Calling it major league baseball's best race, Paul Hoynes is reminding the faithful how tough it's going to be for the Indians to even be competitive in the American League Central this year. It seems like so much more than twelve months ago that they were many people's favorites to win it.
Last year, the AL Central produced three 90-win teams, two playoff participants for the first time, a pennant winner, the Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, batting champion and Comeback Player of the Year. This may come as a shock, but none of those teams, players or manager wore a Chief Wahoo cap.
Here's Hoynes AL Central breakdown.
The Tigers add Sheffield, the White Sox add Darin Erstad. We add David Delucci. I see what he means. Tribe 4th.
Baseball Savant has a good AL Central Preview, and much more in depth analysis of AL Central teams, the: Twins, White Sox, and Tigers.
Here's his take on the Indians:
The Indians were closer than their record indicated last season. Pythagorean had them at an otherworldly -12 games behidn their expected winning percentage which is just ridiculous. No other team in baseball was within 5 games of being that unlucky! Cleveland ranked 2nd in RS/G in 2006 and 6th in RA/G. That is pretty good to say the least. Still, the questions for Cleveland remain more widespread than they do for the other AL Central teams.Offensively the Indians have a tremendous core of talent in Grady Sizmore, Travis Hafner, and Victor Martinez. Hafner needs to stay healthy for a full season to get the most out of his talents. Hafner is the best hitter in the AL and getting him in there for 150 games could be worth a win a or two which could make all the difference in Cleveland. More importantly however might be the play of youngsters, Andy Marte, Ryan Garko, and Josh Barfield. Garko is going to be 26-years old and has nothing left to prove at AAA. He's looking less and less like the power hitter we thought he might become based on the results he posted in the early minor leagues, but his plate discipline is there and if he can at least push towards a .500 SLG%, it would help out Cleveland a lot. Marte is another one with nothing left to prove in AAA although his call-up in Cleveland went horribly. I get the feeling that Marte probably just needs to be left alone and allow observers to see what he can do over a full season. He'll be 23 this season which is still relatively young, but beyond the age of which Marte can be labeled a potential superstar. Barfield is a type of player who could kill you. He looks OK and there are definite things he can do, but that .318 OBP% is woeful. If he isn't hitting 9th then Cleveland is doing something wrong.
As to the pitching, I don't think Cleveland has as good a bullpens as Detroit and Minnesota does, but it isn't bad either. I think Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook have to start pitching at better than barely above league average. Jeremy Sowers is also going to be interesting to watch as this will be his first full season in the starting rotation.
The Indians are relying heavily on young players in the toughest division in baseball.
And in another example of the Internet being way too vast and the hours in the day too few, I'm wondering how the blog Baseball Analysts managed to elude me for nearly four years. What a nice baseball resource, link-wise and content-wise.
And since you got this far, you might be interested in Terry Pluto's Browns Notes too.
Posted by dan at February 13, 2007 11:04 AM