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You know the story: The Detroit Tigers won 95 games in 2011, defeated the Yankees in the Division Series ... and then added Prince Fielder to a lineup that ranked fourth in the AL in runs scored.

So the Tigers will be better in 2012?

Not so fast.

While the Tigers scored 787 runs, they ranked just eighth in the league in runs allowed with 711. That would suggest a record of 89-73, which the Tigers exceeded by six wins, in large part due to Jose Valverde's perfect season of 49 saves in 49 opportunities. Can Valverde and Cy Young/MVP winner Justin Verlander repeat their monster seasons?

Other than Fielder, the biggest addition to the Tigers will be a full season from Doug Fister, who went 8-1 with a 1.79 ERA in 10 starts after coming over from Seattle. Nobody thinks he's that good, of course, but he could provide a nice lift to a rotation that was mediocre once you got past Verlander. Max Scherzer (4.43 ERA) and Rick Porcello (4.75 ERA) have potential but inconsistent performances mean they have yet to elevate beyond past back-of-the-rotation starters.

And while Fielder will provide another big bat alongside Miguel Cabrera, remember that the guy he's essentially replacing was pretty good -- Victor Martinez hit .330/.380/.470 and drove in 103 runs. Fielder will be an upgrade due to his power, but it may not be as large as many believe.

So what do you think? The Tigers' over/under is at 94 wins.

Last year, You Can't Predict Baseball came up with bold predictions for the year. We had a lot of fun coming up with them, and then laughing at how hilariously wrong they were at the end of the year. This year, we're bringing these predictions to SweetSpot, along with explanations for some of them. Keep in mind, these predictions are supposed to be bold, but not insane -- even we know the Orioles aren't going to the playoffs in 2012.

Los Angeles Angels: Kendrys Morales stays healthy all year.

Houston Astros: Bud Norris is top five in K/9 in the NL. We figured something good had to happen to the Astros, right? Norris actually has a pretty nice career K/9.

Oakland Athletics: Yoenis Cespedes is their starting center fielder by Memorial Day.

Toronto Blue Jays: Brandon Morrow makes the jump to elite starting pitcher. He's struck out more than 10 batters per 9 innings two years running, though his ERAs have remained ugly. We think this is the year his results finally match the stuff, especially considering his declining walk rate.

Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran has more wins than Tim Hudson.

Milwaukee Brewers: Rickie Weeks leads the team in home runs. He was fourth on the team last year, with 20. In front of him were Corey Hart with 26, Ryan Braun with 33, and Prince Fielder with 38. Fielder is gone, and for this prediction we'll assume Braun will miss a third of the year due to a suspension. It's not too bold to think Weeks could pass Hart in 2012.

St. Louis Cardinals: Carlos Beltran outproduces Albert Pujols from last year. Albert Pujols was great last year, but not quite best-player-of-his-generation Albert Pujols. If healthy, it's not absurd to think of Beltran outproducing Pujols' 5.1 WAR in 2011.

Chicago Cubs: Matt Garza isn't their best pitcher. It'll be Ryan Dempster, who had great peripherals but bad results last year.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Aaron Hill will be good again. He was great with them in limited time, and Arizona's park is quite hitter-friendly.

Los Angeles Dodgers: James Loney will be a top-three first baseman in the National League. Many thanks to Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness for somewhat alerting us to this one. We just decided to take it semi-absurdly far.

San Francisco Giants: Madison Bumgarner is their best pitcher. In terms of ERA, he already wasn't very far behind Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, and his K/BB ratio eclipsed theirs by quite a bit.

Cleveland Indians: They'll have the best pitching in the American League Central. We're banking on Ubaldo Jimenez, making a major comeback to something closer to what he was in 2010, and the rest of the staff displaying the good that they did in 2011. We're also counting on the Tigers' starters not being very impressive behind Justin Verlander, which is bold but not quite insane, and the pitching of the White Sox, Twins and Royals not being able to keep up with Cleveland's.

Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero catches 100-plus games. The Mariners probably aren't going to compete, so why not try and play him where he'll accrue the most value?

Miami Marlins: Despite all their new acquisitions and the hype, they still finish fourth in the NL East. When you think about it, this one isn't so crazy. If Josh Johnson isn't healthy and maybe even if he is their pitching still trails that of Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta; even with Heath Bell, we don't think their bullpen is as good, either. Their offense might be better than some of those teams', but the Marlins were quite a bit below league average offensively last year and we're not sure how much Jose Reyes is going to make up for that.

New York Mets: Mike Pelfrey is the worst starter in the NL. Pelfrey's been pretty terrible two of the past three years, and now they're moving the fences in at Citi Field. He was far better in his huge home stadium, but we're guessing with the moved-in walls he'll be significantly worse at Citi. Here at YCPB, we actually don't think the Mets are going to be quite as dire as many are saying, even if they do come in last place in the NL East - but Pelfrey won't be a bright spot.

Washington Nationals: Stephen Strasburg has a 17-strikeout game.

