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There are few things you can predict in baseball, but for the first decade and a half of the Wild Card Era, there has been one safe for you to drop at the local sportsbook: either the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees would win the AL East. Those two free-spending behemoths combined to win 13 of the 15 division titles from 1995–2009, while the the Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays mostly just prayed for realignment.

And then something unpredictable happened.

Parity set up camp in a division that was once dubbed the “American League Beast” and it is anyone’s race now. Four different teams have won the division in the past five seasons — only the Toronto Blue Jays haven’t been champs in that span.

Heading into the 2015 season, there was no clear favorite in the AL East, no elite team, no obvious juggernaut expected to run away from the pack. Each club had its obvious flaws, an abundance of question marks, and far too many “what if” scenarios.

Yet few could have imagined how closely bunched the AL East would be as we head into the unofficial second half of the season. Just six-and-a-half games separate the first- and last-place teams, making it the smallest spread of any division in baseball and the tightest top-to-bottom race at the All-Star break in nearly a decade. The last time we saw a division this competitive entering the second half of the season was 2006, when the four-team AL West was separated by a mere 2.5 games and the NL West featured five teams within five games of the division lead.

The race for first place in this year’s AL East has literally been a game of hot potato. Since the third week of the season, each team has been atop the standings and no team has enjoyed a lead of more than four games. As the calendar turned to July, the division was in an unprecedented state of flux — with four teams within a single game of the leader. According to research by ESPN.com’s Dan Szymborski, this was the first time in the Divisional Era (since 1969) that a division had a fourth-place team this close to the leader on the morning of July 2.

The Yankees have since opened up a little breathing room and enter the break with a three-and-a-half game edge over the second-place Rays. And while that margin seems comfortable, given how suffocating the division race has been so far, its hardly an insurmountable lead with two-plus months of baseball to be played.

So which team is poised to rise above the rest and claim the AL East title by the end of September? First, let’s take a look at each team’s odds to win the division, per the projections at Fangraphs.com and Baseball Prospectus:

The Yankees are the current favorites thanks to their lead in the standings, but obviously, none of the other teams are out of it by any means, especially since the odds can swing wildly in a matter of days. In fact, just two weeks ago, the Yankees had a 35 percent chance to win the division. (The Rays were at 17 percent.)

Elsewhere, Major League Baseball’s other divisions are set up for a nice battle at the top, but AL East remains the most competitive division race from one-through-five in baseball this season.

With those numbers in hand and the uncertainty that lies ahead, here’s a breakdown of each team’s key strengths and weaknesses as we try to handicap the chaotic mess that is the AL East in 2015.

New York Yankees (48–40)

The Bronx Bombers currently own the best odds thanks to modest surge this month during which they’ve won seven of 10 games, while the only other AL East team to play .500 or better ball in July has been the Red Sox (6–4).

One of their biggest advantages is that they likely have the most favorable remaining schedule in the division. They have played the fewest home games so far, and will play 40 of their remaining 74 games at Yankees Stadium, where they have the best home record in the division.

The Yankees might also be the most balanced team in this imperfect group. They are the only AL East squad that ranks in the upper half of the league in both pitching WAR and batting WAR, via Fangraphs. They are averaging the second-most runs in the league, and feature a lockdown bullpen that has helped the team compile a perfect 46–0 record when leading after eight innings.

Yet as well as the Yankees have played recently, they are as much in flux as the rest of their division rivals and have suffered some ugly losses. They are just 17–18 against teams with a current losing record, and every winning streak seems to be followed by a similar losing stretch. Their fatal flaw might be their sloppy defense, which has committed the third-most errors in the AL and ranks second-worst in Defensive Runs Saved.

Tampa Bay Rays (46–45)

The Rays have exceeded expectations perhaps more than any other team, overcoming a slew of crippling injuries to remain in playoff contention for the first half of the season. Pitching has kept them in the division race, posting the best ERA and lowest batting average allowed among AL East staffs.

