The AL Central is Appealing

[Steak]

Great job Steak!

Thank you!

It should be a very good race this year.

[Steak]

you guys are great at writing these articles...and i love it. good read

Thanks!

[RLA68]

Great article. I hve to agree that I would put my money on 2 teams coming out the Central for the playoffs.

I think the Angels will run and hide in the West. The A's and M's just don't have the balance to get it done like they did in past years.

The East I would like to hope that the Yankees will make a run but Baltimore is doing great and the Yankees are not. Boston may not be a factor with injuries to Schilling and others.

Good points that almost anyone in the central can be a force this year.

[DiamondGirl]

Great comments, Steak. Enjoyed reading your take on the Central Division. As a Twins fan, I too am looking at the improvements the Indians made as well as the Tigers. The White Sox are incredible so far but they certainly aren't expected to keep it up for much longer. Funny how most are following the Twins lead by building a team through your farm system and sprinkling some vetran players here and there through the free agent market.

Nicely done!

[De]

[Lynch]

Great article man! Oustanding!

[Steak]

I appreciate the compliments everyone

Later tonight or tommorow, I will post an article on the Yankees on this site. I hope this one is even better.

[Jennifer]

Steak - When you posted your article I didn't reply to your analysis about the Tribe because I did not want to spend the time making a comprehensive reply. I think you offered a conventional thinking analysis offered by many of the "experts" but I believe their analyses lacked any real in-depth analyses. I have just finished a partial analysis in another forum and decided to post it here too to give you a chance to respond since there may be members here that might read it in the other forum.

At the beginning of the season many of the experts did analyses of the Central Division and most labelled the Tribe as a very good hitting team, good starting pitching and a questionable bullpen. But if one really closely looked at the Tribe going into the season it would be seen that on paper the hitting had a reasonable chance of being worse than last season. The starting pitching questionable with C.C. having had his worse season last year, Lee having had a terrible last half, Elarton seemingly a .500 pitcher, Millwood very questionable because of health. Westbrook seemed the only solid pitcher. The bullpen despite the final numbers was solid in the last half season. Most of its problems seemed to start with the inability to find an effective closer resulting in relievers being used in inappropriate roles. Rhodes a good set-up man was added this year. The only thing questionable about the pen coming into the season was its closer and his health. Wickman when healthy is a decent closer. Over the course of the year he might blow five or six saves. Clearly, winning a world championship with him would be difficult but good enough to help win a Central championship.

There is much more that could be said but I have neither the time or the energy to say it. Still I want to briefly address the hitting. Going into the season by way of offense the Tribe lost Vizquel, Lawton, Merloni and Phelps; Quite a bit of offense to lose. They were replaced by: Cora a career .246 hitter; Hernandez a career .253 hitter who has struckout 1291 out of 4232 (30% of the time) and from 2001-2003 struckout at least 177 times each season (he was not a full time player in 2004); Boone has a career average of .270 and batted .241 in 2002 and .267 in 2003 (he did not play in 2004); and Peralta who had yet to prove he could hit in the Bigs. Since this is a pre-season analysis Gonzales and Ludwick must be mentioned. Gonzales had very questionable health problems and Ludwick had not proven he could hit Major League hitting.

Then there are the returning players. Bard has never proven he can hit MLB pitching still because he was replacing Laker its probably a wash.

Blake is no youngster, he will be 32 in August. From 1999-2002 he was up and down from the Minors with three teams (Minnesota (twice) Toronto and Baltimore) and never had more than 39 ABs. In his first full season (2003) he batted .257 and in 2004 he hit .271. At his age 2004 was as likely, as not, to have been a career year.

Gerut, at 27, has played two years in the Majors. In 2003 he batted .279 and .252 in 2004. Is Gerut more than a .270 hitter? Additionally, he entered the season on the DL.

Crisp, at 25, has three years in the Majors. In 2002 he hit .260 (127 ABs) .266 in 2003 (414 ABs) and .297 in 2004 (491 ABs). Was 2004 a "breakout" year? Who knows but definitely a question mark entering the season.

Belliard at 30 should be at his peak. He was going into last season about a .267 career hitter and batted .282 in 2004 but that was because he was hot early in the season. The last few months of the season he batted about .267.

Peralta, just turned 23, has parts of two ML seasons under his belt. In 267 ABs he has a .228 average.

Broussard, at 28, has been in Majors three seasons. In 2002 he batted .241 (127 ABs) in 2003 .249 (386 ABs) and in 2004 (when he had a strong second half) .275(418 ABs). Boone was signed in large part last season because before Broussard's second half there was a fear that he could not hit Major League pitching. The plan at the time was to shift Blake to First.

Hafner just turned 28 and has three years in the Majors. In 2002 he hit .242 (62 ABs), .254 (291 ABs) in 2003 and .311 (482) in 2004.

Martinez, at 26, has three seasons in the Bigs. In 2002 he hit .281 (32 ABs), .289 (159 ABs) in 2003 and .283 (520 ABs) in 2004. Martinez has been a good hitter at every level he has played and at his age he should only get better.

Finally there is Sizemore, at 23 in August, who was not expected to make the team. In his initial Big League season he batted .246 in 138 ABs.

My point is that with the players lost and the relative lack of more than one good season for many of the others (some of the poor hitting for these players maybe the result of opposing team pitchers learning how to pitch against them) that a lot of things needed to go right for the team to be even as good a hitting team as last year. To date Martinez's poor hitting is a shocker. Boone is an unexpected nightmare but coming off his injury and based in his career stats .200 to .240 would not have been a surprise. Blake really has never proven he is more than a .240 hitter so his start, while poor, is not that far below reasonable expectations.