.3		TB
	Hideki Okajima	629	9.3		BOS
	Grant Balfour	597	8.2		TB
P	Phil Hughes	1,068	20.9		NYY

With two leadoff hitters, I made the logical choice: placing them first and second in the order. I put Ellsbury at the top of the order, due to his blazing speed, and Jeter second because that's where he's batted for the majority of his career. Jacoby Ellsbury led off for the Red Sox, stealing a league-leading 70 bases. Derek Jeter led off for the Yankees, continuing his usual brilliance despite his age: he hit .334, topped 200 hits, stole 30 bases, and played gold glove quality shortstop at age 35.

Here's the competition faced by the two leadoff guys: For Ellsbury, not much - the rest of the division was just about average in center field. For Jeter, the surprising first-time All Star Jason Bartlett and the recently much-improved Marco Scutaro both had great seasons, but didn't come close to Cap'n Jetes.

Jason Bay bats third and plays left field, where his defensive deficiencies can do the least hurt to his team. His 36 home runs and 94 walks sure are impressive, but his lack of skill with the glove might contribute to a slightly reduced payday for the 30-year-old outfielder. (According to today's most advanced metrics, Bay was actually quite average; however his career norms are not good and he did spend 2009 in Boston with his rear end all but resting lightly against the Green Monster - not a lot of ground to cover at all.) Speedster Carl Crawford almost caught up to Bay in swp, while hack-and-slasher Johnny Damon also had an impressive season playing for the Yankees.

Mark Teixeira was only a batting title away from winning the coveted Triple Crown award - as it stands, he'll have to be content with leading the league in home runs and RBI (39, 122). The switch-hitting, slick-fielding first baseman was probably the AL's best pure hitter, only losing out to Joe Mauer in MVP voting because he plays a less crucial and less challenging position. The oft(en enough, at least)-injured Kevin Youkilis is the runner up here. Youk spent some time at third base, filling in while Mike Lowell rested his knees, but, as you'll soon see, the lumberjack falls short in both positions.

Here's a rarity: the guy who occupies the DH spot was actually a full-time DH: Adam Lind of the Blue Jays. Given his first taste of regular playing time at age 25, Lind swung a hot stick, hitting over .300 and cracking 35 home runs. Behind him in the scoring is David Ortiz, who amazingly was able to eek out a respectable season after struggling embarrassingly to start, and Hideki Matsui, who for the first time in his major league career didn't spend a single inning in the outfield.

No sophomore slump for 2008's Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria (no relation to the desperate housewife). He raised his average and on-base percentage while racking up significantly more at-bats than his rookie campaign, but he also had the tendency to ground into double plays. Who knows to what heights Alex Rodriguez may have risen if he didn't miss the first month of the season recovering from hip surgery, but the sport's highest-paid player will have to be content with his 13th 30-100 season in 2009.

Talk about surprising seasons: who could have possibly expected Aaron Hill to rebound from a 2008 in which he played only 55 games due to injury, to a 2009 that saw him double his career-high in home runs (36 in '09 - up from 17 in '07). But the real story behind Hill's breathtaking performance is the competition he faced from his fellow second-sackers. Doubles machine Brian Roberts turned in perhaps his best season leading off for the Orioles, despite his gradual decline in steals (the last three seasons: 50, 40, 30). 2008's MVP Dustin Pedroia led the league in runs scored and showed off his stellar batting eye. Ben Zobrist, the Rays' replacement for injured Akinori Iwamura, rose to heights that no one could have predicted. And Robinson Cano also had an impressive season playing for the Yankees (sound familiar?).

Nick Markakis, who has that rare ability to drive in a ton of runs without a ton of power, headlined a relatively weak class of right fielders - neither of his runners up, Nick Swisher and J.D. Drew, managed to break 2,000 swp. And veteran catcher Jorge Posada rounds out the lineup, even despite his injury-shortened season. He and Derek Jeter are the two offensive members of the Yankees' "core four," who are somehow able to remain the best in their division after 15 years of baseball apiece.

Roy Halladay leads the AL East staff in what would turn out to be his last year playing in the AL East. Halladay is an extremely effective combination: an accurate workhorse who misses bats. He's led the league in complete games 3 years running, and in 2009 he also led the league in walks-per-nine-innings and strikeouts-per-walk. The injury problems that affected his 2004-05 seasons seem to have resolved themselves, as he's averaged 32 starts over the last four seasons. Now he's headed to the National League, where he looks to increase his dominance, if possible.

Both of the Yankees' big free agent acquisitions appear on this squad: C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Both pitchers seemed to suffer a bit from "first year as a Yankee" syndrome, and not because of the short fences in the new stadium. Both pitchers' strikeout-to-talk ratios showed significant declines from their past three seasons, and Burnett's walk rate also jumped above his career average. But both pitchers earned their salary in the post-season, where they made up two thirds of the Yankees' playoff rotation, pitching on short rest pretty much each time out.

Between the two Yankees in the rotation are two Red Sox. New ace Jon Lester showed he belongs in the top tier of lefty starters by striking out 225 batters and winning 15 games. Josh Beckett has apparently gotten over his blister problems, as he just barely missed 200 strikeouts while winning a team-leading 17 games.

Three members of the Rays' rotation just missed inclusion, with James Shields, Matt Garza, and Jeff Niemann each having pretty good seasons, about on par with the team's 2008 rotation production. But when you play in a division with the Yankees and Red Sox, sometimes whether or not a pretty good season will earn your team a playoff berth depends to a great degree on luck. Andy Pettitte, the third "core four" member, also sits in the also-ran pile.

Which brings us to "core four" number four: Mariano Rivera as the closer. Talk about dominance after age 30 - Rivera is currently 39, and in 6 of the past 7 seasons, he posted an ERA under 2. His competition, Jonathan Papelbon, also had a sub-2.00 ERA, but Rivera also had a sub-1.000 WHIP and an above-6.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio. As long as he keeps breaking bats with his cutter, there's no telling when Rivera will slow down.

The Yankees' top long reliever, Alfredo Aceves, occupies the top spot in the bullpen. Very rarely do relief pitchers crack 1,000 swp, and even more rarely do they reach the point milestone without earning a significant number of saves or starting a handful of games. Yet this is exactly what the rookie Aceves did - he saved one game and started one game out of his 43 appearances. He earned his points the hard way: pitching plenty of innings and striking out plenty of batters. I'm not sure how so many people missed this success story, but I wouldn't be surprised if Aceves makes an impact for the Bronx Bombers in '10.

The Red Sox contributed two relief pitchers to the 'pen: righty Ramon Ramirez and lefty Hideki Okajima. Ramirez had a great ERA, while Okajima's is on a downward trend (which tends to happen at age 33), and both had rather pedestrian strikeout rates. The last two relievers come from the Rays. Dan Wheeler shared the closer duties in '08, but was back to regular middle innings work in '09. Grant Balfour had a great 51 game run in '08, but returned to reality this past season - his ERA jumped over 3.20 (1.54 to 4.81) and his WHIP rose by almost half a point (0.891 to 1.366). But we don't need relievers to be superhuman, just to show up every day with a willingness to act as one of baseball's unsung heroes.

Winning the job of swingman is superprospect Phil Hughes who has yet to find a regular role. At first when he couldn't start, the Yanks sent him to the minors. Then they sent him to the bullpen. Who knows what the future holds for this extremely talented young man... except that as long as Mo Rivera can still lift his right arm, he's not gonna get a shot at closing games.

Next time: AL Central.