When there’s as strong a consensus as there was regarding division winners this spring training, there is also groupthink run amok. That didn’t feel like the case this year, though. There was good reason to believe that the Nationals, Cubs, Dodgers, Astros, Indians and one of the Red Sox or Yankees would take the six divisions, the only real contest being the battle of behemoths in the AL East.
The Red Sox, Yankees and Astros have held up their end of the bargain. But the other four division favorites have had their problems—real or imagined—dissected repeatedly by onlookers.