Baltimore Orioles: Matt Wieters is the best catcher in the AL. A lot of people are so obsessed with Wieters not matching the hype that they didn't notice he became a plus offensive performer last year, to go along with very good defense. His taking the next step isn't that bold as predictions go, especially if Joe Mauer has to move off catcher.

San Diego Padres: Luke Gregerson is a top-three closer in the NL.

Philadelphia Phillies: Cole Hamels is their best starter. And this isn't meant to be a slight to Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, but considering their ages and the fact that Hamels is pretty darn good himself, plus a possible boost from a contract year...

Pittsburgh Pirates: Charlie Morton is their All-Star.

Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish isn't their best starter -- but he's still good. And we think he'll be pretty good, we just think Derek Holland will become more consistently good, or Matt Harrison will put up numbers like his 2011.

Tampa Bay Rays: James Shields will have no complete games. Predicting someone to have no complete games might not seem bold, but it is when it's a guy who was known as "Complete Game James" last season. Shields did have 11 complete games in 2011, an almost unheard-of number these days, but he had no complete games in 2009 or 2010.

Boston Red Sox: No one hits 30 home runs. This might seem crazy when you consider their great offensive numbers last year, but only one player on their team hit 30 home runs and it was Jacoby Ellsbury with 32.

Cincinnati Reds: Brandon Phillips is the best second baseman in the NL.

Colorado Rockies: Jamie Moyer will have the best HR/9 on the staff.

Kansas City Royals: They reach .500. While their pitching won't be great, their offense will take a big step forward this year. Combined with the rest of their division being the Tigers and some dumpster fires, it's not that difficult to see it happening.

Detroit Tigers: They score fewer runs than they did in 2011. Yes, that’s even with Fielder. It's not improbable that Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila and Delmon Young regress quite a bit from their numbers with Detroit last year, and that Prince Fielder's production "only" makes up for the offensive loss of Victor Martinez in 2012. They'll still have a very good offense, though.

Minnesota Twins: Joe Mauer hits 15 home runs.

Chicago White Sox: Robin Ventura gets ejected more times than Ozzie Guillen. Look at the state of the White Sox. We'd get ejected too.

New York Yankees: Hiroki Kuroda leads the team in ERA.

You Can't Predict Baseball is an affiliate of the SweetSpot network.

As camps open in Arizona and Florida, we put it to the SweetSpot network: Which player from your team are you most excited to watch this season, and why? First up, the answers from the American League.

Baltimore Orioles: Matt Wieters


Why Wieters? He's likely the team's best player, and he's the only one I want to watch whenever he's on the field. At the plate it will be interesting to see if he can build on his 22-homer campaign from 2011 while improving in other areas (a higher average and especially OBP would be nice) to potentially take a place as one of baseball's best hitting catchers. Behind the dish, every stolen-base attempt is exciting (he led the AL in nabbing opposing would-be thieves last year). Can he go from being a very good player to a star? If he does, that could be the most exciting part of Baltimore's season. -- Daniel Moroz, Camden Depot

Boston Red Sox: Daniel Bard


Bard is an object of intrigue this season. He was originally drafted as a starter but after an implosion at the low levels of the minors he was shifted to relief and blossomed as one of the best young arms in the game, becoming the heir apparent to Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth. Instead, Boston has elected to try the starting gambit again, where Bard could become the 2012 version of Alexi Ogando. He needs to develop his changeup further and there are questions on how his control and endurance will hold up on a transition, but he has front-line potential if all goes well. If not, it's back to the purgatory of middle relief, which may force a trade. His ceiling and the risk of the conversion will make him one of the more intriguing players on the Red Sox to watch. -- Evan Brunell, Fire Brand of the AL

Chicago White Sox: Chris Sale


The one guy who’s really going to be fun to watch this spring is the rail-thin Sale. The lefty’s power slider/fastball mix has him well-equipped to make the jump to the rotation in his age-23 season, and he might be the latest success story to add to pitching coach Don Cooper’s track record for success. The questions revolve around his ability to sustain the workload, but Cooper has already noted Sale will have an innings cap. What shot the Sox have got will rely on their rotation; if Sale breaks through, Kenny Williams’ winter inactivity may not look so bad. -- Christina Kahrl

Cleveland Indians: Ubaldo Jimenez


As a child, part of the excitement of Christmas morning was the mystery of what magical toys Santa left under the tree during the night. Was it what you'd been asking for all year or was there some kind of surprise in store? (Like socks.) That's one of the reasons we're excited to watch Ubaldo Jimenez this season. Which version of Jimenez will be in the Indians' rotation: The 2010 NL Cy Young contender or the inconsistent thrower that Cleveland fans saw in 2011? The Indians could use another ace beyond Justin Masterson. When the Tribe surrendered Drew Pomeranz and Alex White for Jimenez, it was a move that angered many fans and left others cautiously optimistic at best. While an incredible pitching performance isn't the only thing that determines a team's fortunes (see Cliff Lee, 2008), a great year for Jimenez could go a long way in determining the success of the Indians this season. If Jimenez struggles early, already pessimistic and dejected Indians fans may be ready to throw in the towel early. -- Stephanie Liscio and Susan Petrone, It’s Pronounced “Lajaway”

