The Rest of the AL Central

A lot has been made about the Royals moves putting them in better position in the division, which is quite mediocre.

For the majority of the history of baseball, finishing in first place was the only path to the postseason. Until 1969, when the Royals played their first game, there was just the American League and the National League. The World Series was played between the two teams at the top of the leagues and that was that. In 1969, each league featured two divisions. The winners of those divisions played in the League Championship Series and then the World Series. Then in 1995, the Wild Card was added, which added a Division Series to the playoffs. Another Wild Card was eventually added, which led to the Wild Card Game (hey, we know that one!) and then a third Wild Card was added a couple of years ago that added the full-blown Wild Card round.

I go through this history because the Royals may as well be living as if it’s 1901-1993 when the only way to make the playoffs was to win the division. Barring any more big additions and moves, I just have a really difficult time seeing how the Royals can win enough games to make the postseason as a Wild Card. Whoever you think wins the AL East, there are at least three more playoff-caliber teams beyond the winner and maybe four. Whoever wins the AL West, there’s at least one other playoff-caliber club and maybe two. But in the Central, it’s wide open, which is the reason for optimism if you’re a Royals fan.

The Incumbent - Minnesota Twins

Last year, the Twins won the division with a record of 87-75. They actually won their first playoff game in years and even advanced past the Wild Card round. But they were handled fairly easily in the ALDS by the Houston Astros and that was that. Then they entered this offseason with a public declaration that they would need to cut payroll some due to their regional television deal. For a team that was spending a little, that’s probably a cause for concern for fans. Just last year, they gave Carlos Correa a six-year deal for $200 million with a bunch of other ways to make it a much bigger deal.

Their starting pitching last season was a big-time strength after they acquired Pablo Lopez from the Marlins before the season. He was excellent in his first year with the Twins, but they got a fantastic season from Sonny Gray with Bailey Ober stepping up. Joe Ryan had an uneven year and Kenta Maeda was pretty good after he got back from injury too.

But now, they’ve lost Gray and Maeda to free agency and their spots look to be filled by Chris Paddack, back from Tommy John Surgery, and Louie Varland. It’s hard to know for sure what Paddack can do and Varland was pretty much fine as a rookie. There’s upside in the rotation, but they’ve taken a big step back on paper. I do like their bullpen. It helps when you have a closer like Jhoan Duran, but I like what they have as depth as well.

Offensively, two young players emerged for them and they’re expected to be at the top of their lineup. Edouard Julian works counts as well as just about anyone in baseball and proved he can hit a mistake. Royce Lewis broke out in the playoffs but he was also really good in the regular season, though injuries have been an issue for him. Max Kepler had a bounceback season in 2023, but there are rumors he could be moved along with Jorge Polanco, who missed a lot of time, but if those two are back with Correa, the offense should be just fine.

Of course, it depends on Byron Buxton too. Can he be the MVP-candidate bat he was a couple of years ago or is he the .207/.294/.438 hitter from last year? Still, they’re deep and have a chance to either be excellent or simply very good. Either way, they promise to be a chore for opposing pitchers because they can pretty much all get on base.

Ultimately I think the Twins remain the most well-rounded team in the division. They hit the ball, they catch the ball and they can shorten games. Their starting pitching is my biggest question about them, but they’ve also shown an ability to get more out of some guys than you’d expect on the mound. With that in mind, I think they’re still the best team. Now, if they make a trade and lose Polanco and Kepler and don’t get anything back to boost the rotation, I might change my tune, but right now, they’re number one to me.

Runner Up - Detroit Tigers

The Tigers and Royals rebuilds have been in lockstep in a lot of ways. The Tigers probably started their teardown a little earlier and their highs, however high they have been, have been higher than the Royals. But they still haven’t put it together yet. Last year was their best, finishing 78-84 and in second place. They’ve been generally willing to spend some money and this winter hasn’t been too different with them signing Maeda away from the Twins for two years and Jack Flaherty for one year and $14 million. They did lose Eduardo Rodriguez to free agency, so I wonder if there’s even a bump with the additions, but they’re at least spending, which is more than you can say for some teams.

The big bump for them is that they only had Tarik Skubal for 15 starts in 2023 and the hope is obviously for double that in 2024. He’s a legitimate top of the rotation arm that they were able to take in the 2018 draft. It would sting more if not for the fact that Casey Mize hasn’t been able to stay on the mound and they took him number one overall in that draft. They also have Matt Manning and Reese Olson penciled in the rotation right now, but there are other young arms as well.

