Red Sox' pitching may make difference in tough division

Somebody in this division, home of perhaps the best three teams in baseball, is going to get jobbed this year. Somebody is going to win between, say, 88 and 92 games — while proving themselves better than 27 of the remaining 29 teams — and still miss the playoffs.

(And if that somebody plays in New York, somebody is going to get fired.)

Find yourself a three-sided coin (we carry ours everywhere we go) and flip it — it would give you just as good a chance of picking a division champ from among New York, Boston and Tampa Bay as pure analysis would. On paper, at least, nobody got worse.

But some got better than others. Above all, we love what the Red Sox did this offseason — and we're not just saying that because the theme of this preview section is defense. They built their offseason around run-prevention, signing right-hander John Lackey (which now gives them more No. 1 starters than the entire NL West) and making defensive upgrades in center field (Mike Cameron), third base (Adrián Beltre), shortstop (Marco Scutaro) and left field (Jacoby Ellsbury, moving over from center).

The Sawx may struggle to score runs at times, but last we checked, 4-2 wins count just as much as 8-6 wins. And we see a lot of wins for this team.

One winter after spending nearly half a billion dollars on free agents, the Yankees were relatively quiet this offseason, making a handful of smart moves around the edges of their core — trading for outfielder Curtis Granderson and fourth starter Javier Vázquez (who is still better than most teams' No. 1 starter) and bidding unemotional farewells to aging but popular outfielders Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui.

But we can't help but foresee some slippage creeping in elsewhere — in Derek Jeter's late-career resurgence, in Andy Pettitte's elbow, in the abilities of Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez to stay in the lineup, in Joba Chamberlain's choice of club-selection as Mariano Rivera's caddie.

Still, we'll hedge our bet and give them the AL wild card.

We feel sorry for the Rays. They're using the equivalent of a slingshot against the nuclear arsenals of the Red Sox and Yankees. They fight valiantly, and they give themselves a chance. But a lower payroll means a smaller margin for error; more has to go right for them.

To wit: center fielder B.J. Upton has to bounce back from a disappointing '09. New closer Rafael Soriano has to lock down leads. Lefty David Price has to take the next step. Above all, everyone has to stay healthy.

In another division, the Orioles might show a 20-win improvement, or might even be a surprise contender. In the AL East, on the other hand, fourth place seems pre-ordained. We love their young core. We love that lefty Brian Matusz appears poised for a huge breakout. We love the smart, peripheral moves they made this winter (Garrett Atkins, Miguel Tejada, Kevin Millwood, Mike Gonzalez).

But we don't love their chances against the likes of the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays, against whom the O's will play, as always, roughly a third of their schedule.

What happens when you take a team that won only 75 games the year before and subtract Roy Halladay from it? You get the 2010 Blue Jays. Heaven help them.

— Dave Sheinin

Twins remain team to beat

When speaking of the AL Central, it is more useful to speak of what has been lost in the past 12 months than what has been gained -- as is the case of many regular folks in the hard-hit, rust-belt cities that populate this division.

In Detroit, they said goodbye to popular center fielder Curtis Granderson, plus all-star pitcher Edwin Jackson and Gold Glove third baseman Plácido Polanco, primarily because of finances. In Cleveland, for the second straight year, a Cy Young winner (this time, Cliff Lee; last time, CC Sabathia) was grimly unloaded. In Minnesota, the opening week of spring training brought the end of closer Joe Nathan's season (elbow surgery).

And so, a division that always seems up for grabs -- first team to 85 wins, wins! -- looks even more snaggable in 2010.

The question with the Twins is whether the loss of Nathan, perhaps as indispensable as anyone in the division, is enough to doom what looks to be the Central's best team, on paper, otherwise. We're here to say no.

With a new stadium (open air ballgames! in Minneapolis! in April!), a new contract for Joe Mauer and an all-new middle infield (shortstop J.J. Hardy and second baseman Orlando Hudson), the 2009 division champs made enough improvements to weather the loss of Nathan and defend their title.

If anyone in the Central is built to challenge the Twins, it is the White Sox. They fell from 89 wins and first place in 2008, to 79 wins and third place last season. Why should this year be any better?

In a word, pitching. Adding Jake Peavy late last season was a coup for GM Kenny Williams. No, Peavy is no longer the perennial Cy Young winner he was in San Diego, but if healthy, he will head a four-deep rotation (Mark Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd being the others) of effective innings-eaters.

