𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Just how bad has the American League West been this season?

The Athletics on Friday announced a mutual parting of ways with longtime general manager David Forst, which followed news from June, when the Angels dismissed their GM Perry Minasian. And this week, the three teams with a realistic chance of winning the division — the Astros, Rangers and Mariners — did little to improve their rosters significantly at the trade deadline.

What’s left is a division that is on course to make history. Not the good kind.

Never has a division featured five teams with a negative run differential, a solid tool for broadly determining whether a team is actually good. This year’s American League West may be the first to finish 0-for-5.

At the start of play on Friday, all five teams were comfortably in the red, with the Mariners representing the class of the field at minus-14. The five teams cumulatively have been outscored by 305 runs, with a big part of that being the pitching woes of the Athletics and their league-worst run differential of minus-157.

That whopping run differential disparity comes despite the fact that perhaps the best player in the American League — the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez — resides in the division. Alvarez leads baseball with 35 home runs and is atop all three AL Triple Crown categories by a considerable margin.

If Alvarez does win the Triple Crown, he will be the first left-handed hitter to capture it since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 — history that doesn’t fit within this disastrous division.

Baseball’s current divisional setup began in 2013, when the Astros moved from the NL Central to the AL West. The move brought every division to five teams. Only seven times has a division featured only one team that has finished the season having scored more runs than they allowed. Never has there been zero.

Not even the often-derided AL Central has accomplished the feat.

It is difficult to determine one reason for why things have devolved. The Mariners, who came eight outs away from capturing last season’s AL pennant, have witnessed marked declines from Josh Naylor and AL MVP runner-up Cal Raleigh, who captured the sport’s consciousness with a 60-homer season in 2025.

Raleigh entered Friday slugging .308 with a 66 OPS+. He has hit just 12 home runs and, according to Baseball-Reference, is worth minus-0.3 WAR. The pitching staff Raleigh is guiding is still formidable — only seven teams have a lower ERA than Seattle — but has fallen victim to a feeble offense. Seattle has already been shut out 11 times this season and boasts the third-lowest OPS in baseball.

The A’s, who have a promising young offensive core, have been devastated by injuries to All-Star catcher Shea Langeliers, reigning AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz and two-time All-Star slugger Brent Rooker, as well as the ostensible leader of their pitching staff, right-hander Luis Severino. That they play in a small, Triple-A ballpark isn’t helpful for a pitching staff that has been without Severino since late May.

Corey Seager, the Texas Rangers’ $325 million shortstop, has required three separate trips to the injured list during the team’s first 115 games. Young standouts Josh Jung and Wyatt Langford have also missed time with injuries. Aces Jacob deGrom and Nate Eovaldi each have an ERA of at least 3.96 — acceptable in a vacuum, but not for a team so staggered offensively.

The Angels have struggled all season despite a rebound year from superstar Mike Trout. They traded starter José Soriano, outfielder Jo Adell and reliever Ryan Zeferjahn, among others, at the deadline and then released veteran Jorge Soler. Rookie Angels manager Kurt Suzuki is on a one-year deal, so the Angels could be looking for a new general manager and manager this offseason, depending on whether they decide to stick with Suzuki and interim GM John Mozeliak or not.

Alvarez’s Astros somehow lead the division despite a run differential of minus-25. Miserable seasons from franchise cornerstone Jose Altuve and touted trade acquisition Cam Smith — coupled with Carlos Correa’s season-ending ankle injury — have shortened Houston’s lineup.

Astros general manager Dana Brown’s brutal offseason, during which he signed six pitchers who have combined to post a 5.67 ERA across the 271 2/3 innings, helped to torpedo a starting rotation that entered Friday with the second-highest ERA in the American League. The only starting rotation with a higher one is the A’s.

And like their division rivals, the potential for change is not far. Both Brown and manager Joe Espada are in the final year of their respective contracts.

Of course, Houston may also have an opportunity to increase their lead in the standings, and perhaps help their run differential. The team’s next homestand features three straight divisional opponents: the Mariners, Angels and Athletics.