No One Deserves To Win The American League Central

Major League Baseball is having a thrilling year. The pitch clock has made games so much more enjoyable. The four hour slogs are long gone. You have young players making more of an impact than any year I can remember. Corbin Carroll might win the NL MVP to go along with the Rookie Of The Year award. Even the division races have been interesting with teams like the Pirates and Rangers competing for the post-season for the first time in years.

If the MLB is currently a Michelin star restaurant when it comes to being entertaining, the AL Central is a ripped up booth in the back with weird stains on the table that could either be vomit or shit. There is no team that is currently above .500 and two teams are in the middle of losing streaks of six or more games. It somehow keeps getting worse with each passing day.

This is obviously a shitshow but it might be a bigger issue than just a lousy division. This is an issue for the MLB as a whole. Outside of the White Sox, all of these teams have payrolls in the bottom half of baseball. The White Sox can't even crack the top 10. The thing is, it's not much better in the NL Central. The Pirates lead that division with a 34-30 record. The difference is those teams are just more exciting to watch. The Reds just called up Andrew Abbott and Elly De La Cruz and might be one of the most interesting teams in baseball. The Pirates are a nice story. The Cardinals are intriguingly bad. 

I am concerned that having entire divisions be lousy in the center of the country could make baseball a more regional game. The NFL is the obvious national pastime by miles. But if baseball keeps going in this direction where the middle of the country isn't competitively challenging for a title, it could find itself in a situation like the NHL where pockets of the country just completely ignore it. 

So who wins this division? The Twins have the best starting rotation but struggle offensively. The new callups Alex Kirilloff and Royce Lewis have been very good but can they keep it up? Carlos Correa has looked like a man who has failed multiple physicals but if he can just play like he did last year, this should be the team that will be hosting playoff games in October.

The Guardians are taking a step back like you see a lot of young teams do the year after they make the playoffs. The White Sox have the most talent in the division but can't get out of their own way. They might just be better off selling pieces like Lucas Giolito at the deadline. I have no explanation why Dylan Cease has become an ordinary pitcher overnight. Lance Lynn has aged worse than than seeing Miramax pop up before an old movie you throw on.

I'm not sure how baseball can fix this. You'd like to think one owner in each of these divisions would see a great opportunity and step on the gas. Especially the Twins and Guardians who are teams with a strong young core that are a couple good free agent signings away from dominating the AL Central for years to come. Until then, as Ben Folds once sang "it's a battle of who could care less."