The Big Three Disappointments in the American League

But under that same line of the American League, what were the three big disappointments?

A special mention to the Detroit Tigers, who despite not appearing in our ‘Top 3’, were left behind after committing some $217 million of their budget to the shortstop Javier Baez ($140 M) and the lefty Edward Rodriguez ($77M).

Also to the Minnesota Twins who, although they converted Carlos Correa at the highest-paid shortstop in a season, they also failed to achieve their playoff goal.

Without further ado, our experts pick their top three American League disappointments.

Editor’s note: Wednesday will post the three NL disappointments.

The 2022 season was a complete disaster for the White Sox, one of the most expensive and inefficient teams in Major League Baseball.

After Chicago was eliminated in the first round of the 2020 postseason, the board decided to fire Mexican-American manager Rick Rentería, who had led the club from losing 100 games in 2018 to a .599 percentage in the year of coronavirus, and a position to compete for a long time.

Tony La Russa is out as manager of the White Sox. pic.twitter.com/kRk4CxwJ3I

— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) October 3, 2022

Against all odds, the White Sox brought Tony LaRussa, a Hall of Fame manager who hadn’t done that job since 2011, out of retirement to replace Renteria. In his first season, LaRussa followed Rentería by qualifying for the postseason only to be eliminated in the first round.

In 2022, with the seventh-largest payroll in the industry ($208 million) and a talented roster, the White Sox were heavy favorites to win the AL Central, but for a series of events, including injuries to star players and big blunders from LaRussa, the team never played up to his standards and right now is at risk of finishing with a negative percentage.

The White Sox were a complete disappointment that, to cap it all, ends with LaRussa retiring for the second time, this time due to physical problems. (Henry Rojas)

Two words: six games. That was the distance between the Red Sox, who finished bottom of their division, and the Baltimore Orioles, who finished fourth. How bad did your season have to be to finish below the Orioles?

Well, in Baltimore’s defense, they have a great team going forward. But even so, it is unacceptable that a team like the Red Sox had such a bad tournament.

To add more pain to their fans, they were officially eliminated in a match against the New York Yankees. What did they fail?

The opening pitch was a bust. Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi Y Michael Wach They all went on the disabled list. james paxton he didn’t even pitch. They also traded one of the fans’ favorites, Puerto Rican wide receiver Christian Vázquez.

Another detail: they were not relevant in the foreign exchange market. They never went for John Soto or other figures. Now, they will have to decide whether or not to pay Xander Bogaerts‘moor’ to rafael devers and without letting go of JD Martínez.

The good news, at least for those led by Alex Cora, is the super prospect Triston Casas and see how Jeter Downs, who will play in the Puerto Rico winter league, continues to develop. (Joseph E. Bartolomei)

The Los Angeles Angels had as much talent on paper as any of the top teams making it to the postseason, in a year when they seemed to have more of a chance.

But with a very poor management of Joe Maddon from the beginning, who also did not make up with the interim Phil Nevin, injuries that would seem absurd and very prolonged from Mike Troutlack of preparation, added to the large number of execution errors and performance of key players such as Anthony RendonFar below expectations, resulted in total disappointment.

It’s amazing that a team that has shōhei ohtani and Trout, as figures of a very expensive payroll, was left out of the postseason and almost by ‘habit’ to have a losing record every year.

Neither with Ohtani having a better than unanimous season in 2021, nor with Trout hitting 39 home runs in just 431 at-bats, do the Angels seem to find the formula to win. Two legendary players ‘losing’ their best years. They are 73-87. (Carlos A. Nava)