Ryan’s MLB Preview, AL Central

Steve is doing a little celebrating of Easter, which means, unfortunately, that we don’t get his AL Central or AL East previews until after Easter. Essentially, he gets the whole thing to himself on Monday. The show-off. Anyways, I’ll try to get through my favorite division with both basketball on CBS and a viewing of the Ten Commandments on ABC (but mostly basketball).

Detroit Tigers – I had another fantasy draft tonight, this time in the league Steve and I have been in forever. Somehow, I ended up with 4 Tigers, Miguel Cabrera, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield. I consider myself a decent fantasy player, but I can’t help but be worried about the makeup of my team. Cabrera and Granderson will be solid, but Guillen and Sheffield could suddenly implode and sink my teams season. Such is the way of the Tigers this year. A lot of good young talent, and a lot of old guys that, if they don’t contribute as they have, the team will be in a lot of trouble. They look like the safe bet right now, but I can see a lot going wrong for the Tigers this year too. They are from Detroit, after all.

Cleveland Indians – Last year, the questions for the Indians were in their pitching rotation. Well, Fausto Carmona answered two of those questions. The first, can the Indians add another big game arm to pair with C.C. Sabathia? The second, will that pitcher continue the Indians’ tradition of fantastic names? The answer was a yes. Now, those questions are in the outfield and middle infield. In the middle infield, Asdrubal Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta are answering the second question with a resounding yes (the first question doesn’t make sense in this instance). In the outfield, they need a better contribution in the corners. Like Detroit, they have a lot of talent, but also have a lot of potential for problems.

Chicago White Sox: At the beginning of the free agency period, I thought that the White Sox would be in a lot of trouble this year. Then, they went ahead and didn’t sign any free agents, and I was really worried. But THEN Ken Williams woke up and made trades for Orlando Cabrera, Carlos Quentin and Nick Swisher. Sure, Orlando Cabrera is probably on the tail end of his career, but Quentin and Swisher are certainly up and coming. Can Ozzie Guillen be patient with them? Probably not, since they aren’t terribly gifted bunters, but when the next manager comes into Chicago, they will be in good shape. The biggest problem I have with the team is their ancient pitching staff and their idiot manager. The biggest problem I have with the organization is that they can’t ever seem to develop talent from within.

Minnesota Twins – Don’t worry. Even though I have the Twins 4th in the division, I think this will be a four team race. I’ve written extensively about the Twins already, so I won’t rehash anything, but I do want to talk about the Twins resigning Joe Nathan. What the hell. Not necessarily set in stone yet, but frankly, I’m going to be disappointed if this goes through though. The closer is the most overvalued role on a baseball team, especially with good, nasty arms already filling the bullpen. Why not trade him at his discounted rate to a team that “needs” a closer? Instead, we let an ace pitcher get traded when we could have at least postured at trying to sign him to glean a little bit more out of our trade partners. Why not sign a centerfielder with that money? Why not use the money for something the Twins actually @%&&ing need, instead of blowing it on a closer that could have been traded for something useful. I’m angry. (The Sports Frog agrees with me).

Kansas City Royals – The Royals have nothing going for them. They don’t have anyone who has broken out to be the stud they hoped when they drafted or traded for him. Their best players will likely be traded son. They don’t even have a good running gag so I can make a joke about them. How do you make a joke about a Royal anyways? Poor Royals.