The 2025 MLB season is almost upon us! With less than one week to go before the Cubs and Dodgers do battle in Tokyo, each team is gearing up for the long, annual 162-game grind.
Each day this week at Call To The Pen, we'll take a look at every team in every division and analyze their best and worst-case scenarios for the 2025 season. We've already looked at the AL East and NL East. Now, let's head to the middle of the country to size up the AL Central.
Chicago White Sox
Best-case scenario: The White Sox lost 121 games last season, so even the best-case scenario obviously isn’t going to be very good. It begins and ends with development.
The realistic development hopes center around two players. Catcher Kyle Teel came over from Boston as the prize in the Garrett Crochet trade. At 23, he projects to be major league-ready soon, and although he’s currently listed third on the team’s depth chart — behind Corey Lee and Matt Thais — do not take that seriously. The next catcher of note on the South Side will be Teel, and Opening Day could serve as his coronation.
Colson Montgomery is a 23-year-old system project who will eventually take over the starting shortstop job. Coming off a .214 batting average at Triple-A Charlotte, he’s got to show enough bat to justify that confidence, and the Sox apparently aren't fully persuaded yet. They sent him to minor league camp already. His return at some point this season, is, however, likely.
Jonathan Cannon, 24, got a 23-game rookie introduction in 2024 and went 5-10 with a 4.49 ERA. The Sox believe in Cannon enough to list him as the No. 1 starter on their spring depth chart; justifying that faith would be a big accomplishment.
Worst-case scenario: With few productive returnees to lean on, GM Chris Getz is counting on his youngsters to give White Sox fans hope. If Teel, Montgomery and/or Cannon falter, it will be hard in October to look back on 2025 as productive.
The supporting cast — Andrew Benintendi, Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn — has plenty of injury history and no record of carrying their team. From a talent standpoint, Robert is the best of the lot, but he’s only once made more than 425 plate appearances in his five-season career.
Benintendi’s already sidelined by a spring training fracture that will have him out for several weeks into the start of the season. As for the rotation, veterans Martin Perez and Mike Clevinger are the support staff for Cannon. They went a combined 5-9 with a 5.00 ERA last season.
Most likely scenario: It would be hard to lose 100+ games in three successive seasons; the Sox lost 101 in 2023. But the White Sox established a franchise record at 303 defeats for the 2022-24 period, and they only need 82 losses to top that. In that sense, 2025 is all but guaranteed to be a record breaker for the South Siders.
Cleveland Guardians
Best-case scenario: The 2024 Guardians won 92 games and the AL Central with virtually no help from their top two arms, Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie. Obviously, the team’s best-case scenario begins with a return to health for that pair.
If Bieber — who isn’t expected back until mid-season — and McKenzie can combine to give manager Stephen Vogt even 40 starts and 250 combined innings of reasonable quality, Cleveland stands a legit chance to defend their division title.
Also on the Guardians' 2025 wish list:
1. Another dominant season from the bullpen led by Emmanuel Clase.
2. No letup from third baseman Jose Ramirez.
3. The emergence of shortstop Brayan Rocchio as a competent batter atop the defensive skills he demonstrated as a rookie.
4. A breakthrough season from rookie Kyle Manzardo, either at first base or DH.
Give the Guardians most of that wish list and you have another divisional and postseason contender.
Worst-case scenario: There are pitfalls all over the Guardians 2025 roster. What if Bieber and/or McKenzie don’t return to form, throwing the load on journeyman Gavin Williams and youngster Luis Ortiz, acquired in a December trade with Pittsburgh?
What if the bullpen does what bullpens often do, swinging from dominant to helpless? What if Rocchio shows himself to be overmatched at the plate? What if Manzardo flops, underlining the offensive loss created by the trade of Josh Naylor and his 31 home runs to Arizona?
The collective answer: Then the Guardians risk spending the summer watching the Tigers, Royals and possibly the Twins all scoot past them in the divisional hierarchy.
Most likely scenario: The last two times the Guardians posted a winning percentage of .565 or better, they lost 100 points off that level in the following season. Cleveland had a .571 percentage in 2024, but building a consistent winner on a bullpen foundation is notoriously tricky.
Given the uncertainty surrounding the rotation, Cleveland may do well to top .500 in 2025.
Detroit Tigers
Best-case scenario: With Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal leading the charge, the Tigers were third in the AL in 2024 in run prevention. But they were a mediocre ninth in run production. That means the case for improvement begins with the offense.
Think in terms of Colt Keith (23 years old), Riley Greene (24), Jace Jung (24) and Wenceel Perez (25). Their average OPS last season was around .700, a far from noteworthy figure. If they collectively progress to something close to .800 — not out of the question given their talent — the Tigers will be a serious offensive machine.
It’s asking too much of Skubal to be better than he was in 2024. But if he comes close to replicating his Cy Young season, the presence of Jack Flaherty as a full-season sidekick gives Detroit one of the game’s best one-two punches. Reese Olson, 25, made 22 starts good for 112 innings with a 3.53 ERA; raise that to 30 starts and 160 innings, and the Tigers can stand toe to toe with almost any rotation.
Worst-case scenario: Perez, Keith, Jung and Greene don’t take the next offensive step, putting the offensive onus on returnees Parker Meadows and Javier Baez – already a pariah in Detroit – plus winter pickup Gleyber Torres.
With another unproductive lineup, the best efforts of Skubal, Flaherty, Olson and a deep bullpen are only good enough to keep the Tigers on the outer fringes of divisional contention.
Most likely scenario: Keith and Jung both juice the offense, joining Meadows in the .780 to .800 OPS category. Coupled with the expected pitching depth, that’s enough to keep the Tigers in serious divisional contention to the final week, their ultimate fate hanging on a season-ending road swing through Cleveland and Boston.
Kansas City Royals
Best-case scenario: Cole Ragans, fourth in last year’s Cy Young Award voting, leads a Royals sweep of the showcase awards in 2025, presaging Bobby Witt Jr’s unanimous MVP selection and Jac Caglianone as Rookie of the Year.
Healthy for a full season, Vinny Pasquantino hits 30 homers and drives in120, many of them represented by Jonathan India, revitalized by his removal from fifth-wheel status in Cincinnati. Salvador Perez, at 35, has one more fully productive season in him, and manager Matt Quatraro identifies a solution to the one gaping hole in the lineup at third base.
Somebody — Kyle Wright, Kris Bubic or Daniel Lynch — steps up as a reliable fourth starter behind Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha. With Witt and Ragans leading the way, the Royals win 95 games and overpower the AL Central
Worst-case scenario: Coming off the best season of his career, age begins to catch up with Lugo, 35, who manages no better than a 4.00 ERA in less than 30 starts. The same fate befalls Wacha, 33, leaving Ragans as the one reliable element in an otherwise mediocre rotation.
India demonstrates what the Reds had previously determined: That the 2021 National League Rookie of the Year really is at best an unreliable on-base guy with no power and no particular position. In short, a one-year wonder.
The outfield of Melendez, Isbel and Renfroe makes it two seasons in a row without a .700+ OPS, creating an offensive chasm behind Witt and Pasquantino. The Royals find themselves in a desperate late-season push to run down Detroit, Cleveland and/or Minnesota for a fringe playoff spot.
Most-likely scenario. Ragans and Witt both contend for the prestige awards, and their efforts keep Kansas City in postseason contention in the highly-winnable AL Central.
Minnesota Twins
Best-case scenario: The Twins’ dream scenario begins with health; namely, that Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa each suit up for somewhere around 150 games. They averaged 90 in 2024 and none of the three has played 150 in a season since Correa did so for Houston in 2016.
Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan provided a reliable top three starters in 2024, but the quality — ERAs around 3.90 in their combined 86 starts — leaves something to be desired. If they step up, and if Simeon Woods-Richardson outgrows his 4.17 ERA rookie season, the Twins' staff could become an asset.
Give Minnesota full seasons from the above-named seven players and the Twins will contend.
Worst-case scenario: What annually happens to Lewis, Buxton and Correa happens again, and the Twins are lucky to get a combined 300 starts from them.
Ryan, Ober and Lopez, all 29 years old (as is No. 5 starter Chris Paddack), demonstrate that their 2024 performances actually established their peak, and Woods-Richardson fails to learn the lessons from his 28 rookie starts. Result: another mediocre staff ERA hovering above 4.00.
Combine lackluster pitching with the gaps created by the absences of Correa, Buxton and Lewis, and the Twins reprise their 2024 fourth-place finish.
Most likely scenario: Buxton, Lewis and Correa average 130 starts, enough to keep Minnesota in contention.
But Ryan, Ober, Lopez and Woods-Richardson prove to be, at best, an average rotation, and their unreliability prevents the Twins from separating themselves from their AL Central challengers. Their final four series are against the Yankees, Guardians, Rangers and Phillies, and they’ll need to perform at their best to survive that stretch.