Comish's Predictions - AL Central

The AL Central may very well be the strongest division in baseball.  Here's how I think it will shape out

1st - Ball Four
2nd - Manetheren Red Eagles
3rd - Platte County Burnt Ends
4th - Planet 10 Red Lectroids

Realistically, any of the four teams can win the division but on paper it seems that Ball Four is best poised to win out of all the teams if they encounter some injuries.  This is simply an above average team everywhere save top end starting pitching. The lineup features ATB greats Joe Morgan, Bill Dickey, and soon to be great Heavy Johnson.  In addition, the second tier players are all top-second tier players - Roger Connor, Jim Edmonds, and Fred Lynn are all very good.  The rotation is skimpy at the top, but a 5-man of Kevin Millwood, Teddy Higuera, Joel Horlen, Zach Greinke, and Lefty Grove is still above average.  Add Craig Kimbrel (we think) and Mariano Rivera in relief and this becomes a good team.  Prediction:  If the new-year Lefty Grove is good, the teams wins, if he's bad then the rotation falls short and so does Ball Four.

The Red Eagles are not a typical Lou team.  I normally focus on on base percentage, but the lure of Turkey Stearns and his 60+ doubles in the resims captured my imagination.  So, I drafted an extreme doubles park and drafted extreme doubles hitters - Joey Votto, Ed Delahanty, and Stearnes may realistically hit 150+ between them alone, driving in John McGraw every game in the process.  The back end of the lineup suspect just like the back end of the rotation.  Similar to Ball Four, my team will live and die by the new players - Delahanty, Frankie Frisch, Tom McCreery, and Eddie Rommel have never been used.  Norman Yokely, Porter Charleston, Stearnes, and Hurley McNair are unproven Negro Leaguers.  I need at least 5 of the 8 to live up to expectations to win.

I don't know that the Burnt Ends will score more runs than any other team, but a top 7 of Benny Kauff, Larry Walker, Stan Musial, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochrane, Joe Kelley, and Joe Torre is about as good as a Top-7 I have seen when considering defense too.  Like so many other teams it's the starting pitching that may prevent a playoff run.  The pen will be fine, it's above average with Tom Henke, Hideki Okajima, and Jason Isringhausen but are Ted Lyons and Roy Halladay playoff caliber 1-2's?  Even the three through five of Willie Mitchell, Tiny Bonham, and Brandon Webb have me worried (Webb may end up the best of 'em).

Ty Cobb will need to exceed his 500 resim average in order for the Red Lectroids to make the playoffs.  I said I wasn't going to use numbers, but I had to in this case.  Cobb exceeding expectations likely going to happen.  His .500 resim average was .862 and he exceeded that 50.4% of the time.  Cobb is surrounded by above average hitters in Rickey Henderson, Albert Pujols, and possibly Will Clark but Bill Bradley in the 2-hole and Tim McCarver rightfully batting 6th is problematic.  If McCarver is your best 6th hitter you'll struggle to score runs.  The pitching looks bad on paper, but this is a great defense with Ex defenders at second, short, left and Johnny Bench platooning with McCarver.  Everywhere else is Vg along with 2 of the 3 outfielder arms.  This will make Johan Santana, Mike Scott, and Bucky Walters look better than they are (though it may not help Theodore Trent and Earl Moore).  It's my guess this team will win 85 games a quarter of the time in the end of season 20 resims, whether or not they do during the regular season is a different story.