That big, bald guy leaning on the fungo bat watching the Indians take batting practice ... Is that? It is! Hey, Manny Acta! What are you doing here? In a nutshell, he's trying to drag the Indians back to respectability after the franchise's win total fell from 96 in 2007 to 81 in 2008 to 65 a year ago. Here's hoping he has better luck there than he did in Washington.

A healthy Grady Sizemore would help, as would a bounce-back year from power-sinker specialist Fausto Carmona and another solid season from right fielder Shin-Soo Choo. Still, we can see them gaining 10-15 wins and maybe making a run at .500, but nothing more.

Last year, the Tigers had a three-game lead over the Twins with four to play, only to implode on the season's final weekend, then lose a one-game playoff. Ouch.

What have they done since then? Very little. The Granderson trade gained them a third starter, flame-throwing right-hander Max Scherzer, but this is a team relying too heavily on a shaky combination of unproven youth -- with a rookie in center field (Austin Jackson) and second base (Scott Sizemore) -- and aging veterans (Magglio Ordóñez, Carlos Guillén, et al.).

A riddle: How many lifetime .300 OBP hitters can the Royals amass? Answer: All of them.

With a rotation fronted by Cy Young winner Zack Greinke and a bullpen anchored by former all-star Joakim Soria, this team should be better. But they just make too many gosh-darned outs.

— Dave Sheinin

Rangers ready to take over

Over the past decade, we came to terms with the notion of spending large chunks of our Octobers in Anaheim. We visited Disneyland. We knew our Tim Salmon from our poached salmon. We got stuck in traffic jams on the 91. We giggled at the Rally Monkey -- at least the first 6,000 times.

But that era is over. Goodbye, Anaheim. Hello, Arlington -- we hope you're just as nice to visit in October. Because at long last, we see the Rangers ascending to the top of the AL West after two straight second-place finishes. And a warning to the rest of the division: Once they get to the top, it'll be hard to knock them off -- because they also sport one of the game's top farm systems.

The Rangers already have a dynamic youngster entrenched at nearly every position, a new veteran DH (Vladimir Guerrero) with something left to prove, a potent rotation headed by 17-game winner Scott Feldman and a bullpen that returns closer Frank Francisco and setup man C.J. Wilson. The Rangers have been building a monster, and this, folks, is the year it is unleashed.

The defense-loving Mariners became a trendy pick once they acquired ace lefty Cliff Lee this winter to go along with ace righty Félix Hernández, then signed Chone Figgins away from the rival Angels. And yes, the M's will gobble up grounders and flag down flies, and their team ERA could be minuscule.

But this is far from a flawless team. We don't see much of a rotation behind Lee and Hernández. We're not quite convinced David Aardsma is a top-flight closer. And above all: How are the Mariners going to score runs? They managed only 640 last year, last in the AL and worse than every NL team but two, then turned around and watched their biggest power threat, Russell Branyan, and cleanup hitter, Adrián Beltre, walk away. Even with the division wide open, this offense just ain't gonna get 'er done.

The Angels won the West by 10 games last year, their fifth division title of the decade, then seemed to spend the winter redistributing their wealth to their opponents. (Those socialists!) They donated ace John Lackey to the Red Sox (the Angels' first-round playoff opponent in four of the past six years), then let Figgins and Guerrero defect within the division.

They still have a formidable team, and another division title wouldn't be a total shock. Jered Weaver seems ready to step into the role of staff ace, and Hideki Matsui should capably fill Guerrero's shoes at DH. But that 10-game cushion the Angels had at the end of last year could just as easily be a 10-game deficit in 2010.

By now, we all know Billy Beane's game with the Athletics-- try to find value in a commodity undervalued by the market. First it was on-base percentage (Scott Hatteberg, Jeremy Giambi, et al). Then it was aging, cast-off ex-superstars (Mike Piazza, Nomar Garciaparra, Frank Thomas). From 2000-06, the A's won four West titles.

But since then, the franchise has suffered three straight losing seasons. And now Beane's obsession seems to be injured pitchers. The A's blew most of their offseason budget on Ben Sheets, a one-time borderline-ace who missed all of 2009 with injury. Sheets joins fellow rehabbers Justin Duchscherer and Joey Devine on a staff that could be excellent if these guys return to effectiveness.

But too much has to go right for the A's to prevail in what has become a highly competitive division. Last place awaits.

— Dave Sheinin