2023 AL CENTRAL PREDICTIONS
A division filled with many promising young players will likely be decided by one thing...Health.
Very few people saw it coming when the Cleveland Guardians ran away with the AL Central in 2022. The Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins were considered by many to be the front runners for the Division Title going into last season, but that didn’t come close to happening for either team in the end.
One of the reasons why the Sox and Twins both fell out of the race was because of major injuries to key players, something neither has been able to avoid for quite some time. In 2023, if both squads can keep their players away from long stints on the IL, then this division may be a three-way race to the end.
The Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers have some players to build around going forward, but when it is all said and done, I project that the order in the standings we saw last year in this division will be very similar, if not the same.
2022 FINAL STANDINGS
PREDICTIONS
1st Place: Cleveland Guardians
LIKES
Pitching in all areas: The starting rotation’s top three with Shane Bieber, Triston Mckenzie, and Cal Quantrill present a nice trio of pitchers for sure. More impressive is probably the Guardians bullpen, which is loaded with efficient strikeout pitchers, led by arguably by the best closer in baseball right now, Emmanuel Clase. The craziest part about this pitching staff is that the entire rotation and the majority of the bullpen are all still in their 20s. Youth is on their side.
Contact Hitters with some speed: Last season, five players on Cleveland had 18 or more stolen bases, which was good enough to finish third overall in the Majors with 119 total. They also struck out the least of any team with only three players striking out more than 100 times.
CONCERNS
Lack of power: The Guardians finished second to last in home runs in 2022 with 127. To put that in perspective, the Yankees led the league with 254 dingers. The addition of Josh Bell should help in that department. If he plays a full year, Bell should be good for 25 or more homers.
The back end of the rotation: After the top three, numbers four and five are iffy. Aaron Civale was 12-5 with a 3.84 ERA in 2021, but last year had just a 5-6 record to go along with a 4.92 ERA. Zach Plesac was 3-12 with a 4.31 ERA, but more concerning is that he has never been a good pitcher on the road. In ‘21 his road ERA was 5.18 and last season it was 4.83.
KEY PLAYER
Jose Ramirez: When thinking of who to select as the key player for each team, I try to think of someone less obvious than the star. However, no matter where you look, there is no one more valuable to the Guardians than Ramirez. He is their Do-It-All man. If they lost him for any serious length of time, their season would likely be lost as well. I can’t say that about anyone else on the team, therefore, Jose is the best choice for this spot.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This was the youngest team in the Majors last year. Not only did they win the AL Central by 11 games, but they also defeated the Rays 2-1 in the Wild Card Series and pushed the Yankees to the brink of elimination in the Division Series, losing in five. They make contact, avoid strikeouts, run the bases well, and their pitching staff as a whole is about as good as any in the Majors. The Guardians will find a way to win the Central for a second consecutive season.
2nd Place: Chicago White Sox
LIKES
Rotation: I’m going to say this with caution. I like this rotation if Lucas Giolito’s 2022 season was more of an aberration than the new norm. The pre-’22 Lucas was twice in the top 10 in Cy Young voting, but last year couldn’t find any consistency on the mound. He finished with a 4.90 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. If he’s back on his game, and the Sox can get some good things out of the Mikes (Clevinger and Kopech) at the back end of their rotation, then this staff, led by last year’s breakout pitcher, Dylan Cease, should win a lot of games.
Lineup IF HEALTHY: The lineup will make or break this team. It could be one of the scariest in all of baseball or just another constantly changing, daily lineup card for the manager to fill out. Jose Abreu is gone, but if you told me today that Luis Robert, Eloy Jiminez, Tim Anderson, and even Yoan Moncada (still wondering if he’ll become the hitter some think he could be) are going to play a full season with minimal injuries, then put me down as a believer. But, believing is seeing, and in this case, I haven’t seen it yet.
CONCERNS
Injury-prone players: Tying this in with the LIKES note earlier about being healthy, it’s worth mentioning that only Abreu (now with the Astros) played more than 140 games last year for Chicago. He was also 35 at the time. These young, and gifted players that the Sox have must, at some point in their careers, play most of the season if they want any chance at an American League Championship.