Detroit Tigers: Miguel Cabrera


You can take Justin Verlander and his impressive hardware. You can also have Prince Fielder and his nine-year contract. The player I'm most interested in is Miguel Cabrera. Will he play third base all year? How much will his defense (or Fielder) affect his offense? Can he continue his streak of 300/30/100 seasons? Cabrera is human, he's shown that to us in the past, and his new challenges are an intriguing storyline. -- Josh Worn, Walkoff Woodward

Kansas City Royals: Mike Moustakas


As he moved up the organizational ladder, Moose developed the reputation as a player with a learning curve delay: Whenever he moved up a rung, he would start slowly before making adjustments and laying waste to that league’s pitching. He held true to form last summer, struggling in his big-league debut to the point that there were whispers the Royals were considering dropping him back to Triple-A. Instead they opted to give him three days off to work with hitting guru Kevin Seitzer, breaking down his swing. It worked, as he ripped through September. Moustakas is poised to pair with teammate Eric Hosmer to give the Royals a one-two punch in the middle of the lineup they'll need to contend in the AL Central. If Moustakas can build on his September, he has the potential to be a special player in Kansas City for years to come. -- Craig Brown, Royals Authority

Los Angeles Angels: Albert Pujols


As you may have heard, Pujols signed with the Angels this offseason. The team has plenty of exciting players, but Pujols will be the man to watch in 2012. Can he bounce back after the worst season of his career? How will he adjust to the American League? There are plenty of questions about the 32-year-old and his huge contract, but we’ll see many of them answered this season. It should be a fun ride. -- Hudson Belinsky, Halos Daily

Minnesota Twins: Joe Mauer


In many ways, Joe Mauer's 2011 campaign was emblematic of Minnesota's season as a whole. He was hurt often, he didn't get it done on the field and he drew plenty of criticism from media and fans. The Twins, in their second year at a new stadium and with a record payroll, were a huge disappointment. Mauer, in the first year of a massive new contract, was a big reason why. So now he and the team are coming into 2012 with much to prove. Reports on his health have been encouraging and, as he showed in 2009 when he lifted an otherwise mediocre team to the playoffs with an MVP performance, Mauer can be a difference-maker. Relying on a roster dotted with more question marks than a Riddler costume, the Twins are going to need a few of those. -- Nick Nelson, Nick’s Twins Blog

New York Yankees: Michael Pineda


Ever since the Yankees missed out on Cliff Lee before the 2011 season, GM Brian Cashman has been preaching patience to Yankees fans. That patience finally paid off this January when they dealt top prospect Jesus Montero to the Mariners for Pineda. Ever since, Yankees fans have been impatient for the season to start to get a good look at their new young pitcher because there is more than just this season riding on Pineda's success. If he's a failure, Yankees fans will be crying for years watching Montero smack homers out in Seattle. -- Rob Abruzzese, Bronx Baseball Daily

Oakland Athletics: Yoenis Cespedes


Cespedes is so blindingly obviously the most exciting aspect of the on-field product in Oakland that I'm tempted to be contrarian and claim that I'm jazzed for Josh Reddick's soft Georgia accent and cannon arm instead. I can't bring myself to it, though, because the raw power that Cespedes (supposedly) carries in his bat as a (reportedly) legit center fielder who is (apparently) ready to play (more or less) right now beckons. It's both what's inside and outside the parentheses that makes Cespedes so compelling. Forget about his range afield; his range of possible outcomes is breathtaking. Early Bobby Bonds and late Bobby Crosby both seem well within reach. And if the most compelling part of Cespedes' season winds up being a chase for the strikeout record in September? Well, my most prized A's possession is a Jack Cust shirt, so that suits me fine. -- Jason Wojciechowski, Beaneball

Seattle Mariners: Felix Hernandez


Picking anyone else would feel wrong -- Felix is the Mariner to be most excited about in 2012. The King is 6 1/2 seasons deep into his Mariner career and has at very least gotten himself in the conversation with Randy Johnson as the franchise's premier hurler. With a full season of King's Court -- the best thing to happen to Safeco Field since Safeco Field itself -- Hernandez's home starts will remain can't-miss events this summer. -- Jon Shields, Pro Ball NW

Tampa Bay Rays: Joe Maddon


I know Joe Maddon isn’t a player but they make him wear a uniform, so he is the 2012 Ray I am most excited to watch. From my seat, Joe outshines all the stars in the Rays clubhouse by standing in the background. Joe is a mad scientist when it comes to the lineup card, mixing and matching on a daily basis. I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see the creative ways he will use the 25 men in the Rays’ 2012 clubhouse. -- Marquis Heilig, The Ray Area

Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish


Darvish is arguably the most exciting and most intriguing new face in the majors right now, and he's a Texas Ranger, which makes him a slam-dunk pick for the most exciting player to watch in Arlington this season. The Rangers bet historically huge money on Darvish and the hope that he can emerge as a true ace, but it's never the best idea to set the expectation bar that high, and I know I'll be more than satisfied with a legitimate No. 2-caliber performance. The promise of so much more, though, and the still mysterious aura that surrounds Darvish ... those qualities make Darvish the most exciting player in a Rangers uniform right now. -- Joey Matschulat, Baseball Time in Arlington

