Four teams with a chance…to beat up on the White Sox
For years the constant refrain about the AL Central was that it was too weak and winning it was easy enough that all the teams in it should be trying to take advantage. In 2024 we saw the script flip a bit and three central teams made the playoffs with another just missing. Granted, they all got to feast on the worst team any of us have ever seen, which helped (except for the Guardians). It does not change the fact that the four teams at the top of the AL Central are all projected to be competitive this year by both PECOTA and Fangraphs.
Fangraphs
Baseball Prospectus
Fangraphs does not like Cleveland and BP is down a bit more on Detroit, but everyone is withing a handful of games of winning the division (or losing it) except for the lowly White Sox. I just wanted to go team for team and in broad strokes hit on the strengths and weaknesses a bit to see how the teams compared.
Minnesota Twins
With the impending sale of the team, Minnesota had a relatively quiet offseason. They are still projected to win the division despite sub-90 win expectations.
Fangraphs
Since this was made, they have signed Ty France, Harrison Bader, and Danny Coulombe to add a little more to the mix, though none of those three move the needle a ton. Pitching is definitely the team strength. The starters are deep enough to be one of the better rotations and Lopez is no slouch as a number one, especially since his ERA lagged his peripherals last year. It would not be surprising for him to be in the Cy Young mix. When you knock out a starter, in comes the best projected bullpen by Fangraphs WAR. They were 5th in relief fWAR in 2024, but 19th in ERA, so maybe not an elite squad? Hard to say, but definitely not bad.
Their lineup on the other hand has many question marks. Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Royce Lewis are the three they want to carry the offense, and none of them seem to be able to stay healthy. They combined for less than 300 games last season, and if you said that happened again at the end of 2025, no one would be surprised. That means scoring runs can be a struggle for stretches for Minnesota unless they somehow catch lightening in a bottle and these three are healthy for most of the season. After them it is a righty killer in Matt Wallner and some guys like Ryan Jeffers and Eduoard Julien that have at times looked like they could be solid hitters. If some of their prospects like Emmanuel Rodriguez and Payton Eeles can step in and be productive, then this lineup becomes significantly more dangerous. It seems just as likely that the biggest bats don’t play enough and they are dependent on a bunch of mediocre to bad bats to carry the team.
I tend to think the Twins are going to look a lot like they have, which means they are very beatable, but will also likely remain in the hunt for a playoff spot. It just seems like a few bad breaks could take them apart immediately, so I would be very nervous as a Twins fan.
Detroit Tigers
As the Twins collapsed in September last season, Detroit couldn’t lose a game. The Tigers got into the playoffs and made some noise with their pitching chaos philosophy. Now they look to build on that success with a lot of interesting young players.
Fangraphs
This is going to be the theme of the central – pitching is the strength. Having the reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal and bringing back Jack Flaherty gives them a potent one-two combo. The Tigers are hoping to cobble together a reasonable back of the rotation out of Reese Olson, Alex Cobb, Brant Hurter, Casey Mize, and maybe Jackson Jobe. If Jobe could become the stud that Detroit has been waiting for, then this rotation starts to look kind of scary. The bullpen was good last year and looks to be pretty strong again. Detroit hopes that the heavy workloads to end the season in September and October don’t cause any problems in 2025. It should be a competent bullpen at the very least, and I would be surprised if pitching was the problem should Detroit have a disappointing season.
The offense for Detroit is going to be very interesting. Riley Greene has looked like he is growing into one of the best hitters in American League, though closer to the 10th-best hitter in the league than challenging Aaron Judge at the top. After him, the certainties are more of a bad thing. Javy Baez has some chance of turning it around I guess, but it is safer to assume he is mostly washed at this point offensively. Colt Keith is moving to first, so I guess they have given up on Spencer Torkelson. Kerry Carpenter can crush righties, so he is useful in a strict platoon. Then you have a bunch of question marks. There are guys to be optimistic about. Jace Jung and Colt Keith could make this offense much more formidable if they take a likely step forward, but neither has hit well for an extended period of time in the majors yet. Parker Meadows seems like he could be league averageish, so if others step up and he can be down in the lineup it helps.
