SC: The Baseball Preview Issue (pt. 5 of 6)

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In case you’ve been neglecting our preview issue up to this point, you can read past installments here, here, here, and then here.

You probably remember the AL Central as that one division that the Brewers played in when your parents were still together. ‘Member that, buddy? The Brewers? Anyways, contrary to the belief of many Milwaukeeans, the AL Central continued to exist after Bud Selig packed his team up and moved to the fancy new league over the horizon. And actually, there’s quite an interesting dynamic at work regarding the fascinating interplay between each AL Central team.

Really?

No, not really. But Ozzie Guillen calls this division home, which means it’s not all boring.

THA AL CENTRAL

Chicago White Sox

Anthem: “Crazy Train,” Ozzie Guillen

Predicted Record: oh, you know. 80-something, or something

Ozzie Guillen has a Twitter: Perhaps 2010′s mystery team – ostensibly, they’ll have both slugger Carlos Quentin and hurler Jake Peavy for a whole year (each was beset by injuries in ’09); Gordon Beckham promises eventual franchise player status, and the rotation isn’t dazzling, but it is surprisingly solid. However, it’s impossible to estimate the amount of negative ink that’s been spilled concerning players that a 2010 wild card run will depend on – aged and shamed former-future-prodigies like Alex Rios, Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, and Freddy Garcia. All of this means that fans should temper their enthusiasm with the terrifying knowledge that these players have a knack for performing as bad as they possibly can; look forward to the moment when Ozzie “Osbourne” Guillen bites off Mark Teahen’s head to prove a point about teamwork.

Bold Prediction: closer Bobby Jenks is the unanimous winner of the 2010 Kentucky Fried Chicken and Miller High Life David Wells Memorial Prize for Fatness in Pitching (and also wins four other Fatness awards, becoming the first ever closer to sweep the Fatties).

Cleveland Indians

Anthem: “Atrocity Exhibition,” Joy Division

Predicted Record: this thing

Maybe we can finally move them to Miami: only three years removed from 2007′s team, which could have advanced to the World Series if it had won exactly one more game, this year’s depleted Indians are poised to upset the Royals’ mighty stranglehold on last place in the division. Blame it on Grady Sizemore’s inability to consistently perform the superhuman feats that we’d assumed would come naturally, a citywide sports jinx, a rotation made from spare parts, or a front office whose willingness to trade Cy Young winners for prospects – probably a pretty frustrating habit for Indians fans – all of which has this year’s Tribe looking like a stopgap between the World Series run of yesteryear and the failures of tomorrow.

Bold Prediction: LeBron James ruins the summer of every Clevelander by signing with the Knicks, and then adds insult to injury by running over Sizemore with his Escalade on his way to New York.

Detroit Tigers

Anthem: “The Piano has been Drinking,” Tom Waits

Predicted Record: .08 or less

Never enough jokes about booze: following their offseason acquisition of franchise centerpiece Miguel Cabrera, the Tigers were positioned to post legendary offensive numbers and waltz into the World Series. Instead, the Cabrera-era has been cursed with irrational inconsistency, culminating in their missing the playoffs by one win last year when Cabrera blew a .26 BAC on a Friday night, and proceeded to go 0-7 in subsequent Saturday and Sunday afternoon games. The Tigers have a nice nucleus of players – including the rubber-armed and Ryanesque Justin Verlander – but they’re going to need a couple of inspired performances from unlikely sources to compete for anything other than who gets to be Cabrera’s early-October designated driver.

Bold Prediction: the aforementioned honor of Cabrera-jockey goes to Brandon Inge, whose bro-as-hell forearm tats belie a spotless driving record.

Kansas City Royals

Anthem: “The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness,” The Feelies

Predicted Record: pray for fourth

Zack Greinke is Great: last year was finally the year that all hell broke loose for pitching phenom Zack Greinke – following a highly-publicized battle with depression and anxiety, Greinke woke up one morning, got himself a hot wife, and pitched his way to a Cy Young on the perpetually last-place Royals. Unfortunately, Kansas City’s team charter has a pesky snag that doesn’t allow the team to carry more than one good player at a time (consider closer Joakim Soria and doubles-hitting robot Billy Butler to be statutory loopholes), which means that the best the Royals can hope for is to be defaulted out of the divisional cellar by the smelly, smelly Indians.

Bold Prediction: manager Trey Hillman hires a motivational speaker to fire up the docile Royals; unfortunately, Kansas City’s stingy budget means that this speaker is actually Trey Hillman in a sundress and heels, giving massages and speaking in a seductive southern drawl.

Minnesota Twins

Anthem: “Don’t Make Me a Target,” Spoon

Predicted Record: 8675-309

IS SO COLD: Owner Carl Pohlad’s tight pockets be damned; the Twins finally got a new ballpark – Target Field – and then used the corresponding upswing in financial forecasts to insure that catcher/MVP/sideburn-bro Joe Mauer stays in freezing Minnesota for life. It’ll be interesting to see how the Twins, who habitually operate at a level greater than the sum of their parts, flush their extra money down the coldest toilets in the majors. They’ve got two former MVPs, and potential stud Francisco Liriano was un-hittable in March – though it shouldn’t be overlooked that their appearance in last year’s playoffs is heavily, if not completely, indebted to the truly ridiculous three-day collapse of the Detroit Tigers. And there’s no guarantee that they’ll do that again.

Bold Prediction: right after they lock up Jason Kubel for the next 14 years, the Twins use their extra cash to treat each of their players to an actual, genetically-engineered-with-stem-cells twin.