2018 AL Central: It stinks!

Five of worst seven bullpens, by opponents’ OPS, are in AL Central:

Leaders

DBacks: .572
Cubs: .597
Astros: .610
Brewers: .631
Padres: .637
Braves: .655
Yankees:.657

Trailers

Royals: .828
Indians: .808
White Sox: .804
Marlins: .793
Twins: .776
Athletics: .765
Tigers: .758

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 16, 2018

The rebuild of the rotation is not going well for the White Sox: Giolito and Fulmer have rather negative WAR and xFIP over 6. Fulmer has been sent down. Lopez has been okay but it's suggested he is due for a nasty regression and Covey, well it's small sample size but he seems okay. In the minors, Kopech is walking a lot (4.57 bb/9 in AAA); Burdi has been better but with the same amount of walks, Alec Hansen has not thrown yet.

Jimenez has been great, on the other hand.

i'm curious what the nationals saw that made them give up on giolito so quickly. among other things, i think his velocity has dropped precipitously since they traded him

Well the rotation rebuild for the White Sox has one nice surprise: Dylan Covey, who has pitched like a solid starter over his first 5 games.

However, Fulmer, Kopech and Lopez are still walking tons of batters, either in Triple A or in the Majors.

I'm kinda invested in the White Sox failing their rebuild. You shouldn't have a core of good to great players in Sale, Quintana, Eaton, Abreu approaching their prime/in their prime and two pretty good prospect in Rondon and Anderson and call it quits and start a rebuild from there. I'm hoping we live in a world in which hoarding a lot of top 100 prospect doesn't always work.

Can’t recall the last time a division was this bad.

NL Central was pretty bad the year the Cardinals won the series a few years back.

2006 was the year I as thinking about, been a while now I guess.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/2006.shtml

Still miss the Astros in the NL.

royals broke a streak of 19 games scoring no more than four runs

royals are 12-41 vs right-handed starters

All teams in the division lost the last 2 days, and the projections are not good (except for the Indians).

Cleveland has the worst winning percentage among first-place teams.

The second-place team is ten games under .500.

One month ago the Twins rushed Byron Buxton back from the disabled list without a rehab assignment and let him play through a broken toe for three weeks, eventually putting him back on the DL.

Today the Twins activated Buxton from the disabled list and demoted him to Triple-A.

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) July 2, 2018

where are Ramirez and Lindor in the "best teammates" chase?

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/7/18/17585450/cleveland-indians-war-pace-jose-ramirez-francisco-lindor-babe-ruth-lou-gehrig

We got Hand!!

With a temperature of 107 degrees at first pitch, it was the hottest start ever for game at the Rangers ballpark, which is in its 25th season. It was still 92 degrees when the game ended 4 hours and 48 minutes later -- just a few minutes before midnight.

too effin hot

Kluber three-hit complete game today against the Angels, game score of 93.

Twins create an adversarial situation with Buxton

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/byron-buxton-and-september-service-time-manipulations/

this is the sort of thing where a commissioner who had the best interests of baseball at heart might do something to ensure that the best players are able to play

unfortunately the commissioner does not work for 'baseball' -- he works for the owners

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/3/6/18252773/cleveland-indians-versus-al-central-superteam-twins-tigers-royals-white-sox

tigers vs. indians this season

• 1-11
• 29 runs for, 78 runs against
• hitters: .216/.255/.363
• pitchers: 6.18 ERA, 1.667 WHIP
• ron gardenhire: ejected twice