Every AL East team's fatal weakness ranked and where the Orioles fit in

Every team has a weakness. Even teams that spend a lot of money and trade a lot of prospects can never fully rid themselves of flaws. The question is: are your team's flaws small and manageable, or are they glaring and destined to ruin everything? When it comes to the Baltimore Orioles' chances of winning their division this season, what they do poorly may end up being more impactful than what they do well.

Once again, the AL East is set to be the most tightly contested division in baseball, with four of the five teams in the division believing with all their heart that this is their year. In a contest this close, what may end up deciding it all is which team's weakness costs them the fewest games. Here's each AL East team's biggest flaw from least to most problematic.

5. Tampa Bay Rays - Not trying to win

The Rays' flaw is that they are the only ones in the AL East not going for it this year. For most teams, being the team in the division that "tanking" guarantees a disaster season, but for the Rays, there is still an air of mystique around them where it feels like they might somehow snag a wild card spot without even trying. As far as flaws go, it's not that bad because they'll end up getting what they want out of this season: more assets at the trade deadline and a nice draft pick.

The four teams trying to win the AL East are well rounded but not perfect

4. Toronto Blue Jays - Injured rotation

Coming off their World Series loss, the Jays dove into the offseason, aggressively pursuing free agents and trade targets to improve their roster for another run. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, they've suffered an early cluster of injuries to the starting rotation that threatens to derail the season.

Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber, and Jose Berrios will all start the season on the IL, and their rotation, which was supposed to be a strength, is now relying on Eric Lauer, Cody Ponce, and 43-year-old Max Scherzer to start 60% of their games. It's not the worst thing that could happen, but it's not what they were envisioning when they were shelling out big free agent dollars for this roster.

3. New York Yankees - Even more injured rotation

The Yankees are starting the season with a four-man rotation. They would have you believe they are doing this because they have four off days in the first 10 days of the season, but teams with five good starters don't try to get away with a four-man rotation. Of course, Rodon should be back by the end of April and Cole hopes to be back by the end of May so they'll get to full strength eventually but missing spring training is not good for pitchers and coming back from elbow surgery and in Coles case major elbow surgery is not just as easy as coming back and picking up right where you left off. It's going to be rough.

2. Baltimore Orioles - Bad (and injured) bullpen

The Orioles made the decision to try to build most of their bullpen out of arms that better teams DFA'd last year, that they could find on the waiver wire. They were hoping that a ragtag crew of castoffs combined with a couple of veterans would be enough to get through the season. Then half of their veterans got hurt in spring training. At this point, outside of Ryan Helsley, Tyler Wells, and Yennier Cano, there's not much MLB-level experience in this bullpen. It's a real dice roll that could easily result in the Orioles blowing enough early-season games to put them out of contention.

1. Boston Red Sox - Poor offense

A year ago, the Red Sox had Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers hitting back-to-back at the top of their lineup. Through a series of shrewd moves, they freed themselves of these players, and now their offense is going to be anemic and heavily reliant on a second-year player with 71 career games under his belt. If Roman Anthony is an MVP candidate, they'll be fine if he's anything less than that; they'll struggle to create any offense, especially against lefties.