*An argument could be made that the five best teams in baseball this season all reside in the National League: The Dodgers, Phillies, Braves, Mets and Diamondbacks appear to be better than any roster the American League can currently offer.
That wasn’t the case when spring training began, when the Yankees, A.L. defending champs, could make a case to be among the elite. But that was before the team lost Luis Gil and Giancarlo Stanton for at least the first half of the year and Gerrit Cole for all of it, delivering a huge blow to the Yanks’ chances to repeat for 2025.
