Blue Jays' middling season reveals massive AL East hurdle Toronto will have to overcome

Year in and year out, the AL East is one of the best divisions in baseball. This is the second consecutive year (and fifth time in six years) that the division will send three teams to the postseason, making them the clear class of the American League.

Of course, it's not just one organization doing all the dominating. With the Tampa Bay Rays having clinched the top overall seed in the AL -- following in the Toronto Blue Jays' footsteps from a year ago -- the division has now crowned four different winners in four consecutive seasons.

AL East winners by season:
2026: Rays
2025: Blue Jays
2024: Yankees
2023: Orioles

For what it's worth, the last time the Boston Red Sox won the division (2018), they also won the World Series. Like I said, this division has been a gauntlet for years.

That probably won't bring the Blue Jays any comfort after a disappointing season, but it's good context to keep in mind while both the AL Central and AL West continue to pump out mediocre teams.

Blue Jays must start beating AL East rivals again in order to return to playoffs

Due to the strength of their rivals, the Blue Jays haven't fared all that well against the AL East in recent memory. They finished 25-27 against them this season, marking the third time in four years (since the schedule was rebalanced in 2023) that they've had a losing record. The only campaign in which they were above .500? That was last year, when Toronto went 29-23 and parlayed that success into both a division title and World Series run.

Intradivision success often correlates to overarching success -- if you can't beat the teams you play most, you probably aren't going to win a whole lot of games -- so it's none too surprising that the Blue Jays' best regular seasons this decade (2021-22, 2025) coincide with winning records against AL East teams. That certainly gives the organization a goal to shoot for next year, especially if a shortened schedule (due to the lockout) puts a greater emphasis on division contests.

That's easier said than done, of course, but there's pride associated with emerging from this set of five teams. The last two American League World Series representatives (and four of the past eight) hail from this division; likewise, each of the previous four No. 1 seeds in the Junior Circuit have come from the AL East.

In other words, if the Blue Jays can get on the positive side of the ledger in this split, good things should follow.

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