American League

We all have our theories on why bad things happen to good people.

I'm no different. I've had my good stretches and more-challenging periods. Last summer fell into the latter and will go down in the Book of Todd as one of the more challenging times of my life.

I just felt out of whack. Not quite as sharp as I'd been the day before and it seemed that my internal karma was out of sync. Where one day I would bend down and find a dollar on the ground, the next I'd bend down and rip my drawers.

We're already almost halfway to the 2009 MLB All star game. I know, time flies huh?

About one quarter of the way into the season, a lot of players, young and old, are putting up some eye-popping numbers. There's little doubt that some of the current league leaders won't stay there, but I'd like to recognize some of the top performers this far into a young season.

For this piece I'm going to stick with position players.

American League

Catcher - Victor Martinez, Cleveland Indians

Until Monday, the Mariners were rolling.

They were coming off a comeback-riddled series with Oakland, in which they came out on top. Wakamojo was at full force.

Since then, the Seattle Mariners have lost four games in a row, and in a very disheartening manner.

Half of these losses came in the form of a 2 game sweep at the hands of the now division leading Texas Rangers. During the Texas series, we also lost one of our top performing relievers in Sean Kelley. It's looking like he's going to be on the DL for an extended period of time.

Yet another domino fell in the ongoing defamation of baseball in this generation.  Add to the list of household names to be crucified for their actions now and forever, Manny Ramirez.

Manny is not the topic of this article, but his situation must be mentioned to really drive the point home. Manny now joins this generations group of baseball dunces, and sure the baseball community is shocked, but really how shocked are they at this point? 

Canseco has been trying to tell us for years.

What if your wildest dream came true?

Do you dream of winning the lottery, being president, or just finally having that hot chick at work talk to you?

Well my dream would be to coach the Minnesota Twins.

As it seemed on Friday, the planets have finally aligned. With one mighty swing from Joe, the Twins still have much room for improvement.

Well, after the embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Red Sox two weekends ago up at Fenway Park, the Sawx travel down to the Bronx for their first games in the New Yankee Stadium.

In honor of this occasion tonight, I have come up with another edition of the Smoking With Hank Top Five, where we take a look at the top five moments between the Yankees and the Red Sox to take place at the Old Yankee Stadium. Enjoy!

Over the next month or so, I'm going to break down a different MLB team each day, and make a bold prediction as to what they're looking at, position wise, come September.

Naturally, I'll start with my team—the Seattle Mariners.

It was painfully obvious last year, that the Mariners were not a good team. Suffice to say, almost nothing went right in a 101 loss, last place season. The 2008 Mariners were also the first team in history with a $100 million payroll to lose 100 games. Not an accomplishment to be proud of.

The Major League Baseball season started this month, bringing hope to fans of all 30 professional baseball teams that this might be their year. 

AL East

The Yankees were a big disappointment last season as they missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. They have tried to end this issue by spending a lot of money in the offseason by improving their starting rotation in signing CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to long term contracts.  They also should see some increased power production as they  picked up Mark Teixeira.

Major league baseball teams are beginning to become younger and younger. This season especially, teams are looking to their younger players to help guide them to wins. Here is an in-depth look at every teams' young players on the rise in the American League.

When you look at the American league this year, it's hard to predict which team will claim any of the divisions. All of these teams have amazing talent on them, which is good.

American League East

I cannot wait to see this battle get underway. This was Yankees' and Red Sox' stomping ground for the past few years, until the worm turned for the Rays.

Each team has a solid rotation, dangerous lineups, and good bullpens.