Toronto Blue Jays: Brett Lawrie


The Royals’ Mike Moustakas wasn’t the only highly touted third-base prospect to make his debut in 2011. Lawrie, a 22-year-old hitting machine with soft hands and great bat speed, gave Toronto fans a glimpse of their future at the hot corner. Acquired from the Brewers in a December 2010 deal for Shaun Marcum, Lawrie dealt with fractured bones in each of his hands in 2011, but still managed to compile a .293/.373/.580 line in 43 games at the major league level. His defense still needs some work, but it was his first full season at the position. The members of the Blue Jays brass think they have a keeper at the position. -- Diane Firstman, Value Over Replacement Grit

The Minnesota Twins’ pursuit of Josh Willingham makes sense for them, but does it make sense for him? The Twins need a left fielder to plug into the lineup to replace Delmon Young, and they need right-handed power to replace Young and Michael Cuddyer.

Part of this is a function of their lineup, which rests upon the left-handed bats of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. That’s a fairly fragile proposition at this point, just like the two stars themselves, assuming Morneau ever completes his comeback from post-concussion symptoms. The Twins finished next to last in the AL in runs scored, finishing ahead of only the Mariners. They also finished last in the AL and 29th in the major leagues in Isolated Power -- even with the advantage of a DH.

That in turn is a function of their ballpark. The one team that finished behind the Twins in ISO, the Padres, play in Petco Park, the best pitchers’ venue in the major leagues. But using the 2012 edition of the irreplaceable "Bill James Handbook," you’ll see that the Twins’ Target Field indexes worse than any other in park factor for home runs across the past two years (76, when 100 is average). However, with just two years in existence, Target Field’s numbers have already bounced around a bit; last year, it rated 104 for right-handed hitters’ homers. That’s far from the biggest boosts via park power: The Yankees’ short-porch in right field indexes at 143 across three years and the White Sox’s equally short porch in left indexes at 138. But in a park that slightly favors pitchers (95 over two years), that looks like an exploitable advantage for a Twins team that needs power.

Hence, the addition of Willingham on top of initially signing Ryan Doumit to help provide power at DH, catcher, first base and/or the outfield corners. Coming off a 29-homer season for the A’s in equally pitcher-friendly, power-strangling Oakland Coliseum, Willingham should be an outstanding third wheel and right-handed foil to Mauer and Morneau. But does signing with the Twins make sense for Willingham? We’ll see what the terms will be on what’s already reported to be a multiyear deal -- it’s hard to beat handsome compensation, certainly, especially as a free agent heading into your age-33 season.

But beyond cash, is Minnesota where you want to wind up? Can the Twins contend? Signing Willingham is the latest move in GM Terry Ryan’s speedy bit of retooling. First, he added Jamey Carroll to provide an OBP boost at the top of the order and to play shortstop, then he added Doumit’s flexibility and bat. If this aging crew can complement Mauer and Morneau, with Ben Revere and Denard Span in the outfield, the Twins have what looks to be a contending lineup in a potentially expanded playoff format and a weak division. That’s if everyone stays healthy; if the Tigers come back to the pack, that would also help, but that’s obviously outside of Ryan’s control.

The downside of signing Willingham is what it means for the Twins’ already-ragged defense. After rating negatively as a left fielder in four of the past five years via Total Zone (and three of five via Baseball Info Solutions’ Plus/Minus) putting him in left field doesn’t figure to do Twins pitchers any favors. Adding him on top of the DH-worthy Doumit and Carroll (with his weak range at short) makes it especially hard to sustain the faith in fundamentals that’s supposed to be a Minnesota mantra. But the Twins already rated last in Defensive Efficiency and Baseball Prospectus’ Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency last year, so it wasn’t like they could rank any lower. But they could get worse.

In the end, adding Willingham should help power a much-improved Twins offense -- how could he not? You can appreciate the problem from Ryan’s perspective, because he was already tasked with shoring up an offense. The new problem is whether or not Willingham’s the latest poor addition to what might be a particularly bad defense lined up behind a pitching staff already well known for its pitch-to-contact tendencies. Come the season, it could be a summer of slugfests in the twin cities.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

You probably have not forgotten baseball’s best night ever. Within 90 incredible minutes of action, September 28, 2011 gave us the spectacle of the Cardinals, Rays, Red Sox and Braves playing four different games and determining their destinies on the final day of the season.

The way things are going, we’ll never see its like ever again. At the NLCS, Bud Selig stressed that a night like September 28 would not affect his desire to add a second wild-card team to each league’s slate. He’s proven to be as good as his word, and as a result, finishing in third place isn’t the end of the line for anybody. That might get the Blue Jays and Orioles to stop squawking about their lot in the AL East, but at what cost?

