{"id":615807,"date":"2026-03-10T00:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/615807\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T00:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:28:12","slug":"vote-who-will-be-the-yankees-toughest-al-opponent-in-2026-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/615807\/","title":{"rendered":"VOTE: Who will be the Yankees\u2019 toughest AL opponent in 2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across Major League Baseball. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Yankees fans and fans across the country. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartsurvey.co.uk\/s\/0DWS6R\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here<\/a> to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We\u2019re almost there. In just over two weeks, the Yankees will open the 2026 MLB season in San Francisco against the Giants. Final rosters around the league are still being developed, so we don\u2019t know just yet what each of 30 teams will look like when the season starts. But we know a decent chunk about it now, so why not speculate?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Focusing on the American League, who do you think will be the toughest foe for the Yankees to take down this season? Is it the Blue Jays, who narrowly beat out the Yankees for the AL East last year, took them out in the playoffs, and then nearly won the World Series? They\u2019re probably the favorite, but you don\u2019t have to look too hard around the internet to find people doubting their ability to repeat that magic. Maybe you\u2019re more of a believer in the youthful Red Sox, now also infused with Ranger Su\u00e1rez, Sonny Gray, and Willson Contreras. The Mariners came oh-so-close to dispatching the Jays in the series before the Fall Classic, and their oft-vaunted pitching should stand to rebound from 2025 anyway. The Tigers added more Astros nemesis Framber Valdez to a rotation that also included two-time defending Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, so Detroit won\u2019t be a walk in the park either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So make your vote known! And while you\u2019re at it, just for fun, pick a team in the second question\u2019s prompt, which asks about the worst team in the American League. There are certainly some ignominious contenders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across Major League Baseball. Throughout the year we ask&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,4,7660,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-615807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-pinstripe-alley-discussions","13":"tag-toronto","14":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","15":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116202052242487111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}