Last year, the AL East was the most competitive division in baseball, with three of the AL’s six playoff teams coming out of that division, and the Orioles the best team to not make the postseason.
The best team in that best division, the New York Yankees went 99-63 in 2022, seven games ahead of top Wild Card seed Toronto (92-70) and thirteen ahead of the final playoff team, Tampa Bay, before getting swept in the ALCS by eventual World Series champs the Houston Astros. Although you could argue that each of these teams has gotten better this offseason, it’d be harder to argue that Toronto or Tampa Bay has done enough to close the gap with New York.