What is going on in the AL Central?
Coming into the year, experts and casual observers of baseball alike predicted that the A.L. Central would be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball. Those predictions, through the first 30 some odd games of the season, anyways, have been largely inaccurate. When people said the division would be competitive, they were right, but nobody thought the competition would be for who can stay at or around .500. The question that remains to be answered this season is, who will turn their year around and start playing winning baseball? Here’s a look at how the season has gone for each of the teams in this wacky division:
Cleveland Indians
The Indians had high expectations going into this season, hoping to reach that coveted “next level” status as a team that made it to the ALCS last year before falling one game short of a World Series berth. They have established veterans like C.C. Sabathia, a pitcher who is almost guaranteed to give you a quality start every time he takes the mound. After 2 full seasons in the majors, Grady Sizemore followed up two good offensive years with a great year at the plate in 2007, almost certainly his best season as a big leaguer. Along with his teammate Sizemore, Victor Martinez also had arguably his best season since breaking in to the bigs in 2002. Couple that with guys like Jake Westbrook, Fausto Carmona, Jhonny Peralta, the ever-serviceable Paul Byrd, and Joe Borowski, who had a career high 45 saves as Cleveland’s new closer last year, and you figure you’re in good shape to make another run deep into the playoffs in 2008.
Despite retaining virtually every important player from last year, however, the Indians are just 14-17 thus far in 2008, still only 2.5 games back in the standings. Who has been their best pitcher so far? Not a guy you’d expect, that’s for sure. Cliff Lee hasn’t just had the best start to the season on the Indians, he’s had arguably the best start by any pitcher in the Major Leagues. Lee is 5-0 with a 0.96 ERA so far this season. Sabathia? 1-5 with a 7.51 ERA in 7 starts. Those stats are a bit misleading though - Sabathia still leads the team in strikeouts, and his high ERA is largely the result of giving up 9 runs in consecutive starts back in April. Aside from those two terrible outings and a poor pitching performance in his debut this season, Sabathia has been solid. The Indians are missing Joe Borowski with an injury to his triceps, but he should be back within about 3 weeks or so. Jake Westbrook joined Borowski on the 15-day DL on April 22nd, and a tentative 1 month timetable has been set for his return. It remains to be seen how long it will take him to fully recover, but he could still help the Indians going down the stretch if they’re still in a race. They have almost all of the right pieces in place; now they have to figure out how to start winning more ballgames.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers were touted as one of the most explosive offensive teams in recent memory during spring training after acquiring a slew of big names in the offseason. Miguel Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, and Dontrelle Willis are the most notable new faces in the Tigers clubhouse, and although their offense is not as dominant as many thought it would be, Detroit is still 6th in the league in runs scored, on-base percentage, and home runs. The new guys, Cabrera and Renteria, have each produced, but Gary Sheffield, Brandon Inge, and Marcus Thames have all gotten off to slow starts. You have to believe that if any one of those players goes on a tear and rights himself at the plate, the Tigers offense will be near the top of the league in most statistical categories. So the offensive production has come close to meeting expectations, but the same cannot be said about their starting pitching.
Detroit Tigers 2008 Pitching Stats:
(ERA, IP, K-BB Ratio)
- Justin Verlander (1-5):
6.28 43.0 25-20
- Kenny Rogers (2-3):
6.27 37.1 19-19
- Jeremy Bonderman (2-3):
4.17 41.0 22-25
- Nate Robertson (1-3):
6.82 34.1 27-9
- Armando Galarraga (2-1):
1.88 24.0 15-8
As you can see, the Tigers have gotten sub-par starting pitching performances all season, the biggest reason for their 14-19 start. While not all on starting pitching, the Tigers have already given up 7 runs or more to their opponent seven times this season and surrendered 10 or more runs in 5 of those 7 games. Dontrelle Willis managed to make only two starts before injuring his knee and getting placed on the 15 day DL, and I’m sure the Tigers hope that when he makes his return he can restore some order to a rotation that has failed to meet expectations going into the season. They could be waiting a while, however, as Willis re-injured the knee in a rehab start last Friday, but luckily for them, everyone else in the division has been pretty static.
Minnesota Twins
Last year, the Twins marketed guys like Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett and Rondell White as piranhas - ankle biters that can get on base and play solid defense. Unfortunately for Minnesota, the piranhas batted more like goldfish, and Jason Bartlett and his league leading 26 errors at shortstop was packaged with up and coming starter Matt Garza and sent to Tampa Bay for Delmon Young. The Twins have regressed offensively as a team since their 3 straight division titles at the start of the decade, and despite Justin Morneau becoming the first Twin to hit more than 30 home runs in a season since 1987 with his MVP year in 2006, this year’s Twin’s club has almost no supporting cast. Joe Mauer is still going to be a .300 hitter, but the power still isn’t there and will likely never be a part of his offensive game. Michael Cuddyer had a good year offensively in ‘06, but he took a step back last year and is hitting .280 with 1 homer and 9 RBI in limited time this year, a result of a dislocated finger that kept him out of action in 17 games so far this year.
