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AL Preview: watch out, the Houston Astros got better

On the day of his team’s first full-squad workout as World Series champions, the Houston Astros’ architect, Jeff Luhnow, acknowledged a feeling of awe.

The group includes two Cy Young Award winners, Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel. It includes Lance McCullers Jr., who closed out the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the American League championship series, and Charlie Morton, who closed out the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.

After a January trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates, it also includes Gerrit Cole, a former No. 1 overall draft pick with durability and an All-Star pedigree. The collection is so gaudy that Collin McHugh and Brad Peacock, who would start almost anywhere else, will pitch from the bullpen.

“I honestly didn’t think that we could, potentially, be this good, just knowing what we did last year,” Keuchel said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think, in the offseason, we were going to get Gerrit. That’s pretty cool to me. We got better.”

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The Astros also kept their soul this month by rewarding Jose Altuve with a five-year, $151 million contract extension, through 2024. Altuve, the AL Most Valuable Player, said the Cole trade told the team that Luhnow wanted to add another trophy immediately.

“We’re aware of everything, how hard it is to win back to back,” Altuve said. “But it’s not impossible. We’re going to do the best we can to make it happen.”

No team has repeated since the New York Yankees won three titles in a row from 1998 through 2000. This is the longest stretch in major league history without a repeat champion, but the Astros have everything they need to change that. Only two of their starters exceeded 200 innings last season: Verlander (242 2/3, including the postseason) and Cole (203). Only two position players, Altuve and third baseman Alex Bregman, played more than 140 games in the regular season.

“Physically, our guys are fine,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “The mental part of it will be our biggest challenge.”

He added: “I watched this last season when the Indians and the Cubs — both World Series teams — struggled the first month of the season. They were told they were struggling. They were told they were having a hangover. They were told they weren’t playing up to expectations. That has to lead to a ton more anxiety and a ton more tension around a team that you don’t normally have to deal with. You carry a lot of baggage around the following season from winning, and that type of attention isn’t always good attention.”

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If any team is immune to prolonged struggles, though, this should be the one. The Astros, who return almost everyone, led the majors in slugging percentage in 2017 while finishing last in strikeouts. They have mastered the modern power game without the trade-off most teams must make — like drinking all the Champagne at a party yet feeling just fine the next morning.

Expect no hangover for the 2018 Astros, just another championship banner at Minute Maid Park.

AL West

The rest of the West division should not pose much of a challenge. The game’s best player, Mike Trout, begins his seventh full season with the Los Angeles Angels still seeking his first playoff victory. The Angels will try a six-man rotation behind him, being careful not to ask much from a group that includes no starting candidates who worked even 150 innings last season.

“It’s going allow us to use depth,” starter Matt Shoemaker said. “And if it gives us extra days to help us stay fresh, it’s just going to help the team, and us.”

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After a trying spring training, Shohei Ohtani, the pitching and hitting sensation from Japan, is the great unknown. The Angels upgraded their infield with Ian Kinsler at second base and Zack Cozart at third, and they begin their first full season with left fielder Justin Upton. But designated hitter Albert Pujols, 38, regressed markedly last season and still has four years left on his contract.

Despite a rash of late-spring pitching injuries, the Oakland Athletics don’t feel like a last-place team anymore. They found long-term solutions by putting Matts on their infield corners — Matt Olson at first base and Matt Chapman at third. And the newcomers Stephen Piscotty and Jonathan Lucroy will help a lineup whose designated hitter, Khris Davis, hit 85 homers the last two seasons. (Only Giancarlo Stanton, with 86, had more.)

Could the A’s sneak up on the field and snag a playoff berth, as they did six years ago? It’s unlikely, but you never know.

“That’s putting pretty high expectations on them, but it is something we’ve discussed, certainly internally but also publicly,” general manager David Forst said. “The ideal situation for this team would be to be like the ’12 team, and be better than expected now and then continue to get better going forward.”

The Seattle Mariners keep trying, but seem destined to miss the playoffs for the 17th season in a row. Even if Nelson Cruz, 37, and Robinson Cano, 35, continue their elite offensive production, a thin rotation dooms this team. The ace James Paxton has pitched parts of five seasons but never made 25 starts, and there’s only mediocrity behind him, including Felix Hernandez, who has a 4.08 earned run average since turning 30 in early 2016.

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If a hitter’s job is to get on base and avoid making outs, the Texas Rangers’ Rougned Odor had a historic performance in 2017: Of all the players to make 500 outs in a season, Odor had the lowest on-base percentage, at .252. He did have 30 homers, but also 162 strikeouts, and symbolized the Rangers’ all-or-nothing offense. They took no steps to improve it, and went bargain-hunting (Mike Minor, Matt Moore, Doug Fister) to address a wobbly rotation.

