Minnesota Twins: How the Rest of the AL Central can become Contenders

The Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox look primed to fight for the AL Central in 2021. We look at how the other teams can become competitors too.

Welcome back to 2008! The Minnesota Twins and White Sox look to be the teams to beat in the AL Central, one of the first times this has been the case since back when Joe Mauer was a catcher and Jim Thome was still hammering the Twins.

While both teams look to fight for the top spot in 2021, there are three other teams in the division that look to try and build their way up to competitive in this year and beyond: Cleveland, Kansas City, and Detroit.

You might ask yourself: How can these teams compete this year? How will the other three teams in the division do what needs to happen for them to have a chance at taking the Central? Are they willing to make it happen? With a lot to answer, we dive right in and try and make rebuilding teams contenders.

Minnesota Twins AL Central Competitor No.1: Cleveland

This is the team whose needle has moved the most over the last week, but unfortunately for them, it’s heading in the wrong direction. Four-time All-Star and Franchise Cornerstone Francisco Lindor was traded to the New York Mets as Cleveland tries to recoup some value with only one year left on his contract.

It’s clear that Cleveland is trying to save money, especially when you compare the 2021 team to the Cleveland teams that ran the AL Central from 2016-18. In just the last year, they have traded star pitchers Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Mike Clevinger, and now Carlos Carrasco, along with Lindor). All-Star hitters like Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana have been cap-based casualties too.

While it’s true that they have still been competitive over the last few years, losing a guy like Lindor is a huge blow to a team looking to still win a lot of baseball games. They are still a pitching factory and will be just fine from the mound, it’s their lineup will suffer.

In 2020, FanGraphs ranked the Cleveland offense at 17th. Even though it wasn’t a career year for Lindor, who had a WAR of 1.9 in 2020, he was still one of their top hitters and leaders of an offense that struggled, especially when he was out of the lineup. In his six year career, Lindor racked up 896 hits, 138 home runs, and has a career OPS of .833, so his presence is huge.

Cleveland isn’t a bad team, but they are a team whose championship window was just slammed shut by the franchise’s ownership. Maybe they still find a way to be competitive in 2021. With the Twins’ window still wide open and the window for the White Sox just opening up though, they find their place as the third best team in the division.

To catch the Twins, they need to pitch lights-out. So lights-out that it can lift up an offense that is really thin outside of Jose Ramirez. Since trading for expensive offense seems unlikely, their only path to competition is Shane Bieber and the rotation carrying this team.

Minnesota Twins AL Central Competitor No. 2: Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers are the better of the lesser teams at the bottom of the Central that are continuing on with their rebuild. There won’t be a lot of change in the Motor City, except for one big one: former Minnesota Twins’ manager Ron Gardenhire has retired due to health reasons, and the organization has replaced him with former Astros boss A.J. Hinch.

Hinch has had a lot of success managing both rebuilding and championship caliber squads in Houston (though it’s now tainted due to the cheating scandal), so bringing him in seems like a really good move. The only question is it whether he can turn things around in Detroit as well and prove that he has some managerial ability and it wasn’t just cheating.

On the player side, all of the losing has had some advantages in the form of high draft picks, including two number one overall selections. Those two selections, Arizona State 3B Spencer Torkelson and Auburn SP Casey Mize, are the key to the Tigers getting back into a competitive situation.

Mize, who made his big league debut in 2020, struggled a bit in his first glimpse of big league action, pitching just over 28 innings in 7 starts and accumulating an ERA of nearly 7. He did strikeout 26 batters, and his potential is massive, so the Tigers have to hope that he can start to develop and get some quality reps against some big league lineups.

For current players, they do have some talent on their roster. Spencer Turnbull was the ace of the Tigers staff in 2020, and while his strikeout rate may have been low, he nearly did the impossible by keeping the ball on the ground in today’s game with a 50% ground ball rate.

In the lineup, Jeimer Candelario (.297/.369/.503), Victor Reyes (.277/.315/.391), and former Twin Jonathan Schoop (.278/.324/.475) are all solid side pieces around budding star Willi Castro (.349/.381/.550) who will have to carry the offense.

Overall, the Detroit Tigers are still a few years away from truly being back in contention. The only way this team gets into contention is another star emerges alongside Castro (maybe Torkelson?) and Matt Manning, Casey Mize, and Spencer Turnbull turn into a dominant trio atop the rotation.

Their future is bright with the prospects they have, and if they convince a few reclamation projects to come aboard that turn around, they could be better than the bottom-feeder they have been. Detroit faces an uphill battle to be a threat in the AL Central in 2021, but if a lot comes together in 2021, and we mean a lot, than the Tigers can turn this bus around.