ok, baseball is gearing up, so must i. thankfully, all else has been sorta quiet in winter haven. no bad news since day one, when keith retired. that is good. it lets me commence with the division break down. i have discussed minnesota earlier. so, first of all, let's take a look at the division as a whole. in usa today's sports weekly, they have released their power rankings. this is how the AL central teams were ranked, out of all 30 teams.
detriot #2
chicago #5
minnesota #9
cleveland #14
kansas city #29

not that i believe this an an accurate indicator of the true strength of a team (it is based on the voting of 13 usa today writers and editors), but let me break this data down.

division----overall average--best 3 teams average--best 4 teams average
AL central:------11.8-------------5.3--------------------7.5
AL east:-----------12.8-------------4.0--------------------9.0
AL west:---------15.0------------12.7------------------15.0
NL east:-----------16.4------------11.0-------------------13.0
NL west:---------17.2------------11.7------------------15.0
NL central:--------18.8------------14.0-------------------15.8

if not for the money hogs new york and boston (ranked #1 and #3), the AL central would dominate this ranking, even though we have the second worst team in the majors with kc. and i think kc will surprise a lot of teams this season, thus being ranked higher at the end of the season. i read a web article / blog listing the toughest divisions in baseball, and the AL central was not listed. four divisions were listed, and the AL central was not one of them. last season, six teams won 90 or more games. three were from the AL central. case closed.

as for minnesota, i have no idea how they are in the top 10. they lost shannon stewart, brad radke retires, fransisco liriano is out for the season, their 'replacements' are ramon ortiz and sidney ponson or rookies, and they only have three legitimate offensive threats.

ok, so enough about them. on to last year's AL wild card team and world series representatives, the surprising detroit tigers. their only significant loss was tough lefty reliever jaime walker to the O's. their biggest addition was trading prospects for gary sheffield. they added jose mesa (no comment) to their bullpen, and did resign sean casey. adding sheff was a nice touch. he is old, but if he can stay healthy and doesn't bitch and moan about being their DH, it should be a very addition to their offense. loosing walker could somewhat hurt their pen, especially if wilfredo ledezma (who used to be a starter) does not work out. but the way i see it, success is not guaranteed. they have rookies who pitched a lot last year who could suffer sophomore slumps. justin verlander and joel zumaya readily come to mind. zach miner and roman colon are another pair of rookies who had success last year. and they have many old players who are now a year older. kenny rogers, shef, sean casey, jose mesa, and todd jones all fall into this category. mike maroth is another enigmatic starter who has battled injuries the last couple years. plus, they no longer have the surprise factor on their side. everybody will be out to get them. success is expected this year. i expect a slight fall off, reminiscent of chicago going from world series champs to finishing third last year.

the offense should be somewhere in the decent to good range, at best. this scenario includes everyone staying healthy, and curtis granderson being the curtis from the first half of last season and in the playoffs, not the curtis who struggled mightily inbetween. overall, he batted .260 with 174 strikeouts and only 66 walks. he did have 31 doubles, 9 triples, 19 homeruns. he was only successful on 8 of 13 steal attempts. i single him out because these are no where near ideal lead off batter statistics. 174 strikeouts! and when the lead off man does not get on, the offense will stagnate. i do not think it was a coincidence that detroit's struggles as a team down the stretch coincided with curtis' struggles at the plate. as a team though, detroit does not walk alot. this will make a team more prone to slumps. i wonder what will be of chris shelton this year? he was the hottest hitter in the milky way galaxy the first couple of weeks of april, and really helped the tigers jump out to an early lead in the division. of course, they were helped by cleveland beating up on chicago and minnesota early on. but chris cooled off (as did cleveland), and he eventually was sent back down to the minors.

defensively, they are ok. forget about all the pitchers errors in the world series. that was a fluke, probably brought on by equal parts inexperience, fatigue, and bad luck.

but a starting rotation of kenny rogers, justin verlander, jeremy bonderman, nate robertson, and mike maroth does appear to be one of the strongest in all of baseball, on paper. they have some depth with zach miner and roman colon. but they are young. the bullpen should be good. todd jones, fernando rodney, and joel zumaya are the keys. any one of these three could close games, but it is best if jones is da man while the other two set up. an injury or ineffectiveness to any one of the three could upset the delicate balance of this pen.

look for them to win 80-90 games this year, good for a second or third place division finish.