The AL Central: Somebody Has to Win This!

by Jacob, Vegas Watch

On July 20, it looked like the AL Central was shaping up to be one of the strongest divisions in baseball. The defending AL champion Tigers were 57-37 and in first place. The Indians were only a game behind Detroit, at 57-39, with the Twins coming in at 50-46. The division's cumulative .523 winning percentage was the best of baseball's six divisions.

If you look at the standings today, things are a lot different. The AL Central actually has the second worst winning percentage (.497, ahead of only the truly miserable NL Central, which comes in at a solid .471).

The division's descent can be traced to its top two teams, Detroit and Cleveland. Looking like two of baseball's top teams a month ago, both have struggled mightily. For Detroit, the problem has been the pitching; the Indians simply forgot how to score runs.

For a visual example of how much these two teams have fallen off, here's a graph of how many wins PECOTA has predicted them to end up with, for every day since June 13. (The blue line represents Detroit, the red line Cleveland.)

As this graph nicely demonstrates, the Tigers peaked in mid-July, and have had quite a sharp descent since, losing 20 of their last 30 games. Their bats haven't been an big issue, as they have hit 282/.327/.436, for an OPS of .763; a slight drop from their .817 OPS prior to 7/21, but still about league average, and certainly not cause for losing two thirds of their games.

That cause, very simply, is a team ERA of 6.14 during that span. That ERA would rank them last in the AL, behind even Tampa Bay. A lot has to go wrong for a team to pitch that poorly for an entire month, and that certainly hass been the case for Detroit.

Well, that'll do it. The Tigers' staff, which was slightly above average before this recent stretch (4.25 ERA), has regressed substantially in each of these aspects.

The main problem here has been the starting rotation. Over the last month, Detroit has used nine different starting pitchers. Six of them have made at least two starts; of those six, Justin Verlander has been the "best", with a 4.84 ERA. After Verlander, it's been ugly:

Excluding IP, there are 20 numbers in that table. Two of them (Tata's HR/9, Robertson's BB/9) are above average. This is how a rotation has a 7.04 ERA for four weeks.

Of course, Detroit's situation could be a lot worse if the Indians were playing even .500 over this period. Cleveland has not managed to do that, going 11-16 over the last month. For the Tribe, the pitching has certainly not been the problem, as their staff has posted a 3.62 ERA. As has been the case all year, Sabathia (2.11) and Carmona (1.95 ERA) have carried the rotation.

Amazingly, despite their low ERAs, Sabathia and Carmona are a combined 3-5 in 11 starts since 6/21. The reason for this? The Indians' offense has a pathetic line of .240/.307/.365 during that stretch, a huge dropoff from their previous rates of .275/.351/.445.

Even when they were hitting, the Indians were a team team that struck out a lot (18.7% of their plate appearances). But over the last month, they've been even worse, striking out in 22.3% of their PAs.

Of the guys who play everday, Sizemore (.291/.362/.495) and Garko (.280/.366/.439) have solid. Beyond those two, though:

To be fair, Hafner is hurt, and Barfield has lost the distinction of "guy who plays everday", as he was benched this weekend in Tampa. Peralta, after getting off to a great start, has struck out in 31% of his plate appearances over the last month.

It's hard to believe, but because of the Tigers' incompetence, the Indians have gone from a game back to 1.5 games up, while sporting a .672 team OPS. For a little while this afternoon, it actually looked like the Indians might start pulling away, as the Tigers has already lost and the Indians had a 3-2 lead in the 10th. Unfortuntely for Cleveland, Joe Borowski had other ideas, and they ended up losing 4-3 in 12.

So what's next for these two struggling teams? They actually play a three game series in Detroit starting on Tuesday. So something has to give- either the Indians will finally score some runs, or the Tigers will bring their 5.76 August ERA down to something more respectable.

After their series this week, Detroit hosts the Yankees, whom they lost 3 of 4 two in NY this past weekend, allowing 6.75 R/G. The Indians go to Kansas City, where they lost 2 of 3 in May.

On paper, it seems like the Indians have an opportunity to put some seperation between themselves and Detroit over the next week, as the Yankees are somewhat better than the Royals. But "on paper" these were two of the best teams in baseball a month ago, and they've gone a combined 21-36 since, so it's probably best not to assume anyting about the AL Central at this point.

Pictures taken from here and here. All stats taken from Baseball Reference, which is the best website in the world.