An alternate AL universe

Driven by deep data sets, sophisticated technology and collaboration between skilled statistical and scouting staffs, major league teams have become increasingly adept at projecting player performance. In some respects, assembling a roster is the easy part of building a winning team.

The hard part is making sure that roster remains intact. Speaking at Internet Week in New York earlier this year, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane stressed the importance of predicting and preventing injuries:

"The biggest indicator now -- for a sports team -- of whether you're going to be successful or not is whether or not you stay healthy. The health of baseball players, the health of football players, is going to be a better predictor of a team's performance. And the guy who gets his arms around that is going to be the wealthiest man in the world."

To read more about how injuries have affected two AL divisional races, become an Insider today.

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