Crown Gems: AL Central Links and News

This edition of Crown Gems features a rundown of relevant links from each of the AL Central teams with some quick thoughts from yours truly.

Chicago White Sox – Silver Chalice and Guillen’s Golden Words

ShysterBall – Silver Chalice Ventures
Big League Stew – Fox finally makes a good decision, hires Ozzie Guillen for Series. Short of rooting against the hated Yankees, and the fact that it is professonal baseball, I wasn’t really looking forward to the 2009 World Series matchup. With Ozzie involved, I’m admittedly a little more excited for the pre and post game or wherever they fit him in.
MLB Trade Rumors – Offseason Outlook

Cleveland Indians – The Acta Era Begins

Circling the Bases – Indians to name Acta as next manager
Baseball Think Factory – Acta Era Begins
FanGraphs – Cleveland Hires Manny Acta
Deep Left Field – Manny Acta Reportedly New Indians Skipper

Detroit Tigers – Broken Prospect and Broken Down Veteran

MLB.com – Tigers prospect Sizemore breaks ankle. He figures to be taking over at 2B in 2010 as the Tigers say goodbye to Placido Polanco. It’s never good to break your ankle, but at least it shouldn’t set back his ML debut. As long as he struggles against the Royals, I wish him the best.
FanGraphs – Carlos Guillen Named Detroit’s Starting Left Fielder. Looks like Jose Guillen isn’t the only albatross contract in the division. In fact with Carlos and Magglio, the Tigers have two of them. Doesn’t matter what the Tigers do with Carlos Guillen the next two seasons, they’re on the hook for $26 million and will likely get mediocre play in return.

Kansas City Royals – Hey Surprise, Here Comes Crow!

MLB.com – Freddy and Jason have nothing on TPJ.
Kansas City Star – Steve Foster now gets to enjoy the “premium” talents and personalities of Juan Cruz, Kyle Farnsworth, and others. Bob Dutton also notes that IF-Irving Falu and C-Cody Clark have been retained.
Royals Authority – Left Field Analysis (Literally) of the AL Central. Clark hits another one out of the park with this post and his thoughts on DeJesus. I’ve brought it up several times during the last 8 months but it deserves to be mentioned repeatedly: DeJesus and Teahen have more value as a part of the Royals than they have on the trade market. I’d trade either of them in the right deal, but don’t want Dayton to just “give” away either of these guys because they are valuable cogs on a good team.
Royals Authority – Finishing Up The Outfield. I wrote about acquiring Jeremy Hermida, but really the team would have to go out of its way to not improve the situation in RF during the offseason. It should be a relatively easy upgrade to make, at the plate and in the field, but if Dayton’s solution is more of Guillen, Bloomquist, and Teahen it is going to be a very long year in 2010.
MLB.com – First-rounder Crow making up for lost time. Jonathan Mayo posted this a week ago, but wanted to make sure to pass it along.
Baseball America – Crow, Scheppers Team Up In AFL. Seems like these two are going to be linked forever. Congrats to Aaron for being added to the AFL roster this weekend. Here’s hoping he puts the baseball world on notice with an excellent professional debut.

Minnesota Twins – A Review, 2 Knives, and Another Mauer

FanGraphs – A Minor Review of 2009: Minnesota Twins. Have I mentioned I have “Catcher Envy” when it comes to the Twins? Not only do they have Joe Mauer, they also have Jose Morales and Wilson Ramos as young catching options. As Royals fans we are stuck wondering (thanks Dayton and Trey) if Brayan Pena can actually catch and hoping that Wil Myers can dominate the minors and move up quickly.
Sporting News – Twins’ Morneau, Nathan go under the knife
MLB.com – Mauer (Jake) excited to join Miracle staff. Looks like Joe isn’t the only talented member in the Mauer family.
Twinkie Talk – Charlie Manuel Doesn’t Want To Win The World Series. Personally I’d take Martinez over Hamels in game 2. Not because of any failings by Cole, but because of the venerable brilliance of Pedro.

Baseball America Draft Report Cards:

Minnesota Twins – Their draft gave me two more Twins players to pull for with the selections of Minnesota Gophers 2B-Derek McCallum and Missouri Tigers RHP-Kyle Gibson. It will be interesting to see how all of their early round pitching selections pan out, but early on it looks like they got some real good arms for their future.
Detroit Tigers – Second round pick RHP-Andrew Oliver was a pretty big gamble for the Tigers. There is no doubt that he has the stuff, but the results were mixed in college. His early AFL numbers; 6.0 IP, 7.50 ERA, 5 H, 6 BB, 7 SO pick up where he left off this spring for Oklahoma State.
Chicago White Sox – I thought the White Sox made a mistake when they took OF-Jared Mitchell 23rd overall in the draft. Despite not being completely focused on baseball while at LSU, he had a solid professional debut in 2009 by hitting 0.296/.417/.435 with 23 BB and 40 SO in 139 PA. Chicago didn’t pull any punches either when they placed him with Kannapolis in Low-A. Probably should go ahead and admit I was wrong on this one right now.
Cleveland Indians – I wasn’t as big a fan of RHP-Alex White as most people. Personally RHP-Shelby Miller (Cardinals) and RHP-Kyle Gibson (Twins) would have been better picks at that slot. After watching RHP-Tanner Scheppers (Rangers) pitch for the St. Paul Saints this spring, and hit 99 MPH while consistently throwing in the mid-90s, I might have gone for him over White at 15 as well. Time will tell who was right, but the Indians best pitching prospects haven’t exactly impressed when they’ve reached Cleveland.
Kansas City Royals – 3rd round pick C-Wil Myers legitimized the Royals’ belief that he was a 1st round talent. Props to the front office for signing him, and props to Myers for not stumbling in his ML debut as so many top Royals picks have done. As referenced above, early returns are very positive on Aaron Crow as well and his AFL debut should be coming really soon.

Have a great night!

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