AL Central check-in: Biggest surprises, trade deadline outlook, and who wins the division?
Minnesota Twins' Luis Arraez (2) celebrates with Nick Gordon, center, and Ryan Jeffers, left, after hitting a grand slam during the third inning of a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Saturday, June 11, 2022, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs)
By The Athletic MLB Staff
Jun 13, 2022
With more than a third of the season in the books, we gathered our AL Central writers to take stock of each team and make sense of the division race.
What’s one word that describes the state of your team?
Jason Lloyd (Guardians): Young. Team president Chris Antonetti made the point a few weeks ago that the average age of this roster is even younger than a Triple-A team. José Ramírez, 29, is the old head. Most of the rest of the everyday players are guys like Andrés Giménez (23), Josh Naylor (24), Owen Miller (25), Steven Kwan (24) and Amed Rosario (26). The same is true for the pitching. The Guardians have one of the deepest farm systems in baseball and this season was always going to be about figuring out which players will be foundational pieces and which can be bundled in trades. From that standpoint, this start has to be viewed as a success. It seems they have identified pieces who will be here a long, long time.
Alec Lewis (Royals): Developing. The Royals wanted to improve this season. The playoffs were not a reasonable expectation, but reasonable progression was. If that meant 80 wins, it was going to be doable, as long as the young pitchers took steps forward, and young prospects such as Bobby Witt Jr., MJ Melendez and others established themselves in the big leagues in a way that prepared the Royals for a solid chance at contention in 2023. But to this point, the Royals have underperformed. They’re on pace for more than 100 losses. And while Melendez and Witt have been impressive in many facets, the young pitchers continue to be inconsistent. This indicates the state of the team: still in the development phase. The route the Royals choose to take at the trade deadline, and the performance from now until the end of the season will dictate how close the club believes the light at the end of the development tunnel is.
Cody Stavenhagen (Tigers): Disappointing. The Tigers came into the season hoping this would be the year their rebuild was officially over. Playoff hopes were always a stretch, but when Detroit finished last season 68-61 after May 8, it was reasonable to expect this team to be competitive after an offseason of additions. Instead, the Tigers have struggled to produce runs at a historic pace and have generally succumbed to too much sloppy play. The Tigers have battled a barrage of injuries, but that doesn’t explain why they rank last in runs, home runs, slugging percentage and wRC+.
Aaron Gleeman (Twins): Injured. At one point last week the Twins had 18 players unavailable because they were on the injured list, COVID-19 IL or restricted list, and they’ve had double-digit players on the IL basically the entire season. The Twins lead MLB with 24 different players spending time on the IL this year — including season-ending stints for Royce Lewis and Chris Paddack — and they rank seventh in total days lost to injury.
James Fegan (White Sox): Terse, since that is the nature of a lot of postgame press conferences with Tony La Russa. “Tense” was also a candidate, since that is the nature of almost every White Sox victory, as their putrid offense makes every triumph a bullpen-gobbling grind. La Russa is not batting 1.000, as I think we’ve covered extensively, and the sense that he is messing everything up is probably hardened by how ornery he can be in the agony of defeat. But he also contains multitudes. Aaron recently tweeted out a quote from Rocco Baldelli about controlled aggression at the plate that sounds like it could have come out of La Russa’s mouth, had it only contained some random allusions to Rick Monday or Paul Richards.
The path to success with La Russa managing the Sox was never an endless slate of three- or four-run outputs from his offense and making five or six game-altering decisions every night and getting all of them right. Such an environment would probably expose any manager’s warts and man, is it ever exposing his.
Will Tony La Russa’s White Sox turn around their season? (David Banks / USA Today)
What’s been the biggest surprise (good and bad) for your team thus far?
Lloyd: Good: The emergence of guys like Giménez and Naylor has been huge, as they’ve been exactly the type of pieces Cleveland needed to identify this year. Both entered the weekend with an OPS over .830. (Rookie Oscar Gonzalez is over .900, but he hasn’t been up long enough to know whether it’s legit.) There was so much uncertainty entering the season outside of Ramírez at third base that it was unclear who could be counted on anywhere else in the infield. Giménez has settled in nicely at second base, and Naylor appears to be a long-term fixture at first. The next question will be figuring out where to put Miller, whose bat also seems to play in the majors, but he’s without a position despite being able to play multiple spots in the infield. Miller might warrant a look in the outfield after Franmil Reyes returns from the IL.
Bad: Reyes has looked absolutely lost at the plate for much of the season. Whether it’s the dead ball or just a miserable slump, Reyes was hitting .195 with three home runs and an OPS closer to Austin Hedges’ than Myles Straw’s. That’s problematic for a DH. Reyes has been one of the biggest disappointments of the season.