Consider what this would have meant last season: The Red Sox and Braves’ infamous meltdowns would have been far less agonizing. Maybe they would have lasted one more day, with the Sox playing the Rays and the Braves taking their shot at the Cardinals. Maybe either one of the Sox and Braves would have advanced, but given how banged-up both teams were, how much of a scare would either have thrown into their LDS opponents? Would this really have made for an even better postseason than the one we just watched?

Instead, this new scheme creates a new, genuinely unhappy spectacle: Some especially crummy teams getting wild-card bids for glory. Say the Red Sox and Yankees go toe-to-toe for the AL East crown next season, all the way until their final series against one another. Say the two are tied with 99 wins on October 3, the Yankees lose, having used CC Sabathia to gun for the wild-card “round” bye, so they get squared off against ... an 85-win White Sox team that was cruising comfortably with the fifth-best record in the league, and with their rotation queued up to toss their best starter in this must-win game. The Yankees get punished for trying to win, while the White Sox just need one game to advance after six months of mediocrity. How does that scenario make sense?

If you look at the fifth-place finishers during the 17 years of the wild-card era, starting with 1995 you get just seven 90-win teams into the postseason in the AL, and five in the NL. Assuming for a moment that the different stakes don’t lead to different results in the standings, we’d also have seen three one-game tie-breaker matchups to determine who the second wild card is… to play another one-game playoff to determine who’s in the League Division Series. That would have occurred in 1997 (between the Mets and Dodgers in the NL), in 2002 (between the Red Sox and Mariners) and 2007 (between the Tigers and Mariners).

What about the 22 “playoff” teams with less than 90 wins during the wild-card era, those exciting squads of yore America deserved to see more of? Among the less spectacular:

• The 2001 Twins, 85-77: While the A’s were waltzing to the wild card with 102 wins, the Twins were finishing up their season with a meaningless series against the White Sox. Those three games would have been significant if there were two wild cards -- a game separated the Sox and Twins at the start of the series. Maybe with something at stake, the White Sox care a little more about the outcome, and win two of three, giving us another exciting one-game play-in between Jerry Manuel’s White Sox and the Twins. You can take that daisy chain of interdependent events in all sorts of unhappy directions. Maybe David Ortiz’s first postseason heroics happen in a Twins uniform, keeping him from ever getting cut loose to go to Boston. Maybe Ozzie Guillen never gets a job on the South Side because Jerry Manuel just skippered the first back-to-back playoff appearances in White Sox franchise history. Neat, huh? Paging Harry Turtledove.
• The 1997 Angels, 84-78: The Yankees (96-66) won the wild card, then lost the 86-win Indians team in the first round. Maybe the Yankees don’t get even that far after finishing two games behind the Orioles in the AL East, because they’d have to get through the Angels first, with either Doc Gooden (4.91 ERA) or Kenny Rogers (5.65) taking on Anaheim’s big deadline-deal pickup, Ken Hill. Maybe America was ready to see Gary Disarcina and Chad Kreuter in the postseason, and just never knew it. (Neither man ever did play in one.)
• The 2006 Phillies, 85-77: This was the team that Pat Gillick gave up on at the deadline when 11 different squads, the Phillies among them, were bunched up within six wins of one another. Gillick gave up, dumping Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle on the Yankees for four suspects and payroll relief, only to notice three weeks later that his team was still in the actual wild-card race. He hurriedly added Jamie Moyer, Jeff Conine and Jose Hernandez and came up short of catching the Dodgers and Padres. Of course, since the Pads and Dodgers both won 88 games, L.A. would have had to to play Philadelphia because the lost their season series to San Diego, costing them the NL West division title. The Dodgers would at least have had their rotation queued up, with Derek Lowe facing rookie Cole Hamels.
• The 1996 AL Mess: The Mariners, White Sox and Red Sox all won 85 games to tie for the fifth-highest tally in the league. Maybe Seattle spares us that mess by winning a makeup date with the Angels, and maybe we get a three-way tie for the fifth-best record in the league anyway after they lose that game. How’s that supposed to work out? Back-to-back one-game tie-breakers to determine which of those three teams plays a “deciding” wild-card contest with the 88-win Orioles?

Now, I’m sure folks will be excited about this new playoff setup for all sorts of reasons. Just think, A’s fans, Moneyball would have arrived in the postseason a year earlier, because the Oakland A’s of 1999 would have made it to the playoffs. (For a game, which they should have lost, otherwise Bud Selig’s original “hope and faith” speech might never happen.) More appearances, more chances to get excited about the season... we all know where Bud's coming from.

Unfortunately, the inevitability of seeing one-game tie-breakers between two or more teams just to determine who gets to play in a one-game wild-card showdown, and before we even get to the actual League Division Series? As noted, that’s a logistical and scheduling nightmare we’ll be sure to see in the years to come.

And what about the possibility that a division-winning team winds up not with one of the five best records in its league? How about not even five from the top six or nine, but the 11th-best? That was what we were in danger of seeing happen in 1994 with the Rangers, and we've been fortunate not to see that happen again. What happens five-team playoffs don't even manage to give us the teams with the five best records in each league? Fiddle with the system to find a way to get it right on yet another pass?

We'll see if a presumably unbalanced schedule with year-round interleague play can make it unlikely, but this is the kind of "excitement" that baseball really could do without.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

In the spirit of the season with Hispanic Heritage Month, let’s take a look at the all-time best players of Latin descent for each of the American League teams.

Baltimore Orioles: Mike Cuellar of Cuba. Cuellar only had an eight-year run in Baltimore, and arrived well after he’d turned 30, but the O’s saw a workhorse, and innings and wins are what they got. Cuellar became the first Latin pitcher to win the Cy Young Award when he split it with Denny McClain in 1969 -- his first year as an Oriole. He went on to notch 143 wins during his time in Baltimore, and also delivered WAR seasons worth 2.5 wins or more in five of his first six seasons.

Boston Red Sox: Pedro Martinez of the Dominican Republic. When you can count Manny Ramirez and Luis Tiant among the runners-up, you know you’ve got a full field, but three Cy Young awards and a career 2.52 ERA for the Red Sox over seven seasons during the age of injection-enabled offense puts Pedro on a plane all his own.

Chicago White Sox: Minnie Minoso of Cuba. In his various stints with the White Sox, the Cuban Comet managed to miss the team’s lone pennant in 1959, but the vast majority of his career value (42.7 WAR) came from his the nine seasons in his first two incarnations with the Sox (1951-57, 1960-61); there were three more yet to come. There’s room for an honorable mention for Venezuelan shortstop Luis Aparicio (31.5 WAR), but like Minoso, he spent chunks of his career in other unis.

Cleveland Indians: In another full field, you could pick Venezuela’s Omar Vizquel or Mexican-American Mike Garcia; Garcia was a rotation regular for the 1950's Tribe, and he’s a reasonable choice for the 32.4 WAR, 3.27 ERA and 142 wins he gave them. However, his value on the mound was essentially equal to Manny Ramirez’s 32.8 WAR he produced with his bat in almost eight seasons with the Indians. Surprising nobody, Manny’s WAR numbers go down when you count his defense, but that production at the plate puts the Dominican immigrant among the 10 most productive Indian bats of all time.

Detroit Tigers: It might be cause for surprise, but the Tigers are one of the very few teams from among the league’s original eight who have yet to boast a long-term Latin star. Venezuela’s Miguel Cabrera has only just become the franchise’s first Latin player to accumulate 20 career WAR with the Kitties, and he still hasn’t spent half of his career in Detroit. One man worthy of an honorable mention is Willie Hernandez, for his MVP- and Cy-winning 1984 season, but the Motor City was the Puerto Rican Hernandez’s third stop, and his career didn’t make it to the ’90s.

Kansas City Royals: It’s been so long since Carlos Beltran of Puerto Rico played for the Royals that you might forget he was almost every bit the MVP-caliber player there as he’d get more recognition for in Houston and New York. His 2003 season (7.3 WAR) rates among the 10 greatest seasons by a Royals position player, a list that has five different George Brett seasons and four other guys besides Beltran on it. Before the season, you might have wanted to lean towards Mexico’ Joakim Soria, but a bumpy 2011 was enough for me to play wait and see.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: The Angels’ roster has been characterized by so much turnover historically that it’s been hard for anyone to settle in and pile up big career totals as a Halo, something that only recently changed with Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson. So while Vladimir Guerrero of the Dominican Republic has played less than half of his career in Anaheim, he’s pretty much by his lonesome for spending so much of his productive career there.

Minnesota Twins: One of the other reasons tabbing Vladi as an Angel was necessary is because Panama’s Rod Carew did most of his damage during his long career with the Twins. If you remember the fleet-footed old man for his 3,000th hit at the end of his career back in 1985, you might remember him as an Angel, but more than 2,000 of those hits came hitting in the frosty confines of Minnesota’s old Metropolitan Stadium, as unlikely a landing spot for a youngster from the Canal Zone as you might imagine.

New York Yankees: You might fidget over Lefty Gomez, who was Portuguese and Spanish on his father’s side and all-Californian enough to merit the nickname “Goofy,” and Dominican Alex Rodriguez and Puerto Rico’s Jorge Posada would be easy choices in other organizations. But with almost 56 WAR contributed to one pinstriped contender after another, the man who has delivered the most career value is Panama’s Mariano Rivera.

Oakland Athletics: It’s important not to forget that Reggie Jackson claims Hispanic heritage on his mother’s side, but the key player from the Big Green Machine of the ’70s who deserves a shoutout here is Cuba’s Bert Campaneris. With 649 career steals, Campy leads all Latin ballplayers while ranking 14th overall, and his 43.1 career WAR suggests how much value he added in the field as well as on the bases.

Seattle Mariners: Perhaps no player more perfectly captures Puerto Rico’s complicated relationship with the United States than Edgar Martinez, who was born in New York City but grew up on the island. Whatever label you care to apply, anyone can take pride in the definitive DH’s career after he hit .312/.418/.515 while producing 66.9 WAR at the plate.

Tampa Bay Rays: With an existence that doesn’t even stretch back two full decades yet, it might be premature to tab an all-time great Latin Ray, but Dominicans Carlos Pena and Julio Lugo lead the pack of notables, with Cuba’s Rolando Arrojo leading the pitchers.