I think their rotation has a chance to be the best in the division, but I also think it could be fourth or fifth-best too. Skubal is legitimately excellent, but his career-high in innings is 149.1 and that was done in 2021. Olson looked the part but he was better in the majors than he’d basically ever been in the minors. Manning has had his share of injury issues and performance issues. Counting on Flaherty and Maeda could backfire as well. So there’s a lot of variance, but the upside is pretty big here.

Their bullpen is kind of similar to the rotation only I have more faith that the floor for that unit is middle of the pack in baseball with the ceiling being somewhere around top-seven or so. It’s a solid unit that will generally hold leads but I’m not sure there’s a dominant arm. Maybe Shelby Miller shows he can keep up what he did last year and he becomes that guy, but either way, I like what they’ve done in the bullpen.

The Tigers offense is where I have questions. They have young talent; that’s without question. Spencer Torkelson seemed to figure it out a bit after the break, hitting .238/.318/.498 and slugged .526 with 16 home runs in the last two months of the season. The average isn’t really going to be there, but he’s going to hit bombs it seems. Riley Greene was putting together and excellent second year before an injury ended it. And Kerry Carpenter has emerged as someone who can be counted on for the future. Add in Jake Rogers hitting well behind the plate with Colt Keith, Jace Jung and Parker Meadows along with a few others and the offense has some reinforcements either close or having already debuted. But they also were 13th in the AL in runs scored. I think there’s a chance they’ll hit and hit a lot, but I think there’s an equal chance they’ll struggle to score runs again.

This is the caveat for the whole division right now because there’s still a month before spring, but I think they’re in a fight with Cleveland for second-best in this division. If I had to guess, I’d say the Tigers finish ahead of the Guardians because I think the offense has more upside to it, but it’s pretty close, similar to 2023.

Bronze - Cleveland Guardians

Remember when I said that it’s good the Tigers will at least spend? That was a dig at the Guardians, if you didn’t know already. They won 76 games last year, largely because they couldn’t score runs. Their big outfield addition came last year and it was Ramon Lauerano, who hit .224/.304/.371 for the season. He was better for Cleveland, but better is still just .243/.342/.382. The outfield as a whole hit 18 home runs. You think the Royals lack power? This is something else entirely. They also signed Austin Hedges, which is great for a pitching staff, but brutal to an offense. So I struggle to see what their plan is other than hoping their prospects can come up and be better.

What makes it really disappointing is they have the pitching staff to win. Even if and when they trade Shane Bieber, they still have Triston McKenzie, Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen and Gavin Williams at the big league level and then the potential of Daniel Espino, Joey Cantillo and Tanner Burns in the minors. McKenzie is no sure thing health-wise, but Bibee looks like the next Guardians ace to get traded in three years and Allen and Williams look the part too. This is a really good rotation that will lack a proven guy at the top when they move Bieber, but that won’t matter to them.

The bullpen does give me some cause for concern. Emmanuel Clase went from a machine to pretty pedestrian. He only struck out 64 in 72.2 innings. While he was still effective, he wasn’t dominant. They acquired Scott Barlow to set him up and you all know I love Barlow, but he’s not that dominant guy either, at least not consistently. But they do have some other nice pieces. Trevor Stephan and Eli Morgan in middle relief is very good. Enyel De Los Santos always seems like he’d be tough to hit and had good results last year. Nick Sandlin is pretty much always solid. Sam Hentges is good. James Karinchak is a crapshoot, but he’s been dominant before. They’re going to get outs.

It’s just a matter of if they can score enough runs. Jose Ramirez is great but even he had a less than amazing year last season, hitting .282/.356/.475. Nobody is complaining about that, but it’s certainly not the .276/.360/.537 he hit from 2020-2022. Bo Naylor looks like he’s going to hit behind the plate (a first round high school catcher too, donchaknow) and his brother Josh can hit too, though he might get traded. Otherwise, the hope is that Steven Kwan can inch back up to where he was in 2022. And I guess that Kyle Manzardo can hit as well as they think he can. Manzardo gets high marks, but he did hit .237/.337/.464 in the minors last season. I think he’s better than that, but we’ll see.

They do have bats coming beyond him. Brayan Rocchio is likely to be their starting shortstop. Chase DeLauter might be a monster. Juan Brito can hit too. I’m not sold on George Valera, but the upside is there too. So if they can figure out their offense, I think they’re the best team in the division right now with upside at 90 to 92 wins. I just can’t buy that yet, so as I said above, I think they’re fighting with the Tigers for second.

