What's Going On In The AL Central?

Shane Bieber is Now a Certified Problem

The young right-hander has made his way to the very top of the pitching mountain despite being merely a prospect just two short years ago. His 2019 campaign was solid but his 2020 season so far has been nothing short of eye-popping dominance. How terrifying.

Bieber has been off and running to begin the season as he has punched out 42.9% of hitters he has faced so far. That is insane. Throw in the fact that his walk rate hasn’t budged away from his career average and his FIP is a hilarious 2.11 to begin the season. You know how many qualified starters had a lower FIP in 2019? None, not a soul. Not even the best efforts of guys like Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, or Gerrit Cole could reach such a level.

His improvements are tangible as well. His fastball velocity is up a tick from 93.1 to 94.1. He’s added a new cutter to go along with his slider and curve and hitters just can't figure him out (19.8% swinging strike rate!!). It’s safe to wonder if he can continue to be this dominant but it certainly seems like he has taken another step forward. Oh, and he’s only a free agent after 2025. Strap in, Twins fans.

The Royals Bullpen is… Good?

Look, I’m just as surprised as you are on this one. The Royals were shaping up to be anything but the word “good” in 2020 but have gotten an unexpected boost from their relievers early in the season.

The Royals had two interesting names last year in Scott Barlow and Ian Kennedy who had FIPs of 3.41 and 2.99 respectively in 2019. A house built with two bricks is hardly a foundation, however. Just two guys can’t carry a bullpen no matter how hard they try. Now they have Josh Staumont, a reliever throwing 98 and striking out 44.2% of hitters. Also in the fold is the ghost of Greg Holland past and a revamped Trevor Rosenthal. An odd, yet effective mixture of Guys to Remember.

So far, the Royals have rode these Guys to the 10th best bullpen ERA in baseball. The Twins will only have to deal with the squad for one more weekend but will likely have to at least endure the tyranny of Barlow and Staumont for years to come. If the Royals can also prove that these advancements are a result of a revamped development system then the Twins will have to worry about another team in their division potentially taking the next step forward. But that’s a future problem to worry about. We hope.

These Tigers Can Hit, Apparently

This one can also be filed under “stuff that makes no sense” or most likely just “small sample shenanigans” (we have a lot of filing cabinets). Anyways, the Tigers offense is off to a great start according to a number of Statcast measures.

For hard hit%, the Tigers are 1st in all of baseball at 44.1%. For average exit velocity, they are 7th at 89.2%. For Barrels per batted ball event, they are 11th at 8.0%. All of these metrics are better than the Twins, for the record.

It’s fair to lean towards being suspicious of these numbers because, well, name a Tigers hitter not named Miguel Cabrera or Jonathan Schoop, but this entire season is going to be weird anyways. A great Tigers offense would show the difference between a team performing well and a team actually being good. But maybe they can get away with it for the rest of the season. There’s only about a month's worth of regular season games left anyways and much stranger stuff has happened before.

Those White Sox Are Up To Something

The White Sox were pegged as “the breakout team” in 2020 by just about every single writer to exist. It was hard to fully disagree with that prediction. They just backed up the dump truck of money for guys like Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal and had a number of big prospects like Luis Robert who were on the verge of making the majors.

So far, the results have been solid. The White Sox find themselves at 15-11 and in a great position to take advantage of the expanded postseason. As a team, they’re hitting to the tune of a 110 wRC+ (7th best in baseball) and they’re pitching to the tune of a 4.16 ERA (13th best in baseball). It seems logical that such rankings combine for a record above .500.

What’s the secret? The aforementioned Keuchel along with Lucas Giolito have been a dynamically effective 1-2 punch and the übermensch uber-prospect, Luis Robert, has been as good as advertised. The White Sox will likely be able to make the playoffs and I personally look forward to hating on them for the immediate future.