Lewis: No qualified MLB hitter has improved their walk rate more than Michael A. Taylor has (7.2 percent), and it has contributed to his best-ever stretch at the plate. That’s the good. Taylor has a 123 wRC+, meaning his at-the-plate production has been 23 percent better than MLB average. His on-base percentage is .371. Add that to his stellar defense in the swaths of outfield grass at Kauffman Stadium, and that production makes his two-year, $9 million extension from last season seem like a bargain.
The bad resides mostly with the Royals’ bullpen. Club officials explained in November that they wanted to build a championship-caliber ’pen. An injury to left-hander Jake Brentz hasn’t helped. Nor have trips to the IL for Amir Garrett and Gabe Speier, among others. Overall, though, the Royals’ relievers rank 28th in ERA (4.80), 30th in walks (115) and 30th in WHIP (1.54).
Stavenhagen: Good: A bullpen that seemed thin entering the season has become the glue holding this team together. The Tigers entered Sunday with a 2.81 bullpen ERA, second in the major leagues. Pitchers such as Jason Foley and Will Vest have become surprise contributors, and Alex Lange is becoming a late-inning force. It’s hard to imagine where this team would be if not for a rock-solid bullpen.
As for the bad: Too many established players simply have not produced. That starts with Javier Báez. The Tigers signed Báez this past offseason knowing his streaky nature. But they haven’t seen much of Báez’s hot streaks so far this season. He entered Sunday hitting .196 and worth negative-0.1 fWAR. Not exactly what the Tigers hoped to see from their star offseason signing.
Javier Báez is below the Mendoza Line. (Ken Blaze / USA Today)
Gleeman: Jhoan Duran emerging as a dominant late-inning reliever almost immediately after making the switch to the bullpen this spring has carried an otherwise iffy bullpen into respectability. He’s one of the league’s most valuable rookies after spending nearly all of last year on the Triple-A IL with elbow problems. And getting a 2.38 ERA over six starts from Devin Smeltzer is a rotation-saving surprise no one could have seen coming.
On the negative side, Tyler Duffey struggling to the point that he’s been removed from the high-leverage bullpen mix is something the Twins didn’t expect. He showed signs of decline last season, including a big drop in strikeout rate, but still managed a 3.18 ERA and a positive Win Probability Added. The Twins were counting on him to at least be a dependable setup man. If they knew Duffey was on the verge of declining this sharply, they may have thought twice about trading Taylor Rogers.
Fegan: Yoán Moncada and Yasmani Grandal were very good to great last season offensively, and with Gavin Sheets optioned (another symptom of the Sox’s surprising offensive struggles) they are the only potential impact left-handed bats on a roster desperate for them. They’ve struggled so much that reducing their playing time has been a consistent topic of conversation. Moncada’s oblique and quad issues have delayed him from finding any kind of form, and Grandal has said he’s still building up strength after offseason surgery on his right knee. But no one thought they would be this bad, and they’re not even alone in that respect on this roster. They’re just the most crucial figures.
What are your way-too-early thoughts on how your team will approach the trade deadline?
Lloyd: The Guardians will be buyers regardless of where they are in the standings. They crowbarred 11 minor leaguers onto the 40-man roster in November in anticipation of a Rule 5 draft that never occurred. Everyone in the organization acknowledges the 40-man is lopsided right now. The Guardians can get by in the short term, but it isn’t sustainable beyond this season. They need to start bundling some of these minor leaguers for an impact outfield bat or, dare I say it, a pitcher with multiple years of control.
Lewis: It doesn’t feel way too early for moves over here. The Royals will almost certainly be selling aggressively, the way a kid at a lemonade stand would be. Andrew Benintendi is the likeliest candidate to be dealt. He will be a free agent after this season. He’s also batted .303 in 58 games. Other potential options include starter Brad Keller, whose final arbitration year is next season; Scott Barlow and Josh Staumont, two cost-effective and performing relievers; and even veteran Whit Merrifield, who has one more guaranteed year on his contract with a club option for 2024.
Gold Glove winner Andrew Benintendi could be on the move. (Denny Medley / USA Today)
Stavenhagen: The Tigers probably won’t have much choice but to sell and try to acquire pieces for the future. The question is how much will they actually have to offer. Relief pitcher Michael Fulmer could be attractive to teams in need of bullpen help as long as his velocity keeps trending upward. Robbie Grossman is on an expiring deal, and Jonathan Schoop has a player option after this year, but neither has produced much. The Tigers badly need to acquire young hitting, but unless they get creative, it’s hard to see them doing anything too eventful at the deadline.
Gleeman: The Twins will target pitching if they have any willingness to push some chips into the middle and make a real playoff run. There’s plenty of offensive firepower on the roster, with even more waiting in the minors if needed, but the rotation is short at least one front-line starter, and the bullpen is a hodgepodge of middle relievers in need of at least two more late-inning options to join Duran. The Twins need pitching help, which was also true in November and in March, and will almost surely still be true on Aug. 2.
