How does replacing Coco Crisp with Jason Michaels represent an offensive upgrade for the Indians?

Just a quick note... I couldn't understand if by your sports psychologist comment you meant the pitcher was unavailable to pitch, or was clearly a bad pitcher because he was seeing a sport psychologist. As someone who's spent a fair amount of time studying sport psychology, I can tell you it's usually pretty successful in helping athletes. And you'd be surprised at how many gold medalists have seen, and actively work with, sport psychologists.

Michaels is much better at getting on base than Crisp.

Mike,

The pitcher doesn't want to pitch, as far as I can tell. He left the club and is seeing a sports psychologist to try to get back on track. Right now, he's not on the team.

Dave, you've overlooked the bullpens! And just to be clear on this, I don't mean the closers coming in to pick up their saves or holds, but the entire relief pitching corps - those men that are responsible for HALF the game; usually pitching innings six through nine. These are the details that are responsible for determining "If the Sox can win a lot of close games again."

These facts are important and should not be glossed over. Especially such an important aspect of the game as relief pitching.

It seems you've taken the convential wisdom (Royals bad, Tigers get a little better, Twins are not quite good enough, Indians and White Sox compete for first place) and added a little twist of the Indians beating the White Sox because of why? The White Sox were better last year at winning close games and they shouldn't do as well this year? That's faulty logic. Maybe you should investigate WHY the White Sox won the close games and the Indians didn't. Here's a hint: look at the difference in their bullpens.

Didn't Morneau have some health problems last year (appendix, chicken pox, pneumonia, ...)? I thought that was the reason he never got started last year. If he's healthy this year I would expect him to be as good as people thought he would be last year.

The 05 Indians remind me of the 00 White Sox, young team of sluggers ready to improve even more.

As a Sox fan, I hope the same thing happens to them.

Vince,

The Indians had the top bullpen in the majors last season. As for this season, well, we lost Bob Howry and added Danny Graves. I sense a drop in that ranking...

Michaels does get on base at better clip than Crisp, but that's all he does. He's got no power and no speed. What's more, there's a very good chance he'll be exposed in a full-time role. He's never had 300 at-bats in a season.

He could be a solid every day player, he may even be better than Crisp, but neither is likely, let alone a foregone conclusion.

Remember Jeremy Giambi had good on base numbers in limited at-bats, too. Come to think of it, I'm suddenly concerned about Kevin Youkilis....

I have to say, I disagree with your assessment of the Indians, Dave, and largely for the reason you posted: regression to the mean. The Indians had a great Pythag record last year, but that was based on career seasons from a bunch of players who may not repeat. Hafner is not that young: at 29, we've seen what he can do (it's great, admittedly, but he probably won't improve). Peralta took a huge step forward last year, but young guys tend to take a step back after the season he had. And we have no idea how Marte will do if and when he's called up: rookies very often struggle their first time through the majors. Finally, as long as they give at bats to Casey Blake and Aaron Boone, I think the Indians trail the Sox in this division.

Also, don't short shrift the Twins! As you noted, their pitching is solid, and I think their offense has actually improved a bit. Jason Bartlett will finally have a full season at short without worrying about his job. Castillo gives them a huge OBP boost at 2b (anything is huge when you start Nick Punto and Juan Castro), and White gives them some pop at a corner outfield positiion that they didn't have last year. I didn't like the Batista signing either, but there's a decent chance Terry Tiffee's getting more starts at 3b than Batista anyway. Add in what has to be a better year for Mourneau, and I think the Twins can really challenge for the division.

Bruce is right: Morneau is healthy, unlike this time last season. Expect power out of the 1B position for the Twins.

Daniel--

As a Twins fan, I was all set to agree with you, but today the Twins announced that Bartlett had been sent to the minors and some combination of Castro and Punto will be at short. That gives us two spots in the lineup (the shortstop and Batista) that can't get on base.

Also, while I hope you're right that Tiffee or Cuddyer or someone other than Batista winds up at third, this would go against everything Gardenhire and Terry Ryan have said all spring. They seem to be totally sold on Batista, for reasons I can't explain.

I'm surprised that with the irrational bashing of Cleveland's bullpen, no one attacked the White Sox's bullpen. Jenks has shown little control and a drop in velocity this spring, plus Ozzie has expressed his displeasure with Jenk's shape. Hermanson is depending on epidurals to keep his back in shape. Neal Cotts is probably the only guy definitely not getting worse. McCarthy's impact I can't analyze until I see what role they give him. While Luis Vizcaino did not have a great season and Damaso Marte's walk rate rose yet again (though a good pitching coach should've been able to fix that, and Marte was unlucky as shown by his high BABIP compared to league average), Marte is good at getting out of jams and that is a decent portion of innings the White Sox are losing there. Plus the trade of Bajenaru reduced the depth that would be available form the minors.

Yea, the Sox' bullpen was in shambles two weeks ago, and still looks shaky at the back end. I'm not too worried about the closer role, as Ozzie is a deft manager of riding the hot arm in the closers role, and won't pidgeon hole anyone into a job they aren't earning. His willingness last season to go from closer by committee, then Hermie, then Jenks proved that Ozzie is a whiz at putting people in a position to succeed. He won't put guys out there lacking confidence.

However, at the back end, the Sox will be carrying a pitcher who's never pitched above A-ball, a pitcher who can only be described as a huge bust and projects to have a negative VORP. The reasonable thing to do seems to rely mostly on BMAC, Cotts, and Jenks and hope the starters stay healthy and are eating innings.

I'm not really sure why everyone thinks the Sox took some big step backward defensively when they traded Rowand. Brian Anderson, from all accounts is a fine defensive player, and projects as a better offensive player than Rowand was in 2005. If he gives 5 runs back on defense and 10 back on offense, I'd call that a win. Not saying he's going to do that for sure, just that is what the Sox and their fans are thinking.

Another reason for optimism is the improved depth. The Sox gave Timo Perez and Pablo Ozuna nearly 700 PA last year, surely Mackowiak and Cintron represent a large upgrade, especially as Guillen seems intent on resting his starters once a week.

I see the division being bunched and close, with the Sox taking it by 93 to the Indians 92. Twinkies and Tigers won't be far behind, and the Royals will be bringing up the rear by a wide margin.

Again, I don't understand this fascination with the underdog. I love the indians, being born and raised in northern Ohio, but I'm not an idiot. Millwood's loss cannot be underplayed. This was a huge loss that was not addressed. Yes Byrd is a decent starter, under the tutelage of the underrated Braves pitching coach, but he will not fare well in the AL Central. Westbrook is decent also, but even before Sabathia went down with an injury in the first game of the season, I knew this team was in trouble. They skated by on very hot baseball last season, but they would require that the team hit like gods again (which won't happen) and their starting pitching will have trouble keeping them in the game. I picked them to finish third because their starters can't win a combined 60 games.

As I'm writing this Thome has just hit his second homer. Cross that with the fact that he has more homers as a visitor in Chicago than any other player. That is good news for Chicago fans. I hate to say it, but Chicago's starting pitching and hitting is going to beat Cleveland in the long run. The bullpen for the White Sox is an issue, but not much of one with the starters they have. It's assinine to look at where these two teams went from last year and think that the Indians got better. The Indians lost a lot of talent, and gained virtually none. How does this make them a front runner? Most of your picks seem to be bandwagon picks and I can't see any of them coming true. The only smart pick for a division winner is St. Louis, but that's a no brainer.