All the other bats are probably not very good. Dilon Dingler, Jake Rogers, Wenceel Perez, and Trey Sweeney all look more like the Royals do with Kyle Isbel or Maikel Garcia. It is possible that someone like Thayron Liranzo or Max Clark could move quickly and factor in somewhere, but they are very young and need to prove it at the upper end of the minor leagues as neither has played in even AA yet. There just seems to be too many question marks to assume they become a good enough offense to take over the central. Granted, I would likely say the same of the Royals.
Cleveland Guardians
Seeing the Guardians projected as the third or fourth team in the division is not something that I am used to. They have been a little up and down the since 2019 alternating playoffs and not, but the ownership seems reluctant to spend on free agents and their infinite pitching well seems to be lacking to some extant. They still might win this division, but it is far less likely than it has been for much of the past decade.
Fangraphs
Again, pitching is the strength of the Guardians while scoring runs will likely be a struggle at times. Tanner Bibbee will be at the front of the rotation. He is coming off of two very similar seasons from a peripheral statistics standpoint, but not from an ERA one. His xERA, FIP, and xFIP numbers have been in the middle threes consistently and last year his ERA was as well. In 2023 the ERA way overplayed the peripherals at 2.98, so at this point I am inclined to believe 2024 is more what he is, and that is a number two or three of a good staff. If Shane Bieber could bounce back and lead this group, it would be very solid but how many innings he can throw for them is in question. Gavin Williams, Luis Ortiz, and Ben Lively are all mid- to back-end starters. I don’t completely trust any of them, but they should be okay. I think this is why Cleveland has fallen back a bit in projections. Their starters are not up to the typical Cleveland level. Luckily, they do not need to go super deep as the bullpen is one of the best in the game again. Both the back end and the depth of their bullpen is quite good.
Cleveland’s offense was in the middle of the pack and has not really improved this offseason. They traded away Josh Naylor, one of their most productive bats, and brought back Carlos Santana. Santana had a great year for the Twins, his best since 2019, but he is going into his age-39 season and counting on him to repeat last year seems like fool’s gold. They still have one of the best, most consistent hitters in the game as an anchor, but outside of Jose Ramirez there is not a to count on except Steven Kwan. Kwan will seems to be solid not spectacular due to a somewhat streaky nature of high contact BABIP luck. Bo Naylor needs to bounce back this season after a very disappointing 2024 campaign and Lane Thomas will be a nice average or slightly better hitter you can plug in. If this offense is better than expected, it will likely be due to Kyle Manzardo, Johnathan Rodriguez, or Jhonkensy Noel taking a step forward. Neither Manzardo or Rodruguez has translated good AAA numbers to the big leagues quite yet, but they might be able to stabilize the middle of the lineup. I can see a path to this team being better than league average, but it is going to take more than one thing to break right without anything breaking very wrong.
Chicago White Sox
I am not going to waste my time writing about this team. You should not waste your time reading about them. They are projected to lose at least 100 games, and I will take the over on that.
Verdict
The Royals, Twins, Tigers, and Guardians all have enough good and bad that it is impossible to split them too far apart. Whoever gets one or two good bounces and avoids major injury is likely to win the division. My history of watching the Royals says that too many things went Kansas City’s way for them to get more favorable bounces this year, or at least enough to overcome some inevitable bad luck of the injury or performance variety coming off of a year like 2024. I think the 30 to 40% playoff odds make sense. One more solid bat in the outfield or at third could have really put the Royals in the driver’s seat, but it was not to be. I think the Royals will be very competitive barring all the typical problems that can strike any baseball team; multiple pitching injuries, Salvy gets old, Bobby goes back to merely a great player, etc. It should be a fun season in the AL Central.