Call to the Pen’s All-AL East team

Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

RELIEVER (NON CLOSER)

Steve Delabar‘s life is basically a movie. When his elbow exploded on a minor league pitching career and had to be rebuilt using screws and metal, it legitimately appeared that his career was ending before it could begin. He began coaching local pitchers in his spare time, and in trying to teach a new weighted ball program to them by first learning it himself, he was able to throw harder than he ever had before. Much harder. His mid-high nineties fastball and devastating splitter saw him quickly rise through the minors in Seattle before a midseason trade brought him North of the border. His is the kind of stuff that allowed him to rack up 12.58 strikeouts per nine innings, the fifth best mark amongst AL relievers, and Toronto is more than happy with their Cinderella story.

Voting: TOR Delabar, BAL Darren O’Day, BOS Edward Mujica, TB Joel Peralta, NYY Shawn Kelley

CLOSER

After a bit of a carousel at the position to start the year, Boston manager John Farrell settled on Koji Uehara as the team’s closer and rewarded his skipper’s faith by posting one of the better relief seasons of all time. He struck out 12.23 batters per nine innings and walked only 1.09. He generated 3.3 WAR by FanGraphs’ measure in only 74.1 innings and his .129 batting average against and 0.57 WHIP were by far the best marks amongst qualified relievers. He figures to lock down the closer’s mantle in 2014, and it’s no surprise our staff would take him over any closer in the division.

Voting: BOS Uehara, TB Grant Balfour, NYY David Robertson, TOR Casey Janssen, BAL Tommy Hunter

STARTING PITCHERS

David Price was the unanimous first place choice as the best starting pitcher in the division. He followed up his Cy Young winning 2012 with a shaky start, but overall finished with another very strong season in 186 innings. He lost a few strikeouts per nine, but nearly halved his walk rate at the same time, allowing him to accumulate an even better FIP than his career year. Rounding out the front of the rotation on our AL East dream team we’ve got Jon Lester of the Red Sox who saw a bounceback last year after looking like he was in the throes of decline, and CC Sabathia who has some of that bounceback stuff to do this year. At the back we have Boston’s fragile but brilliant Clay Buchholz and promising newcomer Masahiro Tanaka, the Japanese ace who signed a 155 million dollar contract with the Yankees without ever throwing a pitch professionally in the United States. Just missing the cut and relegated to the bench are the Rays’ Alex Cobb and Toronto’s ‘ace’ and 2012 NL Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey.