2011 MLB American League Central Predictions
The Minnesota Twins have emerged as winners for the American League Central for the past two years. Unfortunately though, they have not been able to make it beyond the New York Yankees for the past two seasons. Is it time for a new champion to conquer AL
Central?
Basically, the AL Central has five teams on board who compete to make it to the playoffs. These include the Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians and the Kansas City Royals.
The Tigers traded Curtis Granderson and brought in Max Scherzer, Austin Jackson, Phil Coke and Daniel Schlereth. This move gave their team an excellent outfielder, two starting pitchers and a very useful relief man. As if this wasn’t enough, they have a
perennial Cy Young candidate, Justin Verlander joining the team along with Miguel Cabrera, an ALMVP candidate. All of them together give them a team that has a really good chance of knocking the Twins out. Since there are no visible holes in the line-up, 2011
just may end up being their year.
Next up are the Chicago White Sox. With the addition of Adam Dunn, they have one of the best rotations in the league. Given the amount of money they’ve been spending they should’ve won more than two times over the last decade and they definitely have the
potential to improve on their 88-win-team. Last year the White Sox stepped up their game but still couldn’t manage making it to the playoffs so hopefully, this year they would be putting in more effort.
Given that the Minnesota Twins have won six out of the last nine title divisions you can’t really take them lightly but lately they have been too many issues. Alexi Casilla and Tsuyoshi Nishioka make up a very poor and faulty infield and Joe Mauers injuries
have been keeping him from performing for last two postseasons and there is no guarantee on whether he has fully recovered from his concussion that he suffered last season. Francisco Liriano needs to definitely step up his game whereas Joe Nathan needs to
start pitching like he used to before.
When Zach Greinke left for the Milwaukee Brothers, the Kansas City Royals definitely suffered a big blow. The Royals have signed on many prospects, and they only way they can win is if all those prospects start performing sooner-than-expected. Not much is
expected from the team in general and there aren’t too many arrows which point towards things starting to look up for them.
Sadly, for the Cleveland Indians, aside from Matt Laporta and Grady Sizemore, there is no one else on the team anyone could hope from. They have not won the World Series in the longest time and the future doesn’t really look too promising for them. It looks
like they are in the middle of some form of team rebuilding period and their pitching or batting line-ups are not strong enough to win the division crown.
Many fans have put their hopes on the shoulders of the Tigers and there is a chance that they might not disappoint. Let’s just hope that no matter who wins the division title, they beat the New York Yankees afterwards.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
Tags: