How the Guardians look compared to the rest of the AL Central after one month

April has come and gone and the Cleveland Guardians are tied for first place in the American League Central. It may not have been the most dominant month of Guardians baseball ever, but they still did a solid job of staying afloat while navigating a taxing opening schedule and a beavy of roster moves. 

So, with the first month down, we decided to take a look at how the other teams in the division are doing compared to the Guardians. 

Note: all postseason projections are from FanGraphs. 

No team has asserted its dominance in the American League Central 

Detroit Tigers (16-16)
71.3% chance to make postseason

Another year, another battle between the Tigers and Guardians. 

And while Detroit has another talented roster, they haven’t blown teams away in the manner that everyone expected them to be. 

Their recent series against the Braves was perhaps the perfect personification of that, as they lost the first two games of the series in demoralizing fashion before picking up a win in the series finale where Framber Valdez pitched more like an innings eater than an ace. 

Rookie Kevin McGonigle has been fantastic and Tarik Skubal has continued to pitch like an ace, but their offense has only hit 33 home runs and resurgent starting pitcher Casey Mize just hit the injured list. 

Detroit’s going to hang around the top of the AL Central all season, but they still have some work to do. 

Chicago White Sox (14-17)
2.3% chance to make postseason

Even though the White Sox are a longshot to make the postseason this year, they’re a much better team than they’ve been in years prior and finally seem to have a clear identity. 

The biggest reason for that has been the presence of rookie Munetaka Murakami, who is tied for the MLB lead with 12 home runs. He’s clearly the core of their offense alongside Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas. 

Their pitching staff is clearly a work-in-progress, though David Martin and Sean Burke have likely pitched well enough to be part of their rotation whenever they become contenders again. 

While they won’t be hanging around the top of the division a month from now, they could still steal a game or two from the Guardians later in the season. 

Minnesota Twins (14-18)
26.5% chance to make postseason

After starting the season 11-7, the Twins have gone just 3-11 since to fall back to the pack in the American League Central. 

While the Twins’ offense has been a surprising positive for the club this season, their pitching staff has compiled a 4.42 ERA despite being led by a resurgent Taj Bradley. 

Bradley, who the Twins acquired from the Rays at last year’s trade deadline, has a 2.85 ERA with 41 strikeouts in 44 innings this season; no other Twins starter has an ERA under 3.70. 

The Twins have played a pesky brand of baseball so far this season, but it’s pretty clear that there’s a cap on how much winning they’ll be able to do with this roster. 

Kansas City Royals (12-19)
20.6% chance to make postseason

That’s right; the Royals currently sit at the bottom of the American League Central. That doesn’t mean they’ll be there forever, but it does speak to how inconsistent they’ve been so far this season. 

The Royals have already lost seven series this year and have won just three of the 15 games they’ve played on the road. That’s not a winning recipe. 

Bobby Witt Jr. has played like his normal All-Star self and Seth Lugo has continued his late-career renaissance,  but there really hasn’t been much of anything else around. 

Old friend Lane Thomas gave them some momentum last weekend with a walk-off home run against the Angels, but all that momentum got sucked away this week when they lost two out of three to the Athletics.

The Guardians already took two out of three from the Royals this season and are going to face off against him again next week when they travel to Kansas City, and they’re going to need to make the most of their time against a wounded Kansas City team. 

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