Divisional preview: American League East

After 94 wins last season and a division championship, the Orioles go into this season as defending American League East champions for the first time since 1998.

New eras begin in Tampa Bay, with manager Joe Maddon gone, and New York, where shortstop Derek Jeter has retired.

The Yankees are hoping for health all over the diamond, especially on the mound. The Tampa Bay Rays have a new-look lineup built around Evan Longoria, but chances are it will not be that scary. The Boston Red Sox have remade their rotation and the Toronto Blue Jays think they have done enough to return to the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

The AL East lineup:

Baltimore: What's not to like about the Orioles? They don't seem to get their deserved respect, but they won the AL East by 12 games last season and they are returning one of the best rotations in the league. The Orioles rotation ranked fifth in the league and second within the division with a 3.61 ERA last season. ... Ubaldo Jimenez? History says Jimenez, who had a 5.96 ERA after the break last season, could turn it around at any time and he's looked sharp this spring. Chris Tillman is a classic 220-inning ace, the leader of the staff who is coming off a subpar postseason. Wei-Yin Chen, with a new changeup, Miguel Gonzalez and Bud Norris could each pitch 200 innings. Kevin Gausman, after a solid performance in the postseason in 2014, is ready to become one of the best young pitchers in the league. ... One of manager Buck Showalter's most difficult challenges is how to get good playing time for Steve Pearce, Travis Snider and Delmon Young. Young appeared in only 81 games last season and is best as a DH. Pearce had a breakout season with 21 home runs in 2014. Snider, a left-handed batter, hit .288 after the break last season for Pittsburgh and his swing is made for Camden Yards. ... The Orioles were criticized for no offseason moves, but they won without Manny Machado, Matt Wieters, and for the final month, Chris Davis. Wieters, in his walk season, starts on the disabled list recovering from elbow surgery. Machado's knees will be a concern until he proves otherwise, but he's an amazing hitter and capable of winning a Gold Glove at third base. The prediction here is that Davis will hit 33 home runs. ... J.J. Hardy starts on the disabled list, but Everth Cabrera, formerly of San Diego, is an above-average defender, so that offseason acquisition turned out well. Second baseman Jonathan Schoop was solid defensively, especially on the double play, and while he hits with power, the Orioles are confident that he'll make more contact and hit better than .209. ... Bullpens are never stable, but the Orioles have depth in their relief core. The closer is lefty Zach Britton, who had 37 saves and 7.3 strikeouts per nine innings learning on the job. Assuming no injuries, the Orioles will win their second consecutive AL East title.

Boston: The Red Sox, coming off a last-place finish, have a revamped rotation. Clay Buchholz is the ace, but the team needs him to end five consecutive seasons on the disabled list. Rick Porcello, 26, who throws a sinker, has won in double figures every one of his six big league seasons with Detroit, including last season when he had three shutouts and a 3.53 ERA. Justin Masterson needs health as he tries to bounce back from the 5.88 combined ERA with Cleveland and St. Louis. Joe Kelly has never pitched more than 124 innings in a season. Lefty Wade Miley, acquired from Arizona, pitched 194 innings during his rookie season and 200-plus in each of the two seasons prior to that. ... The new bat in the lineup is third baseman Pablo Sandoval, a World Series icon with the Giants. He joins an infield that has Xander Bogaerts, Dustin Pedroia and Mike Napoli. ... The DH is David Ortiz, who says that he should in the Hall of Fame. He's a nine-time All-Star with three World Series rings, 466 home runs, 2,159 hits and two AL RBI titles. ... The gamble in the outfield is whether Hanley Ramirez, 31, who could hit 25 home runs, can switch to left field after 10 seasons as a shortstop. Playing Fenway's Green Monster, with its weird caroms, isn't an easy task, even for the most experienced outfielder. ... The Red Sox have a question in the bullpen: Is closer Koji Uehara, at 40, sturdy enough to handle the job? He's lost zip on his fastball and that means he's going to have to be more of a finesse pitcher. Still, he's got a 0.73 WHIP in his two seasons with Boston.