The Rear - Chicago White Sox

The White Sox won 93 games and the division title in 2021. They had a nice mix of veterans and younger guys with many of the younger players locked in to team-friendly contracts. Their pitching staff featured three guys in their 20s striking out more than a batter per inning. And they had a dominant closer to go along with a really good group of young relievers behind him. They looked like they’d be unstoppable for at least a few years. Two years later, they lost 101 games. Of all those young players locked up, only Luis Robert was worth much of anything (and he was outstanding).

And now they’re presumably tearing it all down if it hasn’t already been torn down. They do still have most of that young talent. Andrew Vaughn hasn’t hit enough for his draft spot or his defensive position. Yoan Moncada has regressed. Eloy Jimenez has regressed. Again, Robert is amazing. But, man, what a difference two years makes. Now they’re running around like they’re trying to recreate the Royals, but not the good Royals from a decade ago, which is super weird.

In the rotation, they opened last year with the Cy Young runner-up, Dylan Cease, which is great along with Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, Mike Clevinger and Michael Kopech. Lynn was a disaster and was traded. Giolito was good and was traded. Kopech absolutely imploded in the second half after he was fine in the first half. Cease had a rough year and will likely be traded. Clevinger was pretty good all year and is now a free agent. So their rotation is going to be Erick Fedde, Kopech, Michael Soroka, Chris Flexen and, I guess, Garrett Crochet getting stretched out? I really liked the idea of the Royals signing Fedde, but not as the ace. Kopech could bounce back. Soroka was really good for the Braves in 2019, but has 10 big league appearances since then and they weren’t good. Flexen is not good. Crochet could be good, but has never started professionally. The upside here is probably an average rotation, but the downside is one of the three or four worst in baseball.

Bullpens are volatile, but that looks rough too. Gregory Santos was really good for them last season, but he also allowed more hits than innings pitched. He’s supposed to be the closer. Then it’s a lot of questions. jimmy Lambert hasn’t shown much. Tim Hill is there after putting up a 5.48 ERA with 26 strikeouts in 44.1 innings. Deivi Garcia is a nice pickup, but is he good? Hard to say! It’s a rough unit that because it’s a bunch of relievers could end up good for sure, but I wouldn’t predict it.

Now back to the offense, they’re lucky they have Robert because it’s rough other than him. There is at least some upside. Andrew Benintendi was bad in his first year there, but did have a 122 wRC+ between the Royals and Yankees in 2022. Vaughn is still young and flashes the bat sometimes. Maybe he puts it together. Jimenez still has insane power. It’s the bottom of the lineup that will give pitchers a nice breather. They’ve got Paul DeJong at shortstop, Nicky Lopez at second and Martin Maldonado behind the plate. It’s just, I don’t see how they sustain rallies with that kind of shallowness in their order.

They did a pretty nice job with their trades last summer to help boost their farm system, so they do have that going for them. Colson Montgomery was their draft pick and he looks legit, so maybe he helps lengthen that lineup sooner than later. And I could see Jake Eder, Ky Bush and Nick Nastrini helping the rotation too, which could, in turn, help the bullpen. This isn’t forever for the White Sox (probably), but I just don’t see how 2024 is anything but another brutally long year for them. The difference is that I think the Royals blew past them and they’re destined for last place by quite a bit.

As I said at the top, this exercise is not to show that the Royals are great, but that the AL Central is mediocre and winnable. It’s a high-level view of the other teams and showing that they are as flawed as anybody. Assuming the White Sox are the worst team in the division without question, I really see about a 12-15 win gap between the best team and the fourth-best team. Let’s call it 15 and do some calendar math. If you think the Twins are an 87-win team and the Royals are a 72-win team, and they luck into an extra two wins a month while the Twins luck into an extra loss every month, suddenly the Royals are at 84 wins and the Twins are at 81. Two wins a month seems like nothing. Maybe the Royals make another addition and end up a 75-win true talent club while the Twins trade away Polanco and drop to 85.

The difference in mid-January between a bit below average and a bit above average really isn’t that much. So will I predict the Royals will win the AL Central? Absolutely not. Will I hold out hope that it’s within the realm of possibility? You bet your ass I will. I appreciate that the Royals have put those who follow the team in that position. I’d love it if they make it even closer over the final few weeks of the offseason. But the division isn’t anything special, so hey, why not the Royals?