Fegan: I more or less asked White Sox GM Rick Hahn if a team with a losing record and an awful run differential should maybe think about selling at the deadline, and he did not react like I had made a reasonable suggestion. They will target bullpen help, and could certainly use a second lefty to go alongside Aaron Bummer. They need a left-handed bat who can play corner outfield competently, or second base; though they have potential second-base upgrades in the high minors.
The Sox need someone left-handed. My sister is left-handed, was a good clubhouse presence on the Whitney Young girls’ tennis team in the early 2000s, and thinks she would vibe well with Tim Anderson. I can set up a meeting if they’re interested.
What needs to happen for your team to fulfill its preseason expectations?
Lloyd: Keep doing what they’re doing. The Guardians will tell you they enter every season with the intent to compete for the division, but this team was always expected to hover around the .500 mark. They may hang around the race simply because of their division, but if they get to August and September and guys like Naylor, Giménez, Miller, Triston McKenzie et al. are still proving to be legitimate, this team could throw open another contention window as soon as next year.
Lewis: Most important is consistency from young starters such as Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jonathan Heasley, Kris Bubic and potentially Jackson Kowar and Carlos Hernández. All but Kowar have dominated in spurts at the big-league level but none for a lengthy period. Some of them have struggled to command their fastballs. Others have simply thrown fastballs that were too hittable. In general, each of them has big-league stuff, be it particular pitches or makeup. It’s just a matter of consistency. And if a number of them can put together multiple starts in a row, games will flow the way the club (and its fan base) would like them to, lifting overall spirits ahead of next season.
Stavenhagen: The Tigers would have to finish 58-47 to end the season with a .500 record. That means playing at a .552 clip for the next 105 games. It’s not impossible, but it’s a pretty tall task. Their playoff odds, per FanGraphs, are down to 0.7 percent. So to salvage anything productive from this season, the Tigers need to keep pitching at a high level and getting ace-like performance from Tarik Skubal. They need their hitters — especially Báez — to figure things out and they need Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene to get comfortable in the majors.
Gleeman: The Twins have almost done it already, which is what happens when you go 73-89 and finish in last place the previous season. Projection systems and gambling lines pegged the Twins right around .500, which should be easily reachable even if things go off the rails a bit in the second half. If they get mostly healthy, or at least healthy enough to avoid the pitching staff collapsing, they’ll blow past preseason expectations.
Fegan: Considering that we live in a digital age, there are a lot of references to old-school baseball cards in these parts, and how the Sox offense just needs to play to the back of theirs. In my opinion, they need to play to their Baseball-Reference career overviews. Once this team hits anywhere like it is supposed to, the AL Central race gets more interesting than its current state, where there is one winning team and everyone else kinda stinks. However, the preseason expectations for the Sox were somewhere between World Series championship and simply not getting waxed in the ALDS again. Even if they rebound, their ability to take a step forward is limited because of a team-wide lack of plate discipline, defense that has not significantly improved from last year, and … and … they just make a lot of mistakes, man! Trust me, I watch them every day.
Who’s going to win the division, and why?
Will it be the White Sox or the Twins, or someone else? (Bruce Kluckhohn / USA Today)
Lloyd: I still like the White Sox. They were my preseason pick, and although they’ve been ravaged by injuries to this point, they still have the most talent in the division and it’s not really close. I don’t believe the Twins’ pitching can hold up for three and a half more months. If the Sox can ever get healthy, the Central is theirs to lose.
Lewis: The White Sox have so much talent, but the Twins have to be the answer with Byron Buxton continuing to do absurd things, and their lineup producing as much as it is. The pitching is a bit more questionable, especially with Paddack’s injury. But the pieces exist in Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Sonny Gray, and it feels as if the club has the type of expendable hitters that could return impactful elements to the rotation or bullpen in a trade.
Stavenhagen: I’m still picking the White Sox. They need to turn it around fast, but they’re too talented to not get red-hot at some point this summer. The Twins are in a great position, but they’ve already been hit with injuries, and I’m not sold on their pitching.
Gleeman: I thought the White Sox were the clear division favorites coming into the season, and I still (perhaps misguidedly) think they’re too dangerous to write off, but the Twins should be considered the favorites now. They’ve got a decent-sized lead despite the never-ending injuries and, while their remaining schedule is tougher than what they’ve played so far, there’s really no such thing as a “tough schedule” in the AL Central. It’s likely to be a three-team race to 88 or so wins, and the Twins have enough of a head start to switch my preseason view.
Fegan: Maybe before watching a slightly ascendent Grandal leave the game with yet another injury on Saturday I was ready to believe in order being restored. But at my core, I am a numbers guy who knows nothing about baseball, and there’s not a projection system I know of that still has the Sox favored to eclipse the Twins. The deficit isn’t all that imposing, but the level of play the Sox have to reach to make it up has yet to be demonstrated.
