Comparing the Yankees & Orioles Lineups

The Baltimore Orioles may have been the biggest underachieving team in the entire American League in 2015. Many had the defending American League East champions not only winning the division again in 2015 but many had the team making a deep run into the postseason despite the loss of Nelson Cruz at the DH position. Chris Davis bounced back in a big way and Manny Machado had a relatively healthy and productive season while Adam Jones battled injuries for much of the second half. Matt Wieters though did not bounce back from his Tommy John surgery the way the team had hoped and JJ Hardy didn’t really either. The injuries piled up and the underperformance did as well leaving Baltimore in third place in the division and on the outside looking in at the postseason. Baltimore was left looking up at the Yankees and left watching the Yankees play for the American League Wild Card. Now Davis is gone, Wei-Yin Chen is too and a slew of others but Wieters is back on a qualifying offer, will he and the core in Baltimore be enough to catch the Yankees and the mighty Toronto Blue Jays in 2016? Well it all starts with the offense…

Catcher

Brian McCann/ Matt Wieters

First Base

Mark Teixeira/ Ryan Flaherty

Second Base

Robert Refsnyder/ Jonathan Schoop

Third Base

Chase Headley/ Manny Machado

Shortstop

Didi Gregorius/ JJ Hardy

Left Field

Brett Gardner/ Nolan Reimold

Center Field

Jacoby Ellsbury/ Adam Jones

Right Field

Carlos Beltran/ Junior Lake

Designated Hitter

Alex Rodriguez/ Mark Trumbo

Looking at the final tally I have the New York Yankees “winning” six spots out of the nine. Remember, bolded player wins. Baltimore is going to miss Chris Davis and his home run power more than they think they will in my opinion. I can see the Orioles adding a bat via free agency, maybe even a Justin Upton or a Jason Heyward to be honest, but as it stands today this offense needs a lot of help. Big names are gone but so are the role players like Steve Pearce that are not mentioned nearly enough but are maybe just as important to the team as the Davis’s and Chen’s. Baltimore has some work to do and Dan Duquette is likely to put in that work but as it stands today the Yankees lineup, again in my opinion, is far superior to Baltimore’s at many key positions.