AL Central

The Cleveland Indians finished 17 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central last season, and the gap has narrowed significantly. The Indians lost first baseman Carlos Santana, right fielder Jay Bruce and the setup man Bryan Shaw in free agency, while the Twins added starters Jake Odorizzi and Lance Lynn, relievers Addison Reed and Fernando Rodney, and designated hitter Logan Morrison, among others.

“We more or less returned the entire position-player club from last year, which in the second half really performed,” said Derek Falvey, the Twins’ chief baseball officer. “They’re young and they’re growing. We knew on the pitching side we could add some experience and some depth.”

The Indians — a team Falvey helped build — still have more star power than the Twins, with starters Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco, relievers Cody Allen and Andrew Miller and the lineup mainstays Francisco Lindor and Edwin Encarnacion. But this could be the closest division race of them all, with both teams qualifying for the postseason as they batter their three division neighbors.

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After failing to find a new home in free agency, third baseman Mike Moustakas made a surprise return to the Kansas City Royals, signing on for another year with championship teammates from 2015 like Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon. But with Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer gone via free agency — and no additions to a weak rotation — the Royals may slip back to 90 losses and trade whoever they can in July.

The Chicago White Sox are finished with their teardown trades, but waiting for their high-end prospects to arrive before adding veterans. In the meantime, they’ll enjoy watching second baseman Yoan Moncada break through as a star beside first baseman Jose Abreu, his fellow Cuban and the team’s steady leader.

After going 64-98, the Detroit Tigers hold the No. 1 overall draft pick for just the second time in franchise history. They might do so again in 2019 because this could be the worst team in baseball. The Tigers have three fading veterans combining for $72 million in salaries (Miguel Cabrera, Jordan Zimmermann and Victor Martinez), with nobody else making more than $6.5 million.

“They might take some lumps, but it’s going to be a learning process and we have to let it unfold in front of our eyes,” said Ron Gardenhire, the veteran manager who replaces Brad Ausmus. “You can’t force it, you can’t beat ‘em up. It’s all going to be about patience here.”

AL East

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Since the last time the Yankees won the AL East, the Boston Red Sox have won it three times and the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays have each had a turn. The Yankees should take back the division for the first time since 2012, and could do it with relative ease.

“We’ve got a lot of coverage in the infield and outfield side,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “In the bullpen, we’ve got a lot of high-leverage guys. The rotation’s the area, like any team, mostly you get affected. You lose some key guys in that rotation, it could be really challenging to your season.”

Fair enough, but the Yankees’ group of Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Sonny Gray, C.C. Sabathia and Jordan Montgomery looks a lot stronger than Boston’s starting staff, which falls off sharply after the left-handers Chris Sale and David Price. And that’s assuming Price’s elbow allows him to make more than the 11 starts he made last year.

What, then, about the Baltimore Orioles as the second wild-card team, with the Twins? The Red Sox will score a lot of runs, but so could the Orioles, especially if shortstop Manny Machado has a big platform year before free agency and third baseman Tim Beckham builds off his first full season as an everyday player.

The homegrown starters Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman may never develop into All-Stars. But they are solid, and remember, the Orioles contended into September last year despite giving 300 innings to Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez, who combined for a 6.18 ERA. The newcomers Andrew Cashner and Alex Cobb are bound to do better.

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The Orioles will miss closer Zach Britton for half the season as he recovers from a ruptured Achilles. But it should be no surprise if manager Buck Showalter finds a way to squeeze this team into the playoffs for the fourth time in seven seasons.

“You don’t question the end goal playing for Buck Showalter,” Beckham said. “The end goal is winning. As a player, with some organizations, you question that.”

The Toronto Blue Jays seemed to make a halfhearted effort at winning this offseason, opting for complementary moves instead of reloading in Josh Donaldson’s final season before free agency. The Blue Jays wanted to give themselves a chance to contend without touching a farm system they have worked hard to revive. A decent rotation does give them a chance, but only a small one. If the Blue Jays struggle early, expect a major roster overhaul.

That process is well underway for the Tampa Bay Rays, who plan to use only four starting pitchers this season, using days off and mixing in occasional bullpen games. The Rays’ offense, which strikes out prodigiously, has lost four players who combined for 115 homers last season: Logan Morrison, Corey Dickerson, Evan Longoria and Steven Souza Jr.

The franchise has finished in last place just once since 2007, the last year it was known as the Devil Rays. The Rays are not changing their name again, but they are searching for a new identity.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

TYLER KEPNER © 2018 The New York Times

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