What did Joe Girardi say to a Yankees clubhouse that was unceremoniously swept out of the American League Championship Series, dominated in four straight games by the Detroit Tigers?

“This is never easy. I've been on both sides. It's never easy. There is only one team that's going to be happy when the year ends. But they did a lot of good things and they overcame a lot of good things this year,” Girardi told reporters. “We know we fell short. We understand that. 

“But how do we get better? I mean, that's my message,” Girardi said. “How do we all, including myself, how do we all get better next year so we don't have this feeling?”

It’s a fair question, but with no easy answer. After all, the 2012 season confronted the Yankees with a host of questions unlike any other that they’ve faced over their extraordinary run of 17 playoff appearances in the last 18 years. It seemed appropriate that this year represented the first time in the team’s run that began in 1995 that it got swept out of the playoffs. 

The roster that slumped off the field of Comerica Park was wildly unfamiliar: No Mariano Rivera. No Derek Jeter. Alex Rodriguez relegated to the bench. Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher hopelessly overmatched for most of October. 

The combined impact of those elements suggests that the Yankees are a team whose future shape is more in doubt than at any point, perhaps, in nearly 20 years. It seems absurd to lump the Yankees -- who won the AL East and then their ALDS matchup against the Orioles, before getting demolished in the ALCS -- with a Red Sox team that went 69-93 in 2012, but nonetheless, while the two teams occupy different spaces in October, the line separating them is perhaps a bit thinner than is comfortable for the Yankees to consider.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman certainly is aware of that reality. After all, long before he ascended to the position of GM, he got his start in the Yankees organization in the mid-1980s, a time when New York was beaten like a drum. He remembers going through what the Red Sox endured in 2012.

“We've had those years. I grew up here. There was one year we lost almost 100 games and we were the doormat of the East,” he recalled at the end of the regular season. “Bottom line is you have to have great players, then you have to have great players consistently on a yearly basis that somehow remain focused and hungry and healthy, and when they're not healthy you have to have the reinforcements. You have to be good. You have to be lucky. You have to be healthy. I think we've been good, lucky and healthy a lot.”

But the good and lucky and healthy seemed to strike midnight all at the same moment in the 2012 ALCS, when Derek Jeter went down with a broken ankle in Game 1. He will undergo surgery on Saturday and will require four to five months of recovery time (barring a setback), and it would be almost impossible to forecast the impact on his career. Can he stay at short now? Or will he, perhaps, finally transition to a new position, perhaps third base, with the Yankees considering the possibility of shipping Rodriguez elsewhere? 

Even if the Yankees are confident in Jeter’s recovery, can they bring back Rodriguez after the daily drama of the start-or-sit dilemma he posed to Girardi? Will Rivera be able to come back healthy and dominant following his season lost to a blown-out ACL? Will the Yankees re-sign Swisher after his continued misery in the postseason? Will Russell Martin be back? Or Hiroki Kuroda?

There may yet be enough in the Yankees’ core to compete in 2012, but that isn’t a given -- as it had been in recent years -- and with so many players at or past the end of their primes, New York will confront a need to address its long-term shape. 

The Yankees aren’t alone in facing numerous questions about the state of their roster, which may require considerable retooling. The result is that no one has any idea what to make of the AL East going forward. All of the teams enter the offseason with a laundry list of questions about their futures

The Sox, of course, must address questions at first base (with Gonzalez gone), two outfield positions (with Crawford gone and Cody Ross a free agent), shortstop (Mike Aviles? Jose Iglesias? Other?), find a fifth starter, manager and coaching staff. 

The Orioles enjoyed their magic carpet ride into October, but the endless supply of one-run and extra-innings wins suggests that their foundation is in question. A team that scores just seven more runs than it allows is hardly a lock to make postseason appearances a perennial rite. 

Baltimore has a number of potential lineup centerpieces -- Manny Machado, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis -- but deficiencies at some positions. Meanwhile, there’s not a lot of track record to inspire confidence in some of the remarkable stories that transpired in the Orioles rotation (Miguel Gonzalez, Jason Hammel).  

Tampa Bay seems a virtual lock to have excellent starting pitching, but the team’s dependence on run prevention could be an issue going into next year. B.J. Upton almost certainly will depart in free agency, denying the team one of its foremost power-hitting threats and removing a center fielder who seemingly has tracked down everything since 2008. Financial realities could force the Rays to trade James Shields or David Price. Closer Fernando Rodney can’t possibly have another year like the one he had in 2012. And, the team has to find a way to inject more offense into a lineup that ranked 11^th in the AL in runs scored. 

The Jays must hope for a return to health (Jose Bautista, Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, Drew Hutchison) and effectiveness (Ricky Romero) while hoping that Edwin Encarnacion’s emergence as one of the preeminent sluggers in the AL at age 29 was not a mirage. 

There are no givens in the division. As much as ever, the AL East now represents a wild, wild west, a venue where the ever-changing rules of engagement feature numerous offseason challenges for every team in the division but also a wealth of possibilities.