We now jump into the American League Central, a division that is close to my heart given that I am a known Kansas City Royals fan. But that did not stop me from jumping on a team in this division last year as my favorite team before the pandemic hit and that was the Cleveland Indians. Once the pandemic did arrive the outlook certainly changed but I was all over Cleveland a year ago and while they bowed out early due a tough draw vs the Yankees, I still was pleased with their potential last season.
That’s not the case this year. This division is shaping up to be a really exciting division over the next few seasons after a few down years overall. The White Sox are the known team here with all the pressure and big names in their lineup, the Twins still can hit homers in any park against any team and the Royals/Tigers have a lot of nice young pieces which are making them look like they’re back to being extremely competitive. As for those Indians I rode last year? It’s not looking so optimistic anymore. Let’s jump into my quick preview of the AL Central and how I see things playing out here.
#1 – Chicago White Sox
If Chicago does not win the AL Central this year then we can likely pinpoint it on one of two things. Either the Tony La Russa hire (which still just feels weird and stupid) completely backfired or their pitching took a horrific turn for the worse due to injury or just bad luck. I say this because a lineup with Anderson, Moncada, Abreu, Jimenez and future stars Luis Robert & Andrew Vaughn is going to score a ton of runs. Outside of Jose Abreu who is 34 years old now, the rest of those hitters are all at or below the ‘prime’ age window and we have not seen a full season peak from any of them except for Anderson who should remain at his peak again this season. They hit lefties, they draw walks and they absolutely murder fastballs. I do think there is some logic to a theory from 2020 though in which the White Sox benefited from a middle of the road schedule (Central divisions were the weakest in 2020) and also from the fact that a lot of pitchers were throwing juicy fastballs due to it being a shorter season and not really having a lot of time to build up the velocity or overall accuracy of secondary pitches. So teams like Chicago who just destroy mid 90’s fastballs and below just feasted on this. Jose Abreu, specifically rode it to an MVP season as he hit everything across the board at ++ rate, and with the protection in this lineup around him he should still be in line for a great 2021 but maybe temper expectations slightly.
The future stars in this lineup are Luis Robert (OF) and Andrew Vaughn (1B/DH). Everyone may think that they know Luis Robert already but you really don’t know him yet. He’s got the ability to be Bo Jackson esque with his insane athleticism and honestly could wind up leading off for the White Sox in the same way Ronald Acuna leads off for Atlanta or George Springer did for Houston (now Toronto). Only Luis Robert can be better than both of those players. Yes, he is that good and still that raw right now. Vaughn shows all the signs of being a 10 year pro hitter who will hit for great average with good power and should be up from the start of the season, if not shortly there after. The lineup has zero issues.
The pitching should be good enough.
Giolito, Lynn, Keuchel, Cease will be 1-4 with Rodon fighting to get back into the rotation as the 5th man. It’s not sexy but it’s good enough and with a very strong bullpen I actually love the starting rotation here to secure the AL Central bag for the White Sox this season. If Dylan Cease can fix some control issues that popped up a year ago he could wind up being the essential piece to this rotation, but overall we have an Ace in Giolito and then a couple veteran arms whose job is nothing more than to get into the 6th inning with the lead every 5th day.
The strength lies in a bullpen and it has the potential to be so consistent that in DFS we’ll want to avoid stacking against the White Sox more nights than others. Lance Lynn is great vs RHP, Keuchel keeps the ball on the ground and so it’s either attack Cease/Rodon and hope for big early innings or just chalk it up as a loss if you attack the Sox. They’re winning the Central.
Players to buy into: Luis Robert, Andrew Vaughn, Dylan Cease
#2 – Minnesota Twins
This is where many will be touting the up and coming Royals, but I still give a big edge to the Twins for one more season. Minnesota is at a point of being a high risk team that could wind up completely turning into just an old team who can’t hit, can’t score and can’t scare anyone with their starting pitching. Nelson Cruz is going to continue to hit 30-40 home runs until he doesn’t anymore and like most aging veterans when he dies, he’s just gonna die. Like poof, he’s gone like a fart in the wind or your DK/FD balance just oddly disappeared after that trip to a bar on a Friday night when there was a Mariners-Rangers showdown at 10:05 that you just had to play.
