1 Thing We've Learned About Each Major League Baseball Team in 2015

Jack Merlino

With only a little more than a month to go for this 2015 season, we've had ample time to look at each major league franchise and draw conclusions from there. Some are about the present, some are about the future; here's one thing we've learned about each team.

AL East

· Blue Jays - They want that World Series more than they want to exist in two years.

 
· Orioles - A solid lineup was wasted because the O's didn't have a household name at pitcher. 

· Rays - The inverse of the O's, the Rays' strong starting pitching was wasted because of a dormant lineup; however, put 2 or 3 more hitters around Longoria and Forsythe and you're seeing another contender in Tampa. 

· Red Sox - The Sox won't be serious contenders again until their stars stop coming from free agency and start coming from the farm.

· Yankees - They're prepared to bank heavily on a mélange of fossils keeping up a high rate of production.

NL East

· Braves - Will hope that their soon-to-be bottomfeeding will pay off years from now with most of the prospects they got for Upton, Gattis, etc. playing in low-A ball.

· Marlins - They continue to be the 2nd biggest perennial farce in baseball after only Boston. Move 'em to Montreal where they'll actually be appreciated.

· Mets - With any offense whatsoever, this team will be a World Series contender for close to a decade.

· Nationals - They're eternally cursed for keeping Strasburg out of the 2012 playoffs, and that's hilarious.

· Phillies - This rebuild might not actually take as long as we all initially thought. With the team in full-rebuild mode and more and more guys showing promise at the high minor-league levels, Philly could be next years' Astros/Twins (though not likely).

AL Central

· Indians - Not unlike the Rays, if Cleveland injects some consistency after Kipnis and Brantley, that's yet another contender in the AL Central.

· Royals - They've set the tone for a league dominated by speed and defense, and it seems to be working. They'd better hope to scratch out a ring though, before this group bolts in 25 different, more profitable directions.

· Tigers - They were a Jonathan Papelbon trade away from at least one World Series title in the past 4 years, and now the prime of Miguel Cabrera, arguably the best hitter of his generation, is wasted. That's depressing.

· Twins - Reinforcements arrived about 3 years early and now Minnesota will be pestering Kansas City a lot earlier than the latter would've liked.

· White Sox - Same thing as Boston. Grow your players instead of importing them, before Chris Sale is wasted.

NL Central

· Brewers - They're jumping on the bandwagon of embracing the tank, which is obvious after the Carlos Gomez/Mike Fiers trade.

· Cardinals - This team truly is a collective entity in itself. Just about every one of its players has been hurt or gone through a slump at some point, and they have the best record in baseball.

· Cubs - They're coming at Light Speed. A Cole Hamels trade would've bumped it up to Ludicrous Speed.

· Pirates - Either that (admittedly excellent) farm systems has to churn out another stud, or this team has to win quickly before Chicago's players all peak at the same time.

· Reds - Cincy will be best served by getting some massive returns for its remaining stars and waiting out the coming storm in the NL Central.

AL West

· Angels - They clearly weren't prepared to face a semblance of competition for this divison and it's showing.

· Astros - It'll be scary when the team isn't just Carlos Correia surrounded by underachievers who happen to be overachieving.

· Athletics - Billy Beane always seems to know when exactly to ship off his players. They'll probably somehow contend again next year.

· Mariners - They could travel back in time, bring back Prime Ruth, Williams, and Gehrig, put them in the lineup, and the team still would find ways to lose. It's a curse.

· Rangers - The Cole Hamels trade shows that the Rangers have a lot of faith in Gallo and Mazara alone to get them to the next level.

NL West

· Diamondbacks - Suddenly there's baseball in Arizona again. They just happen to share a division with 2 of the best teams in the game.

· Dodgers - They think Julio Urias will be a Hall-of-Famer.

· Giants - They seem to have swapped emphasis from pitching to hitting.

· Padres - Same as Boston, but even more extreme.

· Rockies - Any team that signs Kyle Kendrick to pitch half his games in Coors Field has no idea what it's doing.

To stay up to date with the latest from 30 Minutes of Madness, be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. For more thoughts and articles from this writer, follow Jack Merlino on Twitter.
Follow @PhilliesMind