The Twins are not and probably will not be a good offensive team this year, but the scary thing for manager Ron Gardenhire going into the season was that their pitching situation might be even worse than their hitting. The move to trade Johan Santana looks more foolish by the day, but it’s all part of a master rebuilding process by Bill Smith, the new GM in Minnesota. The one source of hope for Twins fans going into the year was the return of rookie sensation Francisco Liriano, but that hasn’t exactly worked out so far. Liriano has already been sent down to the minors after allowing 13 runs in just 10 1/3 innings of work. Either his arm isn’t what it used to be after Tommy John surgery, or Liriano was rushed back too fast and needs more time to work on his pitching in the minors, but I don’t give the Twins too much of a chance in the long haul if he can’t be effective. Livan Hernandez has been surprisingly good this year, considering his age, but he’s pretty much just an innings eater at this stage in his career. That would be fine on a staff with 2 or 3 other legitimate starters, but the Twins rotation is comprised of Hernandez, Boof Bonser, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn and…fill in the blank. The bullpen is good but faces the problem of getting overworked as the season rolls along, and even though Joe Nathan is rock solid as a closer, what’s the point of having a great closer if you don’t have the lead going into the ninth anyways because of either a lack of hitting, poor pitching, or both?
In the face of all of these issues, the Twins find themselves atop the Central with a 16-14 record. Go figure.
Kansas City Royals
The Royals opened the season with a sweep over the Detroit Tigers, something nobody in baseball would have predicted before the season began. They got off to an 8-5 start, miraculous by the standards of most Royals fans, but then things went south. They dropped 7 games in 7 days, dropping their record to 9-13, and have pretty much played .500 baseball ever since, giving them a 14-17 record on the season.
While I’d love to say that this is the year the Royals will get things going in the right direction, I don’t see any signs of that happening yet. In their rotation, they have Gil Meche, an overpayed starter who can go from looking good to bad from start to start, Brian Bannister, a pitcher who will put up respectable numbers but isn’t going to push you over the hump, and an aging Brett Tomko. They still have Zach Greinke, a guy who has filthy stuff, but he hasn’t yet emerged as a dominant force in the league or even a guy who will be able to throw 200+ innings, for that matter. Overall, the Royals’ 4.37 team ERA is 21st in the league.
Offensively, the Royals rank 29th in runs scored and home runs, 19th in batting average, 30th in total bases and are near the bottom of almost every major offensive category in the American League. When you look up and down their lineup, you see a team that resembles the Minnesota Twins, except there’s no Justin Morneau in the middle to drive in all the runs. In 2007, John Buck led the team with 18 home runs, and Emil Brown’s 62 RBI was the most of any Royals player. Buck is back this year for Kansas City, but Brown signed with Oakland. Make no mistake about it, this is not a team that hits well. Sorry Royals fans, but they’ll probably limp their way to another 70-92 or 65-97 type season.
Chicago White Sox
The Sox were a team in disarray last season. Just 2 years removed from winning 99 games and a World Series in ‘05, nobody on the team batted higher than Rob Mackowiak who had a .278 average in only 85 games. Jermaine Dye had a down year after his 2006 near-MVP year in which he hit 44 homers and drove in 120. Chicago was without Scott Podsednik for a good portion of the year because of nagging injuries, and they would have been a different team with Josh Fields on the roster for the entire season. The Sox have subsequently sent Fields back down to the minors, but there’s no doubt he has some pop in his bat and would be a good pinch hitter if not for his low average and strikeouts. (Then again, any hitter would be a good pinch hitter with a high average and low strikeouts. Touche Ozzie). The south siders scored just 139 runs as a team for all of last year and finished in the bottom third of the league in total bases, batting average (which they were dead last in), and hits (which they were also dead last in). From a pitching perspective, all of their main horses had mediocre seasons statistically. They had three guys work through 200 innings or more in Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, and Javier Vasquez, but the combined record of that group was just 35-30. And don’t forget that, through all of this, the players had to hear another one of Ozzie’s tirades on what seemed to be a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
As for this year, the Sox are a game below .500, and we’ve already seen a few outbursts by Ozzie. I’m not sure how long Sox management is going to put up with Guillen, but I can’t imagine it would be for very long if the trends from last year spill over into 2008. The White Sox are getting great production out of Carlos Quentin, a left fielder they acquired from Arizona last winter. Quentin has 8 home runs, one short of his career high for a season, and has driven in 22 runs with a .271 average. The White Sox definitely have enough meat in the heart of the order to do some damage with Thome, Konerko, Dye, Crede, and Quentin, but they still have a low BA as a team and have just 8 stolen bases on the year, 5 of them by Orlando Cabrera. On the flip side, San Fransisco already has 38 swipes this season.
Javier Vasquez is holding his own this year, but Buehrle is not the same pitcher he used to be, and Contreras has started slow as well. Bobby Jenks is still a guy who can get the job done as a closer, but nobody else in their bullpen really scares you. Even with what should be an improved offensive team in 2008, I’m not sure the White Sox are as complete of a team as either the Indians or the Tigers, and they’ll probably finish in third place ahead of Minnesota and KC.
*edit: Just after I published this article, Gavin Floyd made me pay for not even mentioning his name. The big White Sox righty took a no-hitter into the ninth inning with 1 out until Joe Mauer knocked one to the gap for a double.
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Well, there you have it. I expect the Indians and Tigers to both turn their seasons around by the All-Star break. The key for the Tigers will be to get their pitching situation figured out if they hope to make it out of the American League, assuming they’re lucky enough to make the playoffs. Bonderman, Verlander, and Robertson are three solid arms, but Galarraga is an unproven commodity. They’ll be able to win enough games by simply outscoring people, and Jim Leyland knows how to manage a baseball team. Eric Wedge finally got the gratification he was looking for after taking the Indians deep into the playoffs last year, but obviously the ultimate goal of a World Series is what his sights are set on this year. First, however, he has to manage his team out of a funk seems to have struck the entire AL Central. One thing is for sure: the longer the Indians and the Tigers stay right around that .500 mark, the other teams in the division are going to start licking their chops and believing they can win the Central crown.
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