Josh Donaldson absolutely MURDERED Target Field when he was with Oakland and Toronto. The problem is, when Josh Donaldson was with Oakland and Toronto my kids were still cute and listened to me, now they’re grown adults who just want money and have the answers to every problem in this world. If Donaldson can play over 120 games this season I’d be shocked, but hey, I guess there’s some optimism there.
Alex Kirilloff is their future “star” and someone they want to be the next face of the franchise, but the SS he was supposed to be coming up with is Royce Lewis and he’s out for the season with an ACL injury, so what was once a dominant farm system is starting to watch the clock tick before we just say you know what, time to blow things up. Kiriloff will essentially fill the Eddie Rosario void, and by mid season he should be someone that we know where he stands as a big league hitter. Overall though, we need to remove this idea from our brains that the Twins are among the ELITE power teams in the American League because they aren’t. This team is now built on pitching and defense and that is what can keep them in the 83-87 win range and competing for a wild card spot, but one or two key injuries and they’re at risk of flipping down to #4 in this division very quickly.
As you can tell, the Twins are just generally boring to me this season. The pitching isn’t bad, the youth is just okay and the defense should be adequate. They’ll win games, but they’re not showing any signs of ending that playoff losing streak this season.
Player to buy into: It is do or die time for Jose Berrios
Players I’m worried about: Josh Donaldson, Nelson Cruz, Jorge Polanco
#3 – Kansas City Royals – Over 72.5 wins
Now the part you have been waiting for, my analysis on Brady Singer and Bobby Witt Jr.
It’s funny how many people talk about the Royals “Finally getting back into contention” with their young stars coming up. Shit, they went from 1985 to 2014 without sniffing the playoffs and then won the World Series in 2015 off finally getting the “rebuild” process right. It feels like the glory years to be back in the mix now just 6 years removed from being in the World Series. This time the CORE of the team is in the pitching and they just aren’t ready yet.
Brady Singer is going to be a #1 and quite honestly I view him as the Royals ace this season. He is an insanely competitive RHP who has two fantastic pitches already (Sinker & Fastball) and being a college arm I trust him so much more to develop a third pitch in the bigs than a high school arm who is still tinkering with everything. In his debut season last year, Singer was way beyond his years with a 22.8% CSW, which ranked #1 for all of last season. Singer has started to draw some comparisons to Zack Greinke, a former Royal who made his name as an Ace pitcher winning a Cy Young with Kansas City early in his career. Like Greinke, Singer has excellent command with his fastball and seems to do a ton of damage between his ears knowing how to get ahead of batters in counts and then get soft contact at best to get outs. When (not if) he develops a more dominant third out pitch he will reach the higher tier range on strike-out upside, but for now view him as a very solid 6 IP, low risk starting pitcher who should win double digit games this season and feast when facing lesser competition like Detroit, Cleveland and most of the NL Central.
Singer along with Jackson Kowar, Asa Lacy, Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch are going to remind folks of the early 90’s Braves or the early 00’s Athletics in terms of that young core of arms coming up at the same time and having success. There is a great chance that one or two of them wind up being traded when the Royals get into the playoff contention, but for now Singer, Kowar and Lacy should be penciled in as the future trio of the Royals organization for a long time.
In 2021 though the Royals are going to depend heavily on veterans Mike Minor and Danny Duffy to go along with Singer, Brad Keller and Jake Junis (most likely gets #5 ahead of Bubic) to round out the rotation. Kansas City is a PRIME team to utilize a 6 man rotation if both Junis and Bubic make a strong case for a spot and all signs so far in spring are that Junis is healthy and has to be given the rotation spot because of his elite slider.
The Royals pitching staff will greatly benefit from having Michael A. Taylor in CF and Whit Merrifield over in RF. This does two things for the Royals as it gives them an excellent defensive presence in their big home outfield with Taylor and it also means Jorge Soler will not be playing OF and giving up bad doubles because he’s busy looking at birds in the sky instead of tracking fly balls. The Royals defense will be very good and should help prevent runs this year for the pitching staff.