2022 Games Played numbers-Anderson(79), Jiminez (84), Robert (98), Moncada (104). This isn’t just a one-year fluky occurrence. This is every season for these guys. It’s time to stay healthy.
Bullpen: My guess is that this will be a closer-by-committee approach as some teams do nowadays. Kendall Graveman is the presumed closer. His career high in Saves was 10 in 2021. The rest of the pen as it stands today is nothing opposing teams will be worried about.
KEY PLAYER
Luis Robert: He’s 25. His first year was in the Covid-shortened 2020 season and he struggled. In 2021 he broke out with a .338 BA, 13 HR, 43 RBIs, 22 doubles, and 42 runs scored in a 68-game injury-plagued season. Between ‘21 and ‘22 he played only a total of 164 games (a full season’s worth in two years). Combine those numbers for an idea of what you might get out of Robert for a full 162 and there leaves little doubt about how good he is when healthy. 201 hits in 655 at-bats gave him a .306 BA, 25 HR, 99 RBIs, 40 doubles, and 96 runs scored in that span.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Stay healthy Chicago and you can win this division and more. If just half the guys who haven’t been healthy for the past few seasons are on the field for the entire year, this team could still make the playoffs. The talent is there. Unfortunately, I don’t trust young players to stay healthy when they have had an injury history for as long as some of these Sox players have.
3rd Place: Minnesota Twins
LIKES
Lineup Potential: It seems to be the storyline for so many teams now… ‘What if Everyone Stay Healthy?’ The Twins’ offense is already down second baseman, Jorge Polanco (knee), and first baseman, Alex Kiriloff (wrist) to start the season. It sounds like both IL stints will be short, but the point is, as with the White Sox, keeping your best players on the field of late, seems to be a major hurdle to overcome. Despite the AL batting champ, Luis Arraez, being traded away to the Marlins, this lineup has a lot of potential with Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa batting at the top.
Pitching Potential: Arraez was traded for Pablo Lopez in the offseason. The Lopez addition to a rotation with Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, Tyler Mahle, and Kenta Maida, might not exhilarate Twins fans. The flip side to that, however, is that if they get the best from each of the aforementioned names based on what they’ve all accomplished at certain points in their careers, then there could be some hope in the clubhouse for 2023.
CONCERNS
Joey Gallo: “He can hit the ball to the moon,” some fans like to say about Gallo. That’s great, but can he hit over .200 once in a while? For three consecutive seasons, Gallo has hit below the Mendoza Line. In fact, his career batting average is below the Mendoza Line at .199. The infield shift is now gone to help players like Joey raise their hit total. If his 37 at-bats this spring are a sign of things to come, then there will at least be some who can finally admit that he is an awful Major League hitter. He has a .216 batting average this spring. I didn’t even mention the ridiculous amount of strikeouts.
Game Played: Out of the current Twins players from last year’s squad, Carlos Correa played the most games with 136. This is the same player who was passed on this offseason by both the Giants and Mets because of “medical concerns” over surgery he had on his lower right leg as a teenager. Usually, it’s his back that is a problem. Any way you look at this team, the best players need to be on the field more often. This leads me to their ‘Key Player’, Mr. Byron Buxton.
KEY PLAYER
Byron Buxton: With so many young players today, it seems to all come down to one word, ‘Potential’. In Buxton’s case, we’ve been hearing about this “potential” for almost a decade. He certainly has shown flashes of it when he has been on the field. The problem is that he is now 29 years old and in his eight-year MLB career has only played more than 100 games once (2017, 140 GP). He’s a .244 career hitter and if he’s as good as many pundits say, then this is the year Twins fans need to see it. This team can hang around in the division race, but he will be the one who has to make that happen.
FINAL THOUGHTS
My feeling is that the Twins will end the season with a similar record as they had in 2022. Maybe they’ll reach 81 wins, but they are going to need everyone to step up a notch and stay off of the IL.
