Divisional Predictions: AL Central

As I continue through my pre-season divisional predictions I come to the AL Central – a division that has been ruled in recent years by the Tigers and the White Sox, with occasional success found by the Twins.  With the acquisition of one of the biggest free agent prizes, it doesn’t appear anybody will be able to top last year’s division winner.

Minnesota Twins

The Twins are one of the most unfortunate teams in baseball over the last couple of years.  Stacked with talent at key positions, countless injuries have been this team’s hurdle into the post season.  Joe Mauer is one of the elite catchers in the league, but last year missed half the season due to numerous health problems, most notably a knee surgery.  During the off-season the Twins acquired Ryan Doumit to back up Mauer, who has provided the Pirates with value since the 2005 season.  While not an all-star of Mauer’s caliber, Doumit is perfectly capable of hitting 10-15 home runs with a batting average in the high .200’s.  In his best season, 2008, he hit 15 home runs while batting .318 in 116 games.  Doumit also has the flexibility of being able to play first base, which provides additional insurance in the event that Justin Morneau’s concussion problems kick in again.  The losses of Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Joe Nathan are significant, and the only other “big name” the team brought in to replace any of these was Josh Willingham.  He will join Denard Span, who missed more than half of 2011 with a concussion but is capable of stealing 25 bases when healthy, and Ben Revere, who stole 34 bases in his rookie year last season but hit 0 home runs with a less-than-desirable batting average.  The post-concussed Morneau will join veteran infielders Jamey Carroll and Alexi Casilla to help sophomore Danny Valencia, who is coming off a decent first full season in the bigs.  The starting rotation features the likes of Carl Pavano, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn, Brian Duensing, and Jason Marquis to form one of the most mediocre rotations in baseball filled with question marks.  Can Pavano reproduce 2010 numbers when he won 17 games with a 3.75 ERA, and can he stay as healthy as he’s been the past two seasons?  Can Liriano bounce back from a pathetic 2011 and pick up where 2010 left off?  Does Duensing have what it takes to be a starter in this league?  And who exactly is the true #1 in this rotation?  With a questionable rotation, health concerns all over the field, and lack of power hitting it’s hard to imagine this team winning more than 70 games in 2012.

Kansas City Royals

The royals will be one of the more exciting teams to watch this season, and they are the sexy pick to surprise people.  It’s been 26 years since this team has tasted the post season, and they seem poised to put that behind them in 2012.  Rookie standout first baseman Eric Hosmer will try to improve upon the .293 batting average, 19 home runs, and 11 stolen bases he accumulated last year.  Another sophomore, Mike Moustakas, will anchor the other side of the infield a year after he hit 18 doubles in just 89 games while hitting .263.  Alcides Escobar will serve as the veteran of the infield and look to continue being the speedy run producer has has proven capable of.  Lorenzo Cain will play center field and attempt to back-up the hype he has developed while becoming an all-star at the Minor League level.  This will be his first season as an opening-day starter, but while accumulating 43 games played in 2010 for the Brewers he hit .306 with 7 stolen bases, 11 doubles, and 17 runs scored.  Jeff Francoeur saw a career renaissance in 2011, as he hit .285 with 20 home runs and 87 RBI.  What might be considered his most impressive stat was his stolen bases – 22 – when his previous career-high was only 8.  Since this was statistically his best full season since 2007 it would be considered anything but automatic for him to replicate these numbers, but it is possible Francoeur may have finally found a place he is comfortable in Kansas City.  On the other end of the outfield is team leader Alex Gordon.  He enters his second full season as a starter, and will try to follow up a .303 batting average, 23 homers, 87 RBI, 101 runs scored, and 17 stolen bases with something at least similar, if not better.  This guy is an absolute stud at the position who can do it all.  At DH will be Billy Butler, who features a mix of decent power and average – since 2007 he has averaged 15 home runs with a .297 BA.  The team’s starting rotation is its weak point, and it will be tested in the upcoming season.  It features veterans Bruce Chen and Jonathan Sanchez, with Luke Hochevar, Filipe Paulino, Danny Duffy, and Luis Mendoza filling out the back end.  If this group can keep the team in games into the 7th and 8th innings the likes of Joakim Soria and Jonathan Broxton will be able to close it out.  The Royals have an excellent mix of veterans and young talent, power and speed.  They are capable of winning 80-90 games during what I believe will be a down year for the division, and compete for the AL Wild Card.

