Figuring Out The AL Central

The Detroit Tigers were the surest lock to win their division, the clumsy American League Central, before the 2012 season started. There were plenty of reasons to believe in the Tigers, as every fifth day they could send the reigning AL Cy Young and MVP award winner to the mound, the ink on Prince Fielder‘s new mega-contract had barely dried, and Miguel Cabrera was Miguel Cabrera. Just discussing three players is quite shortsighted, as there were other factors that went into deciding on the Tigers as the team certain to win the AL Central, one of them being that the level of competition left a lot to be desired.

Now nearly a third of the way through the season, the Tigers have not only had competition, they’re sitting in third place and trail the first place White Sox by five games. No rational person would hit the panic button or run screaming into the streets wearing nothing but an Alex Avila jersey at this point, but it’s worth asking whether or not the Tigers have real competition in a division many left for dead.

For the record, I’m still not all that sold that they do. The Tigers still have the strongest roster in the division, though losing Victor Martinez before the season started surely dampened their offensive aspirations a bit. And yeah, Austin Jackson is dealing with minor injuries as well, but he’ll be back to resume his breakout campaign soon enough. Jackson’s budding power is just another reason why the Tigers are well built to survive over the long haul. The Detroit pitching staff has been puzzling, and that’s a large part of their early sputtering. Verlander’s been his usual impressive self, but Doug Fister is back on the disabled list again, and Max Scherzer is as confusing a pitcher as you’ll find. He has ace-level stuff, streaks in either direction for a bundle of starts, and just can’t quite put it all together despite constant threats of doing so.

In the earliest part of the early-going, the Indians looked to be the main foil for Detroit’s hopes, but lest we forget that prior to the season there were plenty of us championing the Royals coming into their own in 2012. As spring begins to give way to summer, the White Sox have surged into first place thanks to a nine-game winning streak and some resurgent seasons many may not have expected. The Twins and their -77 run differential through Saturday don’t appear to be a threat, but are there really four contenders in the AL Central?

I don’t think the Royals are quite ready yet. As a baseball fan, it’s been easy for me to want them to be ready, but I think this is one of those seasons where premature excitement leads to disappointment that shouldn’t have been set up in the first place. The Royals need further development from a number of players before they will truly be able to contend, and to think that all of these pieces would fall into place at once may have been naive. Then again, who could really expect Alex Gordon, Luke Hochevar, and Eric Hosmer to start out like this? The 2011 season saw Gordon bust out completely, Hochevar finish strong enough to raise eyebrows, and Hosmer adjust admirably to Major League pitching in his first try.

There are things to like about the Indians, namely their respectable pitching staff and the lineup’s ability to get on base. The Indians staff is much different than a lot of other teams who got positive press for their rotations before the season began. Unlike many other teams projected to have plus rotations, the Indians figured to succeed based on balance despite the lack of any true front-line starter. There was also, of course, the pervasive hope that Ubaldo Jimenez would fix what was broken, but that hasn’t happened. The Cleveland rotation has been very average so far, and that’s probably a reasonable expectation going forward. The offense, on the other hand, has been a pleasant surprise. Shin-Soo Choo is getting on base (.379 OBP) despite the continuing muting of his power (.126 ISO), Jason Kipnis has already been worth about two WAR per FanGraphs, and Carlos Santana was mashing and drawing walks before getting hit in the mask with a ball. When all is said and done, the Indians look like an acceptable and average baseball team, but that won’t be enough to top Detroit come season’s end.

That leaves the Chicago White Sox, whose recent run leaves them looking better than they perhaps are. The team’s success has relied heavily on unlikely performances, and that’s rarely a recipe for prolonged winning. Jake Peavy looks closer to his Padre self than he has in years (3.14 FIP, 4.53 K/BB), Adam Dunn is back to slugging after a year of being a slug, Alex Rios has split the difference between his good and evil selves, and Paul Konerko‘s late-career surge is still going on. This is a team that ranks fifth in Major League Baseball in runs scored, but has its 11th-highest OBP. They can’t score runs at this pace without having mind-boggling things happen. A.J. Pierzynski is slugging .500 right now, for God’s sake.

The White Sox are still the best competition the Tigers are likely to have, though, because some of the breakouts they’re enjoying are of the lasting variety. Chris Sale‘s emergence as a top starter has gone off without a hitch, and if he stays healthy his stuff supports his claim to dominance. Alejandro De Aza and his .380 OBP are exactly the sort of thing you want atop your team’s lineup, and Dayan Viciedo is slowly improving even without the patience a lot of us would like to see. Even Gordon Beckham, who should have broken out like a thousand years ago, is starting to show some pop. These are gains the White Sox can smile about, and when everyone regresses to the mean this is a team that still looks better than most of the league. Better than the Tigers, though? I can’t see that being the case after 162 games.

If Brian’s writing strikes your fancy, follow him on Twitter at @vaughanbasepct and read his work at StanGraphs.