2013 Preview: Cleveland Indians

Vegas established an opening market for Boston’s and Toronto’s total wins 13 ½ and 14 ½ wins higher for 2013 than their 2012 totals respectively. Those levels represent, by far, the highest expectations for improvement in the American League. In the National League, only the Cubs are expected to have a double-digit win improvement. Despite the expectations reflected in those markets, I think Cleveland will have the biggest improvement in wins in all of baseball in 2013.

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2013 Preview: Detroit Tigers

The fans and front office management of the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox, and maybe even if they want to dabble in a bit of delusion, the Kansas City Royals must feel an awful lot like the villain in a James Bond movie. Last year, they had the Tigers wounded and vulnerable; they had their chance to take out Detroit but they let them get away. Entering 2013 the Tigers are healed, recovered, and in control of a gadget-filled, sleek offensive machine and a third-straight division title looks far more likely this spring than defending their 2011 crown looked a year ago.

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2013 Preview: Baltimore Orioles

All of those moves paid off handsomely and over the last 62 games of the season the Orioles went a deserved 41-21 considering they outscored their opponents by 65 runs in those games – 2nd best in the American League and 3rd best in all of baseball. That last-third-of-the-season success was masked in the standings by what happened in the first 100 games and it should erase the storyline that the team the Orioles fielded at the time the playoffs began had no business being there. Over the last third of the season, it was a brilliantly executed plan, accompanied by a legitimate playoff-caliber performance.

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2013 Preview: Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays and Red Sox were essentially mirror images of each other last year. Boston played like a 74-win team that actually won 69 games and Toronto won 73 games but complied offensive and defensive statistics that would most likely result in 68 wins. While anecdotal, it also points out a problem for a Blue Jays team which made major changes to its roster during the offseason: In evaluating these marginal changes, it must be noted Toronto was starting from a worst point than it appeared but I don’t think the front office knows that.

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2013 Preview: Boston Red Sox

In 2012 Boston had 21 different players make at least 100 plate appearances – and a 22nd player, Darnell McDonald, made 99. 2012 was also the first year since 2001 (when Joe Kerrigan finished the year as manager) that the Sawx didn’t score at least 800 runs, breaking their league-leading streak of 10 years in a row. (The Yankees now have the longest streak at 4 seasons.) During that ten-year stretch, the Red Sox averaged 15 players with a minimum of 100 plate appearances, with a high of just 17 players. You simply cannot have an above-average, let alone elite offense when Darnell McDonald, Ryan Kalish, Marlon Byrd, Mauro Gomez, and Ryan Lavarnway are all playing substantial amounts of time.

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