Chicago White Sox

The Chicago south siders are a team in transition.  They lost Mark Buehrle, Juan Pierre, Carlos Quentin, and their manager Ozzie Guillen (maybe that one’s not actually a bad thing).  Their only notable addition was right fielder Kosuke Fukudome, but even he has a career batting average of .260 and does nothing spectacularly.  Gordon Beckham was supposed to be the White Sox future, but instead has been nothing but a perennial disappointment.  Adam Dunn will return to serve as the designated hitter.  While he has never hit for good average in his career, he has always been reliable for hitting 30-40 home runs.  In 2011 he forgot how to do that, evident by the fact that he only hit 11 with a .159 batting average.  Can he remember how to hit the bombs in 2012?  Paul Konerko has quietly been one of the best first basemen in baseball over the course of his career.  He has a .282 batting average and is capable of hitting 30-40 home runs every year – and he is just 4 shy of the 400 milestone.  The rotation remains somewhat formidible despite the loss of Buehrle, with John Danks, Gavin Floyd, and Phil Humber taking the top three spots.  Chris Sale will get a chance to be in the starting rotation after two very successful seasons in relief, but that transition is never painless.  Jake Peavy completes the rotation, but nobody ever knows what they’re going to get from him – my grandmother’s body is less fragile than this guy’s.  The White Sox are in rebuilding mode, and will have to suffer a couple seasons of little success.  In 2012 I see them winning somewhere around 70 games and competing with the Twins for the divisional basement.

Cleveland Indians

The Indians will be another fun team to keep an eye on this season.  Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner – when healthy – are both capable of hitting in the high .200’s with 20-30 home runs.  Shin-Soo Choo should also be able to return to form if healthy and be the 20-20 guy hitting .300 that he has proven to be in the past.  Casey Kotchman was brought in from the Rays, and he’s coming off a year in which he hit for the highest average of his career (.306) with 10 home runs and 24 doubles while playing 146 games.  Health is always the concern with Kotchman, but he proved that when healthy he still has what it takes to be a productive first baseman.  Shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera is coming off a year in which he hit 25 home runs, which happens to be 19 more than his previous career-high that he hit back in 2009.  He also managed to drive in 92 RBI and a .273 batting average with 17 stolen bases.  And let’s not forget the catching sensation Carlos Santana.  He was called-up mid-season in 2010 as a highly-touted prospect, and drove in 6 home runs, 22 RBI, and 23 runs scored in just 46 games.  He followed that up in 2011 with 27 homers, 79 RBI, and 84 runs scored.  I predict his average will improve to hit around .260, and look for similar power numbers with slight increases in run production with a more competitive Indians team this season.  The starting rotation is also nothing to be looked over.  At the top is Ubaldo Jiminez, then backed by Fausto Carmona (or whatever he’s called these days), Justin Masterson – who is coming off a career year – and Josh Tomlin.  Rounding out the rotation is veteran Derek Lowe, who may not have very much left in the tank but can still provide veteran leadership and experience to Masterson and Tomlin.  Chris Perez will once again close games out for Cleveland, which he did successfully 36 out of 32 times last season.  Aside from the rotation this team doesn’t have much depth, so the success of the Indians will depend a great deal on health – which is not necessarily a good thing since they have several injury-prone starters.  But one cannot predict injuries, so I will go out on a limb and say this team is capable of winning around 80-85 games, and possibly hang in on the Wild Card race until late in the season.

