AL Central Preview
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Detroit Tigers. Let’s get this out of the way first. The Detroit Tigers are not going to score 1,000 run this season. Every year during the pre-season, baseball writers, analysts, and fans anoint a team as being the one that will score 1,000 runs during the upcoming season. The Yankee teams of recent years have been perennial favorites to score 1,000 runs. But guess what? Even in these days of record breaking individual offensive production, only one team in the past 57 years has scored 1,000 runs: the 1999 Cleveland Indians. And while the 2008 Tigers are good enough to win their division, they won’t be scoring 1,000 runs this year.
Cleveland Indians. The media loves to latch on to an up-and-coming team and announce that they are going to make the playoffs. The problem is that they are usually two years too early. Three years ago, it was the Indians and the Brewers that were the darlings of baseball pre-season prognosticators, but those two teams didn’t have any success until last year. Even though the Indians time is now, the competition in the American League is too fierce for the Indians to repeat their division title.
Minnesota Twins. A lot rests on the left arm of Francisco Liriano, whose numbers in 2006 at age 22 were just amazing before succumbing to Tommy John surgery at the end of that year. If Liriano can return to that form, and either Boof Bonser or Scott Baker can break out at age 26, they Twins might have some success.
Kansas City Royals. After years of struggling, you can say that finishing in fourth place is a step in the right direction for this team.
Chicago White Sox. How long will it be before the White Sox get tired of Ozzie Guillen? It seems like less managers get fired in mid-season than they used to, but my vote is for Ozzie to be the first to go this year.