Texas Rangers: Ivan Rodriguez’s career may well be winding down, and he might be a decade removed from his last full season in Arlington, but Pudge has been the pride of Puerto Rico as the greatest position player in Rangers history, topping all Texas players with 48.6 WAR. He’s long since punched his own ticket to Cooperstown.

Toronto Blue Jays: As one of the first franchises to truly invest in Dominican talent, it should come as no surprise that some of the best ballplayers in Blue Jays history came from the island: infielder Tony Fernandez, slugger George Bell and pitcher Juan Guzman. But the Jays also came away with a ton of talent from Puerto Rico, starting with Carlos Delgado and Roberto Alomar. If you go by WAR, it should be Delgado, but Alomar’s Gold Glove-studded career as a fielder is one of the great causes for debate over the strengths and limitations of both scouting and statistical analysis of defense. For the purposes of this sort of exercise, let’s give the new Hall of Famer his due and tab Alomar.

On Friday, we’ll turn to the National League and give the 16 greats of those franchises their props.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

On Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast with Keith Law and I, there were many kitten noises heard and a lot of good, opinionated baseball talk. Here are some of the issues discussed:

1. The benches empty on yet another late night at Fenway Park, but was it really necessary? Does anyone enjoy seeing relief pitchers run on the field? Oh, and there was a game.

2. NL East leaders pick up some outfield/pinch-hitting help for the postseason, and there could be more moves to come. Is this an indictment on Jason Heyward?

3. Javier Vazquez has been quite the strikeout pitcher in his career, but perhaps you didn’t realize just how good.

4. Angels outfielder Mike Trout will not win top rookie honors this season, but in the big picture does that really matter?

5. Does Keith Law have emotions? OK, discuss.

Plus: Excellent emails, valuing runs scored and being a switch hitter, Ryan Braun’s MVP chances and a closer look at today’s schedule, on a packed edition of Baseball Today! Download now!

I'll be honest that I'm shocked -- shocked! -- the Los Angeles Angels have made it this far. With Kendrys Morales out for the season and Vernon Wells racking up outs by the dozen, there was almost no doubt in my mind before the season started that the Angels were going to fall off. Yet here we are, 112 games into the season, and the Angels are just a game back of the Texas Rangers for the AL West lead. Good for them.

At this point, it's essentially a toss-up as to who wins the division, given that there are 10 contests left to play between the two rivals, including the last three games of the season in Anaheim. Provided they maximize the resources on hand, there's no reason the Angels can't pull past the Rangers.

In part, that's going to mean making sure that Jered Weaver and Dan Haren, one of the top one-two punches in all of baseball, start as many times as possible. Weaver has been incredible, going 14-5 with a 1.88 ERA and walking fewer batters than ever. Haren (12-6, 2.81) has also been incredibly impressive. Prior to Haren's start against the Twins, they had combined for 9.5 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference, while the rest of the pitching staff has just 5.0 WAR. And since June 1, Ervin Santana has stepped up to provide the Angels with a viable third option, posting a 2.52 ERA and tossing a no-hitter.

It's fortunate that the pitching has picked up the slack, because the Angels’ offense ranks just 12th in the American League in runs scored per game. In July, when offenses are supposed to be at their hottest, the Angels hit just .229/.295/.371 as a team. This is a team that struggles to get on base and needed a bat at the trade deadline to shore up their offense. Of course, they did not get it. Standing pat, the Angels decided to live with their offense that is 11th in the league in OBP and 10th in slugging percentage.

After moving Joel Pineiro (14.85 ERA in his last four starts) to the bullpen, there's only one obvious move left for the Angels to make. They must free Hank Conger.

As bad as the Angels’ offense has been, it’s their catching that has been especially atrocious in 2011. Jeff Mathis has started more than half the games behind the dish while hitting just .184/.229/.263 in 214 plate appearances. Among players with more than 200 PAs, he has the lowest OBP in the game. According to FanGraphs, he's been worth -0.8 WAR this year alone. It's not like this is a fluke. In 218 plate appearances last year, Mathis hit .195/.219/.278, for just a 37 OPS+. Indeed, the evidence is simply overwhelming that Mathis is just not a good baseball player. Nor is his current backup, Bobby Wilson, who has just 57 plate appearances on the year despite being active all season, and has a career line of .212/.279/.359.

The good news is that Conger is ready to help at Triple-A. The 23-year-old was the 62nd-best prospect in baseball according to Keith Law before the season began, when he wrote, "Conger could step in and catch every day for any number of clubs right now, and if he doesn't beat out Jeff Mathis for a roster spot, there's something very wrong with the Angels' decision-making process." Conger did break camp with the club, hitting a somewhat disappointing .214/.297/.357 in 173 plate appearances, and was sent down to Triple-A Salt Lake City on July 19.

