Are projections for tight AL East race more reason to pursue Gallardo, Fowler?

There has been plenty of debate as to whether the Orioles should or should not sign pitcher Yovani Gallardo and/or outfielder Dexter Fowler. One big reason in favor of doing so for me is that they could push the Orioles over the hump in the American League East.

Right now, the division looks very even and open from top to bottom. You could rank teams in almost any order and who could argue? If you see the Orioles in last place with 78 wins, you have some justification to say so. You see them as a first-place team with 90 wins and you could be right about that.

When USA Today unveiled its season predictions yesterday, it ranked the AL East this way:

88 - Boston
86 - Toronto
83 - Tampa Bay and New York
78 - Orioles

Earlier a FanGraphs.com projection had the Orioles at 77-85. ESPN's David Schoenfield ranks the Orioles No. 23 in the majors with a record of 74-88.

The Orioles do have some things to hang their hat on, like power, defense and a solid bullpen. They lack variety in their offense and their rotation was poor last year, and that seems to be why some are predicting a losing season, something the Orioles have not had since 2011. In fact, the Orioles lead the AL in wins since 2012.

But predictions are nothing to get too worked up about. I'm sure some of the same outlets had the Nationals winning the World Series last year and Boston taking the AL East.

The bigger issue for me is that there is no great team in the division - but also, in my opinion, no bad one. We could see a division very bunched up from first to last with about 88 to 78 wins. It could be that tight and competitive.

Given that possibility, the late additions of Gallardo and Fowler, if they come to pass, could be separators for me. They could improve the rotation and offense enough to make a real difference.

Three came close: No Orioles made the Baseball America top 100 prospects list when the latest version was released on Friday. But we now know that three came close to making the back end of the list.

Baseball America's J.J Cooper answered the question yesterday on the publication's website: Which players just missed the top 100?

"This year the just-missed list is a little longer and meatier than usual because the back of this year's list was even more wide open - with more varied opinions - than usual," he wrote.

"A little insight to the process: We get the Baseball America staff to rank their Top 150 Prospects, and we put those lists into a spreadsheet to see if we can find a consensus. Once we have that list, we sit down and mull over the adjustments.

"In some order, the next 20 who just missed the Top 100 were Alex Jackson, Archie Bradley, Byung-ho Park, Chance Sisco, Duane Underwood, Dylan Bundy, Frankie Montas, Garrett Whitley, Hunter Harvey, James Kaprielian, Jameson Taillon, Jorge Alfaro, Josh Naylor, Kyle Freeland, Mark Appel, Matt Chapman, Reese McGuire, Spencer Adams, Tim Cooney, Tyler Kolek and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

"In our discussions Sisco, Harvey, Taillon, Whitley and Bradley all came the closest to making the list."

Cooper said 208 players appeared on at least one staff member's top 150 list at the start of the process. Among those 208 were O's prospects Jomar Reyes and Trey Mancini. Cooper also points out that those on the just-missed list are not bad players either. O's second baseman Jonathan Schoop just missed in 2014. He made the Baseball America list, at No. 82 after the 2011 season.