Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the final month of the season just ahead, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.
Note: All records and stats are for games played as of Monday morning.
First Place: Houston Astros (69-68)
Top Position Player: Yordan Alvarez (5.8 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Peter Lambert (2.0 fWAR)
The Astros remain the team that cannot be killed, as they lead this rock fight despite being barely above .500 themselves. During August, they made a move generally associated with being bad in making a general manager change and getting rid of Dana Brown, but they’ve been just good enough to stay at the top of a very gross division.
They’re led by Alvarez, a legitimate MVP candidate who leads the league in a whole host of offensive categories — including all three Triple Crown categories (though he shares the home run lead with Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero). Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes have been good, while Hunter Brown has been their best on the mound, despite missing all of April and May. The rest of their roster is generally just solid enough to have them at the top of the division.
Second Place: Texas Rangers (67-70, 2 GB)
Top Position Player: Ezequiel Durán (4.4 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Jacob deGrom (3.3 fWAR)
The Rangers are a very weird team. Their collective 108 OPS+ is the third best of any team in baseball. However, their 4.04 runs per game is the third worst of any team in baseball. I can’t say I understand how exactly they’ve managed that, considering that they’ve gotten really good seasons out of the likes of Durán, Joc Pederson, Josh Jung (who is currently on the IL), Wyatt Langford, and others. It’s not as if they have remarkably worse numbers with runners on and/or in scoring position either.
On the pitching front, you can definitely spot an issue as Cal Quantrill is their only starter with more than 10 starts who has a better than average ERA, and he only barely clears that 10 threshold. Now, that does include deGrom, whose FIP is more than a full run better than this ERA, so it’s maybe not as bad as things seem on the surface, but this can’t be particularly fun team to follow as a fan right now. MacKenzie Gore hasn’t been a particularly inspiring offseason trade addition, Nathan Eovaldi was placed on the IL with right elbow inflammation in mid-August and hasn’t returned, and Jack Leiter is on a rehab assignment from ankle surgery. Old friend Jordan Montgomery is now back from his second Tommy John surgery and working out of the bullpen.
Third Place: Seattle Mariners (64-73, 5 GB)
Top Position Player: Randy Arozarena (3.6 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Bryan Woo (3.0 fWAR)
Speaking of infuriating teams to follow, both this season and every year, I present the Seattle Mariners! Remember when they were eight outs from their first ever World Series appearance less than a year ago? The follow-up has been just about as ugly as that of their victorious foe.
It was always unlikely that Cal Raleigh would post another 60 home run season with a 168 OPS+, but he’s at 19 homers and a 84 OPS+ for 2026. He’s only even at those numbers because he’s had a good last month. Besides Arozarena, pretty much every standout performer from last year’s ALCS team has taken a step back. Even if the dips those key players had taken were just 10 percent better, Seattle could be clear at the top of this weak division. It’s just that a big reason this division is so weak is that so many M’s players have tumbled off a cliff.
Fourth Place: The Athletics (53-84, 16 GB)
Top Position Player: Nick Kurtz (2.6 fWAR)
Top Pitchers: Gage Jump and J.T. Ginn (1.7 fWAR)
After a 2025 season that featured some impressive years from some young players, the A’s were firmly in “interesting” status going into 2026. They then had a pretty good April and sat in first in the division at the end of it. However since then, the A’s have gone 36-70. That winning percentage over the course of a full season would equate to 55 wins.
What hasn’t helped with that is that two of their young stars, Kurtz and Jacob Wilson, are both on the 60-day IL, and several other contributors to their preseason “interesting” status are currently also out with injures. That includes former Yankee Luis Severino, who has been limited to just over 60 innings. That one has helped lead to a pretty poor season from A’s pitching, as their 5.74 runs allowed per game is tied with the Rockies for the worst, and Colorado infamously has a built-in hinderance there — though Sacramento’s minor-league park isn’t much better.
Last Place: Los Angeles Angels (52-85, 17 GB)
Top Position Players: Mike Trout and Zach Neto (2.9 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Reid Detmers (3.8 fWAR)
Mike Trout should be allowed to football tackle Arte Moreno as a treat.
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