Carlos Santana ranks among the elite when it comes to Batter vs Ballpark rankings with a career .327 average, 18 homers and 21 doubles in 71 career Kauffman Stadium games. The Royals will need the FA first baseman to be closer to those numbers than his 2021 sub Mendoza-line production. Santana is someone who works the count, draws lots of walks and should give the Royals an extra quality hitter in their lineup to keep the ball in play.
Enough about him though. This offense is still going to go through the ability of Adalberto Raul Mondesi Jr, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier for now. Whit Merrifield can have an MVP-type season in my mind with guys like Benintendi and Santana behind him to hopefully drive him in more, but the BOOM in this lineup is if Mondesi-Soler-Dozier are on. All three are very up and down at times and when they’re down they strikeout way too much. But when they are on this offense is extremely dangerous when we add in a healthy Salvador Perez as well. For now I am projecting star prospect Bobby Witt Jr to remain in the minors to start the season, but he’s been playing a lot of 2B in the spring and if that’s where KC plugs him in with these other guys then look out.
Player to buy into: Brady Singer
#4 – Cleveland Indians – Under 81.5
I’m not really certain where to begin with this team now.
I mean, talk about completely getting neutered.
You supposedly are dropping your team name (Yeah, no, fuck that).
You trade away the face of your franchise because obviously he won’t re-sign there (Bye, Lindor)
Gone are the days of the best rotation in the league (Kluber, Bauer, Carrasco all gone) — although it’s still respectable.
Carlos Santana? He gone too.
Buuuuut, they do still have Franmil Reyes and Mr. LiC Eddie Rosario now in the fold too
If ever the Indians went from Major League I to Major League II in a season this is it. As a whole, it’s just not as good as it was. And in the end it’ll take some too corny, forced, made up, whatever you wanna call it ending for this to turn into a good situation. But that doesn’t mean it’s a complete train wreck because there are some solid parts which we can gain from the Tribe this year.
Like maybe we can get Franmil Reyes to stop having Jorge Soler syndrome and start mashing the ball again.
And when Tito Francona needs to get his team going, he can always go to the classic line about winning streaks.
So basically the Indians aren’t going to be very good, but at moments they’re going to be extremely fun like when Franmil-Eddie-Jose Ramirez go into Minnesota and hit back to back to back jacks on back to back weekend days in the middle of the summer. That’ll be cool.
But in the end…. It won’t be as good as it once was for Cleveland.
Player to buy into: Franmil Reyes and Eddie Rosario time to just say screw it and double or homer every AB
Player to avoid: Shane Bieber will not be as good as he was last season. Considerable drop off.
#5 – Detroit Tigers
They just aren’t very good. I am being very generous here because they have some potential cornerstones in Casey Mize, Matt Manning and … well, no, Spencer Torkleson is going to be a giant fucking bust. Who has the name of Spencer and turns out to be a quality professional athlete?
I’ll wait….
Still waiting…
Who? Spencer Hawes? GTFOH. He’s gonna suck and Tigers will just wind up dropping $200 million on someone once Miggy finally retires and moves to a beach where he will provide guided bike tours while sipping out of something that looks very tasty.
The Tigers have have to be the most boring team in all of baseball right now. They signed Nomar Mazara for christs sake. I mean, yeah, I like Jonathan Schoop on a Tuesday and Wilson Ramos on a Monday and JaCoby Jones on a Saturday vs the Pirates, but what the hell man. You know how we don’t let friends stack Pirates? Well, the Tigers are the Pirates of the A.L.
The pitching, however.
What do you do when you have Matt Boyd, Michael Fulmer and Spencer Turnbull?
Well you add Jose Urena and Julio Tehearn of course. Duhh, everyone knows that.
So your three step process to using a Tigers pitcher who isn’t named Casey “Look, I’m gonna strikeout everyone and get pulled in the 4th inning because holy fuck the defense is behind me” Mize, should be as follows.
- What the fuck are you doing?
- …
Players to keep an eye on …
Maybe I was a little harsh on the Tigers. They do have some young kids who should get ample chances this season and they include
- Jake Rodgers … One of the better catching prospects in the game
- Isaac Parades … Future SS
- Spencer Torkelson … Don’t expect him for years. If ever.
- Casey Mize / Tarik Skubal / Matt Manning / Joey Wentz … Their trio of young pitching
Player to buy into: Nothing
Player to avoid: Yes… Exactly