AL Central preview

Cleveland Indians 98-64

They won 96 games last year with Hafner and Sizemore not performing as well as they could have. The rotation is what makes them the team to beat in the American League, but, like last year, Joe Borowski will have a ton of pressure on him closing out games.

Detroit Tigers 91-71

The lineup looks explosive, but the starting pitching and bullpen could be a question mark. If Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman can rebound from tough years, the Tigers have a chance to be historically good. I’m not sure it’ll happen, and even if it does, a shaky bullpen will have to hold the leads.

Chicago White Sox 80-82

More on this tomorrow, but despite the projected record, I think the White Sox are pretty good. There are some divisions, like the NL Central, that they could probably win. This particular one is just too tough though. Swisher and Carlos Quentin were great pickups (if Ozzie plays CQ), but the Garland for Orlando Cabrera swap was a bad one. In baseball you need pitching, and now the Sox are relying on two really young guys and one really old one to carry the back half of the rotation.
 
Minnesota Twins 75-87

I love the Delmon Young for them. Pitchers like Garza are often times hit or miss, but Young is going to be a stud, for sure. Add him with Maurer and Mourneau and you have a solid middle of the order. The pitching staff will struggle though, especially since they sent down Liriano, without Johan Santana. The Twins would have been my dark horse in the AL had they kept him, but now it looks like Minnesota is destined for fourth or fifth.

Kansas City Royals 74-88

Alex Gordon and Billy Butler are legit, which sucks for Sox fans because this division is loaded with great young talent. They’ll need starting pitching before they can be a top three team in this division, but with Dayton Moore as GM, it’ll happen sooner than you think.