4th Place: Kansas City Royals
LIKES
Bullpen: The Royals’ 4.70 team ERA last season was 27th in baseball. I’m not sold on their rotation (see ‘Concerns’), but I can see this bullpen being solid if newly acquired, Aroldis Chapman, can keep his head on straight and focus on baseball. Scott Barlow and Dylan Coleman were very good in ‘22. Even, Amir Garrett, who hasn’t had a good season in a few years, perhaps can show some flashes from his ‘19 and ‘20 campaigns. I don’t love the pen, but I like it if the four players just mentioned pitch the way they are capable of for the entire season.
First four in the batting order: In whatever order they end up batting each day, I do like the young sophomores, Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino. MJ Melendez is another second-year player who has some potential and we’ll see if he can hit for a decent average. So far, in his 541 games played between the Majors and Minors, he has just a .232 batting average. He’s going to have to do better if he wants to bat near or at the top of the lineup in the future. Hitting cleanup should be veteran catcher, Salvador Perez, who has had a nice career behind the plate and swings for the fences about as well as any backstop in the league.
CONCERNS
Starting Pitching: This is not a strikeout-oriented staff by any measure. Not one of the projected five rotation players averaged at least one strikeout per inning pitched last season. In other words, there are going to be a lot of balls in play. The defense won’t have many breaks and will have to be on its toes every game.
Bottom of the order: Kyle Isbel, Nate Eaton, Edward Olivares, Michael Massey, and six-year vet, Hunter Dozier, look like the top candidates to fill out 5-9 in the batting order. At least a couple of them will need to have a breakout year with the sticks if the Royals want any chance to compete for the Central.
KEY PLAYER
Bobby Witt Jr.: The 22-year-old hit .254 in his rookie campaign last year. That’s not great, but I think he will improve considering he’s a lifetime .283 hitter in the Minors. The rest of his stat line was impressive-20 homers, 80 RBIs, 31 doubles, and 30 stolen bases in 150 games played. This is the Royals’ future star and is already the most important player in the Kansas City franchise after just one season in the Show.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The starting pitching is about as questionable as it gets. The bullpen could be good, but that’s only if they all do what they’re capable of. There are also a lot of question marks in the lineup, and though I think the Royals are heading in the right direction long-term, this team is at least two or three years away in my mind from being a real threat in this division.
5th Place: Detroit Tigers
LIKES
The Bats, IF, some things happen: If Javier Baez, and Austin Meadows both hit the way that they are capable of and the two young potential future stars, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, improve this season, then this lineup could be dangerous. You’re not likely getting much out of surefire Hall-of-Famer Miguel Cabrera except for a lot of waves to the crowd after long applauses and celebrations everywhere he goes in his last MLB season. The majority of Tigers runs are going to be produced by the four players noted at the start of this section, or it’s going to be an even longer season for Detroit fans than already anticipated.
Miguel Cabrera: This does not mean that I like the 39-year-old version of Miggy and believe that he will be productive, but you have to love the career he has had. What Cabrera has accomplished at the plate for the last two decades is about as good as it gets. Hopefully, he goes out in style and gets another hit in his last at-bat of the year to put an exclamation on some incredible numbers that I don’t think will ever be touched again by any up-and-coming players in the future.
CONCERNS
Starting Pitching: My eyes were looking for any good signs in the pitching department. The rotation led by Eduardo Rodriguez is as unpromising as it gets. Not one of their projected starting pitchers to begin the season threw more than 100 innings last year.
Bullpen: It’s filled with a bunch of unknowns. Without a few starting pitchers to give the Tigers some innings, at the very least, these relievers will get a lot of opportunities to prove me wrong.
KEY PLAYER
Austin Meadows: It was just two years ago with Tampa Bay when Meadows hit 27 homers and drove in 106 runs. In 2019, he hit .289 with 33 homers and 89 RBIs in 138 games. I’m not sure if he will ever be the kind of player who plays in more than 140 games, but as long as he is out there and productive, that can mean a few more wins for the Tigers and maybe, just maybe, not a last-place finish.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It might be a battle between the Tigers and Royals down to the last week of the season for fourth place in the Central, but I have a bit more faith in K.C. to finish ahead in the standings. I would not only be surprised, but I would also applaud either team if they finish in third place or better.
Up next: Predictions for the, potentially, crazy AL WEST, which won’t be lacking in storylines this season.