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers are stacked, and that’s an understatement.  What should a team do when it loses its all-star catcher/first baseman/designated hitter for an entire year during the off-season?  Go sign another all-star first baseman to a mega contract, of course!  And let’s not forget about the incumbent all-star first baseman that will now be playing 3rd base.  Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera will make up the best offensive 1B/3B combination in baseball.  Between them is Jhonny Peralta at shortstop – coming off his best career batting average, and third-best home run total – and the combination of Ryan Raburn and Brandon Inge at second base.  Brennan Boesch, Austin Jackson, and Delmon Young will make up the outfield.  Each are capable of hitting .250-.300 with 10-20 home runs, and Jackson can easily swipe 25 bases.  Alex Avila will return as the everyday catcher after a year in which he hit .295 with 19 home runs and 33 doubles.  I would expect about the same number of home runs and doubles, but I think his batting average will be around the .270 range in 2012.  The starting rotation will be among the top in the American League.  MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander will once again hold down the #1 spot, with Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, and Rick Porcello, filling out the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spots while one of the league’s best – Jose Valverde – will close games.  One of only two issues I can find with this team is the lack of a 5th starter in the rotation.  The second and bigger concern is this team’s infield defense.  Fielder has never been a good defensive first baseman due to his size.  Cabrera is a first baseman playing third, and Inge is a third baseman playing second.  Ground balls will leave Tigers fans holding their breath until the out is recorded.  I believe this team can win 95 games again, and take the division.

Final Division Standings:

1. Detroit Tigers

2. Kansas City Royals

3. Cleveland Indians

4. Minnesota Twins

5. Chicago White Sox

Divisional Predictions: AL West

Now that the football season has reached it’s conclusion, nobody watches the NBA until the playoffs in May, and nobody watches the NHL at all, it is time to turn our focus toward the upcoming baseball season.  Today marks the first day for any MLB team to require their pitchers and catchers to report – the Seattle Mariners – with the vast majority of teams waiting to do so until the 18th.  Now seems as good of a time as any to begin looking at each division in baseball, analyzing its additions and subtractions, and making bold predictions on how the division will play out by season’s end.  Since the Mariners have opened up pre-season report day, I will start this series off by breaking down the AL West.

Oakland Athletics

This one is easy.  No Trevor Cahill.  No Andrew Bailey.  No Gio Gonzalez.  No Rich Harden.  No David DeJesus.  No Ryan Sweeny.  No Josh Willingham.  Their most notable additions are Bartolo Colon, Jonny Gomes, and a Coco Crisp contract extension.  This just in: I am trying out for the Oakland Athletics.  This basement-dwelling team will be lucky to win 45 games.

Seattle Mariners

Often a team without much to celebrate, the Mariners appear to have a bright future with a stable of young stars in the making.  One of these stars, Michael Pineda, was shipped off to the Yankees for the super-prospect Jesus Montero.  Seattle doesn’t have the pitching depth that would make this type of a move ideal, but it would be impossible to argue that they did not get a fair return.  In his rookie season Pineda finished with a 3.74 ERA and 173 strikeouts with only 55 walks.  Before the team began limiting his workload in July due to fatigue that is not uncommon among rookies, his ERA sat in the mid 2’s.  With the proper conditioning/experience, and backed by a Yankees lineup that contends every year, Pineda is a future #1 pitcher and 20 game winner.  In return Seattle got a catcher that has been heralded by scouts for the last 2 years, and who managed to hit .328 with 4 home runs, 12 RBI, and 9 runs scored in just 18 games with the Yankees in 2011.  Like Pineda, Montero is a future star that the Mariners will need to lock down long-term to make this deal worthwhile.

