AL EAST:

Baltimore Orioles

Trade Rob Pancakes for more young bats





The Orioles pitching is known to be one of the most potent staffs in baseball. Chipper Dipper has already become a town hero, making the All-Star pitching staff for the inaugural game in Tampa. Pancakes is not an All-Star, but his season is very reflective of his strongsuits. His 8.10 K/6 is breathtaking, a pace he kept up when he lead the league in strikeouts for the short 2017 season.





So why is Baltimore still losing? Their offense could be to blame, with 19 runs scored being 21st in the league, in front of only Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the team who didn't score for two months, yet they are only one run behind Baltimore with 18. The Orioles have only 5 home runs in the year thus far, also 21st before only Oakland.





The Orioles brought in two new bats, however, in Scherbie Fully-Loaded and Nikolas Romero. These two have been performing well in their young careers, a testament to Baltimore's development department. With Dipper being so strong, it would be a safe bet to get offensive help with their second best pitcher, in hopes of developing Yeagar to fill his shoes well. Young bats are flooding the Los Angeles and Texas rosters, both looking for pitchers to fill their rotation holes.





Boston Red Sox

Focus on developing Bargeparge and Lester





The Boston offensive explosion has been one of the most fun stories in the MLR, with a similar performance accounting for their 7-5 win over the Rangers. The Red Sox are obviously moving in the right direction to take over the AL East, but with the disastrous 6th inning of Harvey Bargeparge in relief, it is crucial that GM Jordan Peppers communicates with his reddit-only pitcher, as well as develops his other young talent Moe Lester.





The team obviously has the hitting down pat, so there needs to be more scouting towards keeping opponents down. In their last two games where Mador hasn't started, they've given up 10 runs. Lester, showing glimpses of great pitching, gave up a 3-run shot to Joe Trundle, added to by an auto walk early in the inning. It is crucial these pitchers perform to their ceilings to solidify Boston as a possible dynasty and thorn in the American League's side for years.





Cleveland Indians

Give the team some key faces / Increase PA totals





With the bizarre but oddly effective mid-season rebuild of the Cleveland Indians, general manager BB Bambino Jr. succeeded in his clubhouse betterment by changing his team image from bad to forgettable. The Indians are baby faced. Perhaps the best-known names on that roster are former Detroit handful Big Tuna and Stig "Auto-K-or-Home-Run" Bond. They are reclamation projects and rookies, which has given them a few wins, but there's no definitive anchors that seem able to keep this team near the top.





This is not saying there aren't guys up for the challenge. The aforementioned Stig Bond is making his way to the All-Star Game, while Dick Pole has fired up and proven the movement of Ethan Franklin a pretty rewarding call for the ambitious Cleveland GM. The team will continue to draw head-scratches from analysts and free agents alike, however, if they show themselves incapable of developing a core. Dick Pole could be that core. They're gonna need more than that.





Detroit Tigers

Stop trading / Work on the team D/PA





I have no problem with teams who trade a lot. Sometimes they end up consistently being better than they were before. Tampa Bay is a testament to thgat, being a club with a lot of recognition and offensive prowess no matter who they put on the field.





Detroit's trade history has some bumps, however. A less-than-perfect trade with Cleveland left the Indians with Detroit's former ace and a very talented bat. In return they got a pitcher of equal or lesser value and some pocket lint. Granted, Woolridge has looked serviceable for Detroit, but the trade was more-or-less a rushed 2-for-1 that the Tigers GM could have planned better.





The Tigers GM also came out on the bottom end of a three-team trade, trading Casey Nine, Brohei Brotani, and later G.H. Morello for a lot of up-in-the-air reddit-only talent. The Tigers often will value reddit-only ballplayers to the point of preferential treatment over Discord ballplayers, perhaps to prove a point, but the Detroit offense sits at the bottom end of the D/PA ladder with a less-than-ideal 261 team score, 10 points over the mean. Though a gesture in kind to his newly-received player, the acquisition and further emergency flip of G.H. Morello proved bad judgement on the general manager in both gauging the character of the player and the possible return in flipping him. The team may need to have an offseason remodeling, but for now, it's best to hunker down and try to make something of what they have. Help J3 learn how to hit baseballs.





The free agency market is also pretty nice this time of year.





Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Do something about Dominus Nominus





Not much can be said about the Devil Rays accept that Dominus Nominus is having an awful year amongst an extremely potent offense. Boasting a large All-Star Cast, they are currently third in American League team average behind Toronto and Seattle.





You have to wonder how high they'd be if they didn't field Dominus Nominus. His .188/.235/.500 slash line is a rally killer at the plate. His 275.47 D/PA is rivalled only by Dog Man, who was a throw-in in the Willoughby Hoose trade. Someone needs to take the guy to the batting cages more, or possibly give him a bedtime. Maybe he's up all night playing Fortnite. The point is, Tampa needs Nominus to perform and perform well if they want to shape up against the Toronto and Boston slugfests.





Toronto Blue Jays

Get your hands on an elite catcher





The Blue Jays tried to achieve this goal in the beginning of the season in their acquisition of Mylo Grams, and results have been lukewarm. Despite being a defending MVP, Grams now sits at -0.589 WAR. His wOBA is a crushingly small .189 and his stats are underwhelming.





It is not necessary to trade Grams here, but the team is sitting on three pitchers with an aspiration for a fourth, and have the talent and depth in their lineup to send out a package for one of the many elite catchers in the league. It has shown to be the most potent offensive position in the MLR, yet Toronto hasn't had a piece of that, their catchers hitting .250 and .176 respectively.