hideouslyshattered AL Central

AL Central

To me this division sort of falls into the "who cares?" category. Of course, I would have said that about the NL West last year and the Giants went on to win the World Series. Anyway, I don't think any of these teams has the look of a WS champ. But of the five, the Tigers do the best job pretending.

Projected Standings:

1. Detroit Tigers
2. Minnesota Twins
3. Cleveland Indians
4. Chicago White Sox
5. Kansas City Royals

Detroit Tigers:

Detroit is simply above average. They have one of the best hitters in the game in Miguel Cabrera, even if he is a drunk. Justin Verlander certainly has the stuff to be an ace pitcher, though he does have a tendency look pretty bad for stretches.

But the question for Detroit isn't whether Cabrera and Verlander will perform, the question will be whether or not they can get enough from everyone else. Victor Martinez should be great at catcher, but can Austin Jackson and Ryan Raburn build on last year's success in the OF? Can Magglio Ordonez keep his brittle bones intact for one more year? Can Max Scherzer make the jump from promising young pitcher to solid pitching stud? My guess is that they'll get enough from their supporting cast to win the division, but not enough to win a playoff series.

Minnesota Twins:

This team doesn't look that good to me, but I've picked them to be second because they always do better than I think they will. The other thing is that the rest of the teams in the division suck worse than the Twins. The Twins have some good pieces: Mauer, Morneau, but to me they're built kinda like the Tigers with a little less talent high end talent. Where Miguel Cabrera is a top 5 player, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer are maybe top 40, and that's when they're not missing games. The Twins' pitcher Fransico Liriano makes Verlander look like a steady, consistent option by comparison. They'll probably win a lot of games against the bottom three teams in the division, but I don't see enough here to pass the Tigers, and certainly not enough to make any noise in the playoffs.

Chicago White Sox:

The Pale Hose aren't a bad team. They're just not that good. They've got a bunch of solid offensive players, Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, Alex Rios, Carlos Quentin (when healthy) . . . even their middle infielders aren't bad. But none of them are even as good as the Twins' best hitters.

Their Pitching Staff suffers the same malady. Down the line they're guys that you wouldn't mind on your team, but there's no ace, noone who can get you a win even when your offense is off.

Cleveland Indians:

Do not rock. They're not terrible, outfielder Shin-Soo Choo is severely underrated, and it looks like Grady Sizemore is healthy at least for now. If they could just start Michael Brantley instead of Austin Kearns that would be a formidable outfield. The problem is that you have six other players in your lineup. And while catcher Carlos Santana is a solid young talent the rest of the infield looks pretty bad. Throw in a bad to terrible starting rotation and you've got yourself a crappy team. The relief pitching is pretty good though. So there's that.

Kansas City Royals:

For years they have been at the bottom of the league. There's really no hope on the horizon. They are the Pirates of the AL. Or the Pirates are the Royals of the NL. I really couldn't say.