Although they endured a recent slump during which they dropped 15 of 18 games to fall out of the division lead, the Rays head into the break on an upswing following a sweep of the Astros that pushed them back above .500. However just when they seemed to gain some momentum with the return of a healthy Matt Moore and Jake Odorizzi to the rotation and James Loney to the lineup, they’ve been hit with another wave of injuries as Steven Souza Jr. and Asdrubal Cabrera have recently gone on the disabled list.

As good as the team’s pitching has been, the Rays’ offense has been just as awful. They rank 13th in the AL in OPS, second-to-last in slugging and are averaging the third-fewest runs in the league. During a recent series against the Indians, they became the first team in the Expansion Era (since 1961) to be no-hit through six innings in three straight games. If the Rays are going to emerge as the AL East’s top team, they’ll need to find some bats to support their strong pitching staff.

Baltimore Orioles (44–44)

Buoyed by a three-week stretch in June during which they went 18–5, the defending AL East champs have been in the thick of the division race for much of 2015. But their season has really been just a series of peaks and valleys — outside of those 23 games, Baltimore is just 26–39.

Although they boast a powerful lineup (fourth in the AL in slugging and homers) and a solid bullpen, the Orioles’ biggest advantage over their division counterparts could be their superior defense, which has committed the fewest errors in the league. The difference in Defensive Runs Saved between the division-leading Orioles (+22) and the division-worst Yankees (-35) is 57 runs, or the equivalent of five wins.

The Orioles could really use an upgrade in the rotation, which has the league’s second-worst FIP and has struggled beyond the surprising contributions from Ubaldo Jimenez (2.81 ERA) and Wei-Yin Chen (2.78). If the Orioles are going to rise to the top of the AL East, they need former ace Chris Tillman (5.40 ERA) to have a huge second half, and hope that the young righty Kevin Gausman (5.00 ERA) can finally put it all together this season.

Toronto Blue Jays (45–46)

If the division race was decided on motivation alone, the Blue Jays would be heavy favorites. They own baseball’s longest active streak without a postseason appearance, a drought stretching back more than two decades for their October-starved fans.

The Blue Jays are one of the most perplexing teams in baseball. They’ve got the AL’s best run differential by far, but sit in third place in the division at an underwhelming one game below .500. Their struggles in close contests (10–18 in one-run games) and gaudy record in blowouts (20–6 in games decided by five-plus runs) has left them little margin for error over the next few months.

Toronto has survived thanks to the most explosive bats in the league. They’ve scored in double digits 16 times this season — seven more than any other team — and rank among the AL’s best in nearly every offensive category. Yet, not even an elite offense can be counted on to win every game (see Sunday’s 11–10 loss to the Royals), and that’s where the Blue Jays’ fatal flaw is exposed. They have the worst rotation FIP in the league and rank fourth-worst in overall ERA.

If Toronto doesn’t make a big splash at the deadline to acquire a frontline starter and some pitching depth, they’ll likely be watching the playoffs from the comfort of their own couches in October.

Boston Red Sox (42–47)

The Red Sox might be the AL East’s cellar dweller entering the break, but they have to be somewhat optimistic considering the position they were in less than a month ago. On June 20 following a loss to the Royals, the Red Sox fell to 30–40 and were a season-worst 10 games back in the division race. Since then, they have the best record and run differential of any AL East team and their division odds have nearly tripled.

Their billion-dollar lineup has finally come around, averaging 5.5 runs per game in July, and they now boast one of the deepest lineups in the league. They are the only AL team that has six qualified batters (Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Brock Holt, David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramire) with an above-average OPS this season.

Yet the Red Sox decision this winter to funnel their money toward offense and avoid the elite free-agent arms seems to have backfired. They have the highest starters’ ERA in the American League, and now their ace Clay Buchholz just went on the disabled list with an elbow injury.

The Red Sox have been playing better recently, but history says that they still remain a longshot to win the AL East. Only four teams have won their division despite being at least five games under .500 at the 89-game mark of the season, and it hasn’t happened in more than three decades: two Royals teams from the ‘80s (1984 and 1981) and two National League teams in the ‘70s (1974 Pirates and 1973 Mets). However, if any team can make an improbable comeback, it is the Red Sox — a franchise that pulled off the Impossible Dream in 1967 and engineered the sports’s greatest postseason miracle during the 2004 ALCS.