New York: Alex Rodriguez, who returns after missing last season because of a PED suspension, has been - and will be - all the rage with the Yankees, who owe A-Rod $61 million over the next three years. At 39, A-Rod isn't likely to return to his MVP days, but any consistent bat will help an offense that ranked 13th in runs scored in the AL last season. He's mostly DH, but get some time at first base. ... Masahiro Tanaka, who had a 2.77 ERA last season before an elbow injury limited him to four games in the final three months, is the starter on opening day followed by Michael Pineda, lefty CC Sabathia, Nathan Eovaldi and Adam Warren. Will Sabathia's knee hold up after making eight starts last season? Can Pineda, 26, pitch a full season? Eovaldi might be their most consistent starter. ... The strength of the offense will be the speed of outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner. The Yankees are looking for a rebound from Chase Headley and the only new addition is Garrett Jones, who be splitting time at DH with Mark Teixeira and A-Rod. The Yankees were surprised at how good Teixeira looked this spring. ... Catcher Brian McCann, once of the top hitting catchers in the National League before signing with the Yankees, hit .232 in his first season in the American League. The A-Rod story has over-shadowed the fact that shortstop Derek Jeter is gone and will be replaced by Didi Gregorius, an excellent defender who hit .226 in 80 games for Arizona last season. Gregorius and second baseman Stephen Drew might not hit, but their defense will be better than Jeter and former Oriole Brian Roberts, last year's double play combo at the start.

Toronto: The Blue Jays have not gone to the playoffs in 22 years, the longest current drought in the majors. ... The Blue Jays rotation was thin at the start of spring training, but when Marcus Stroman, who had a 3.65 ERA as a rookie last season, went out with a knee injury, the rotation got thinner. R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle will give them at least 200 innings each. That leaves Drew Hutchinson, Marco Estrada, and top prospects Daniel Norris, a lefty with command of four pitches, and Aaron Sanchez, a right-hander with a fastball-curve mix, to fill out the rotation. ... Sanchez and Norris will benefit from the knowledge and preparation of catcher Russell Martin, who signed an $80 million contract to move from Pittsburgh to the Blue Jays. ...The Blue Jays outscored everybody in the league last year, thanks to the power of Jose Bautista (35 home runs) and Edwin Encarnacion (34), and this year they added All-Star Josh Donaldson, an AL MVP candidate who hit 53 home runs in his last two seasons for Oakland. ... There will be new two outfielders, Michael Saunders in left and prospect Dalton Pompey in center. Saunders came from Seattle, but will start the season on the DL, and Pompey is a prospect with speed, capable of stealing 25 bases. ... Observations on shortstop Jose Reyes are mixed: Some believe he's on the verge of a strong season. Others say he's slowing down and will not be the leadoff hitter he once was with the Mets.

Tampa Bay: The era without Maddon, the manager who turned the team from loser to World Series participant in 2008, begins with rookie manager Kevin Cash, a former catcher with Tampa Bay. Maddon was the Rays manager for nine seasons. ... The Rays' story is the same: Lots of pitching, not much hitting. The Rays sent four of their top six RBI guys to other teams over the winter, including Ben Zobrist, Wil Myers, Matt Joyce and Yunel Escobar, so it seems the Rays will have a difficult time improving on the AL's worst offense from 2014 (3.8 runs a game). ... The lineup cornerstones are infielders Longoria and James Loney and outfielder Desmond Jennings. Former Nationals prospect Steven Souza, 26, who hit .345 with 18 home runs and 28 steals last season in the minor leagues, will be in the outfield and be a key component in the middle of the Rays order. Talk about a promotion after having no place to go in the Nationals system. ... The Rays have deep pitching, but three key pitchers are on the disabled list at the start: Drew Smyly has left shoulder tendinitis, Alex Cobb forearm tendinitis and Alex Colome pneumonia. That leaves Chris Archer as the opening day starter against the Orioles followed by Jake Odorizzi and former Nationals prospect Nate Karen in the top three slots. Cobb, Smyly and Colome should be return mid-April. Archer threw 194 innings last season with a 3.22 ERA. Smyly, a lefty acquired from Detroit in the David Price trade last season, had a 1.70 ERA in seven starts for the Rays last season.