Hmm. My attempt to get a conversation going does not appear to have been entirely successful. I'm hoping it's just a matter of time. I shall continue, at any rate. A general comment on the AL Central, btw, is that like its NL counterpart, there's a _lot_ of talent here, but much of it is on the farm system. But Midwestern baseball fans are, I think, looking towards an _excellent_ decade in terms of their teams potential. If the Rangers were in the Central the way they geographically should be, then most of the best farm systems in baseball would be in one of the Central divisions.
AL Central White Sox - The White Sox are another team on the rise, and should be hitting their peak fairly soon, actually. They have a superb farm system and player development team, but seem to be handicapped by a GM who confuses activity with achievement. There are situations where the best thing that you can do is nothing - if the White Sox GM realizes that, then sometime in the next 5-7 years the White Sox will be playing in the World Series, I think. If Frank Thomas bounces all the way back from his arm injury they should have a superb offense. They already have a great deal of excellent young pitching, with more on the way. The White Sox farm system also has a great deal of talent on the way - look out particularly for Joe Borchard, who is said to have Mark McGwire like power but play center field. Paul Konerko, Carlos Lee, Magglio Ordonez, and so on give them a core of superb young hitting that will be supplemented by those farm system products. Last year the team was crippled by the actions of its own GM, who did dumb things like signing Sandy Alomar. Hopefully he will not make the same mistakes again. Twins - Yet another team on the rise. Last year the Twins had excellent pitching and a poor offense. Thus at midseason they decided to trade their best hitter for a mediocre pitcher...wait, that doesn't make sense. It's just what they did. I really want the Twins to win the Central just to humiliate Bud Selig and his idiotic notion that contraction could somehow help the Major Leagues, but life is, sadly, not quite that just. Nonetheless, this is a team with good young pitching, some veteran seasoning in Brad Radke, and a great deal of talent in the farm system. If Carl Pohlad wasn't the worst owner this side of Peter Angelos - and Angelos at least _tries_ to win, crippling his team by accident instead of on purpose - this team would have a real shot at the postseason over the next few years. As it is they might well make it. Indians - The Indians appear to have decided to make their offense Jim Thome and a bunch of mediocrities, while relying on young pitchers and Chuck Finley. I don't think it's going to work. Bartolo Colon is, apparently, 27 instead of 26. 27 is the peak year for players, so there's at least a shot he'll have a breakthrough season, but I'm concerned by the health of his arm. This is the organization that blew out Jaret Wright, after all. C.C. Sabathia was handled fairly well, but young pitching will break your heart. It's pretty much a law of nature. Finley is too old to count on for _anything_ though, sadly enough. They got Alex Escobar from the Mets, but I really don't see that as much of a coup. Escobar has superb physical tools but, again, very little in the way of baseball skills, and seems to be perpetually injured as well. OTOH, it's not like Cleveland had any significant position player prospects anyways, so they were pretty desperate. Long-term the trade only makes sense if the Indians feel that they are more able than the Mets to teach Escobar how to play baseball. They have had some success in the past - Belle, Thome, and Ramirez for example. But I'm not immensely confident. They do have a shot, though. A real puzzle about the Indians, though, is Russell Branyan. Has anyone seen him play? Supposedly he puts on a better show than Mark McGwire in batting practice. In real games, though, he just can't make contact. It's not that he has no strike zone judgment - he draws plenty of walks. He just can't make contact. This is very strange, and I have some difficulty explaining it. Anyone with any suggestions? The only thing I've read that is even vaguely plausible is that he always goes to the plate with absolutely no plan - the implication was that he's kind of dumb - and so pitchers outsmart him a lot. Anyways, it's just a weird little puzzle that's bugged me. Tigers - The Tigers have been crippled by years of Randy Smith, but it's not impossible that they are now beginning to improve. He has apparently been shoved off to handling something that he actually seems to do pretty well, the amateur draft. Dave Dombrowski did pretty well at developing talent for the Marlins - he's certainly better than Smith, even if he is no Pat Gillick. Unfortunately he has a striking weakness in that he has no talent to work with. People compare Dombrowski to Beane - I don't buy it, but I suppose it's possible. But I don't think even Beane could win in Detroit. But the only reason I'm picking them for fourth is who else is in their division. Royals - In other words, this team. Probably the worst-run team in baseball. There's no point in detailing the Royals various foolishness - it would go on for pages and much, much, much better baseball analysts than I (Rob Neyer and Rany Jayazerli) have done precisely that at considerable length. Let's just say that Tony Muser, their manager, knows a lot about baseball, and most of the important things that he knows have the small disadvantage of being wrong. They have a handful of good players - Mike Sweeney and Carlos Beltran spring to mind - but no ability to develop talent, an astonishing ability to mishandle what little talent they do develop, and a striking consistency in mis-evaluating players and actually making them _regress_ instead of improve - see Dee Brown, for example. Even though the Tigers will probably finish below them I'm picking the Royals for last on a sort of karmic level - any team this poorly run _deserves_ to finish last, even if it won't. Gautam