Looking elsewhere on the team…the rotation is nothing special outside of perennial all-star Felix Hernandez.  Their #2 – Jason Vargas – is a #3 or 4 on most competing teams, and the back three of their rotation aren’t even worth a mention.  Compounding their pitching problems is the fact that they saw their 31-save closer (38 in 2010) walk via free agency.  Dustin Ackley burst onto the scene when he was called up in mid-June last year, maintaining a batting average between the high-200’s and low-300’s, but faltered down the stretch and finished with a .273 batting average.  He doesn’t hit for power and he doesn’t possess much speed, but he’s a good gap hitter (29 extra base hits) that has the ability to hit .300.  Ichiro is entering his 12th season and coming off a career-worst .272 batting average, but he still swiped 40 bases and hit 22 doubles.  Lastly, while it still may be too early to consider Justin Smoak a bust after only 2 seasons, that tag is on the horizon if he doesn’t show us something this year.  His batting average is Carlos Pena-like, and the power hasn’t been there to make up for it (13 in ’10, 15 in ’11).

The Mariners did not add any significant names this off-season other than Montero, and they lost a big arm in their starting rotation.  They won 67 games last year with a solid 1-2 punch and formidable closer.  Now they lost that follow-up punch behind King Felix, and they get to face Albert Pujols regularly throughout the season.  I predict the Mariners to go 58-104 and finish 3rd in the division.

Texas Rangers

The Rangers will enter 2012 with a lot of question marks.  First, what will Josh Hamilton bring to the table?  As we’ve all heard he has suffered from drug and alcohol addiction in the past, and as we discovered last week that part of his past may not be as far behind him as the Rangers had hoped.  Keep in mind Miguel Cabrera entered 2011 with questions surrounding his use of alcohol, and he went on to have an MVP-caliber season.  What compounds Hamilton’s situation, however, are his constant health issues.  He has missed at least a month of games in each of the last 3 seasons.  The second question mark is what will Yu Darvish bring to the table?  I predict he will be grossly overpaid in 2012, as he will earn $10 million while he makes the adjustment to American life and pitching in Major League Baseball.  What makes that investment even more tragic for the organization is the fact that the Rangers paid Darvish’s Japanese team almost the same amount of money they’re giving Darvish over the course of his 6 year deal just so they could negotiate with him.  Then of course there’s the Neftali Feliz experiment; See blog entry: “If it ain’t broke…”.  The fourth question is when, and for how long will Nelson Cruz be on the DL?  Not to mention the fact that C.J. Wilson, their most consistent pitcher for the last couple years, is now wearing an Angels jersey.

After going to the World series for the last two years, the Rangers get a D letter-grade from me this off-season, mostly for their ill-advised spending that could have been used to either lock down Wilson in a contract, and/or gain offensive depth.  I believe they take a step back and finish around 85-77, second in the division.

Los Angeles Angels

Simply put, there isn’t much about this team that I don’t like.  I believe they underachieved in 2011, and in response they went out and signed the #1 free agent this off-season, and a proven reliable arm for the rotation.  Weaver, Haren, Wilson, and Santana make up one of the best  1-4 starting rotations in baseball heading into 2012.  And this was a rotation that had the 6th-best ERA in baseball without C.J. Wilson last year.  In his career-worst year last season, Pujols still hit .299 with 37 home runs.  Breakout rookie Mark Trumbo, who filled-in for the injured Kendrys Morales last year, knocked in 29 home runs and 87 RBI.  He is expected to alternate at 3rd base with Alberto Callaspo in 2012, and serve as the DH on those days he’s not at 3rd.  The speedy Eric Aybar will return to his duties at shortstop, coming off a year in which he stole 30 bases, hit .279, had 33 doubles, 8 triples, and hit 10 home runs.  Torii Hunter will enter his 14th full season as the starting right fielder, and despite his age and declining batting average, he can still hit north of 20 home runs.  Peter Bourjos is another young player, entering his second full season, that will continue to mature and improve his already-impressive skill set; Last year he hit .271 with 12 home runs, 26 doubles, and 22 stolen bases.

The Angels will be a force to be reckoned with in 2012.  While I will save my playoff predictions for later on, it will be tough for anybody to beat this team.  They win the division with about a 102-60 record.