Before that demotion, Conger was never truly put in a position to succeed by manager Mike Scioscia. He didn't start until the fifth game of the Angels’ season. After that, he entered an odd job-sharing arrangement with Mathis, where he and Conger basically alternated starts for much of May and June, never allowing Conger to get in a rhythm at the dish. Since his demotion, as he's gotten a chance to play every day, Conger has dominated minor-league pitching, hitting .333/.397/.614 with four homers in 63 plate appearances. In other words, he's done exactly what you'd expect a major league-caliber hitter to do. And perhaps more importantly, even though his results were below what the Angels hoped for from their rookie, Conger was still demonstrably better than Mathis.

There's no doubt that Conger is ready. If the Angels are going to hang tough in the AL West, they need all hands on deck. Their best nine must be out on the field every day to pass and hold off the Rangers. That means benching Mathis and installing Conger as the everyday catcher. They have already wasted enough time with a player who actually makes their team worse when he's on the field. It's time for Scioscia to simultaneously embrace the future and the present. Conger is better than he’s shown, and he needs a fair opportunity to prove it. If that proof helps them to slide past the Rangers, that’s excellent. But if they don’t make the move and finish just a game or two back of Texas, there's no doubt who is to blame.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Common Man writes for The Platoon Advantage and fights the good fight on Twitter.

Where have the third basemen gone? It was only recently that third base was home to some of the best hitters of their generations; players like Mike Schmidt, Paul Molitor, George Brett and Wade Boggs. I was asked to fill out an American League and National League All-Star roster this week, and in each league I had to search high and low for the most deserving third baseman. I finally settled on Alex Rodriguez and Aramis Ramirez but didn't feel good about it. Are these All-Star teams or Least-Objectionable-Choice teams? I don't mean to knock A-Rod or Ramirez, both of whom are having good seasons -- but the void at the position in both leagues is glaring.

Across the diamond, first base forces you to make very difficult choices among some of baseball's true superstars. In the AL alone, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, Paul Konerko, Mark Teixeira and Adam Lind all have strong cases. Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, Gaby Sanchez, Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard are all deserving NL options. Shortstop has dazzling stars like Asdrubal Cabrera, Jose Reyes and Starlin Castro. Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia, Ben Zobrist, Rickie Weeks and Danny Espinosa are all standouts at second base.

Something has happened to third base. Yes, younger stars like Ryan Zimmerman and David Wright have been injured. Pablo Sandoval is still rebounding from a personally disappointing 2010. Mike Moustakas and Lonnie Chisenhall have only just arrived. How to best sum up the deterioration of the third base position? It's where Chone Figgins plays.

Take the American League for example. Here are the four most deserving A.L. All-Star third base candidates:

• Alex Rodriguez 72 G, 270 AB, 13 HR, 51 RBI, .304/.382/.515, .897 OPS, 3.9 WAR
• Kevin Youkilis 73 G, 257 AB, 11 HR, 55 RBI, .272/.394/.490, .884 OPS, 2.6 WAR
• Adrian Beltre 80 G, 313 AB, 14 HR, 56 RBI, .262/.307/.457, .822 OPS, 2.5 WAR
• Evan Longoria 52 G, 185 AB, 10 HR, 34 RBI, .249/.341/.481, .822 OPS, 2.3 WAR
• J.J. Hardy 49 G, 188 AB, 11 HR, 30 RBI, .303/.367/.548, .915 OPS, 1.8 WAR

Those players are all having good seasons, so this isn't about picking on them. However, the numbers don't even touch the production levels we're seeing from the first-base position. After these candidates, the production drops off dramatically, because following these four there isn't an American League third baseman with a Wins Above Replacement mark greater than 1.6. That's why you could make an argument that Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy should start at third base for the American League. No, I'm not seriously suggesting this as a solution -- I'm merely taking an A.L. shortstop, one who we've been overlooking all season and pointing out that his offensive numbers could put him at the top of the third-base list.

Hardy is giving Baltimore the type of production you'd expect from a corner infielder, mostly due to a sizzling June during which he's hitting .365 with nine homers and 18 RBIs with a 1.128 OPS. Take a look at J.J. Hardy's offensive numbers, compare them with those on the above list of third basemen, and you'll see that in terms of production per games played, Hardy is challenging the best the AL has to offer at a more traditional power position, despite missing 27 games in April and May with an oblique injury.

I used Hardy as an example because he's putting up numbers in limited action that are comparable to third basemen who have played full seasons so far. Another example, one with a bigger sample size, could be Detroit's Jhonny Peralta: 71 G, 258 AB, 12 HR, 46 RBI, .310/.358/.527, .885 OPS, and 2.9 WAR. As a shortstop, Peralta is certainly no Ozzie Smith with a Defensive Runs Saved mark of minus-7, but his offensive production at shortstop is as good or better than the leading third-base candidates.

National League third-base options leave you feeling even less enthusiastic. Ryan Roberts is the only one with a WAR above 2.0 but he's hitting only .254. Placido Polanco has just four home runs, while dark-horse candidate Chase Headley is hitting .303 but has only two homers and has already struck out 60 times. I finally settled on Aramis Ramirez who has 9 homers and 38 RBIs in 74 games while batting .291/.337/.453. That's a good season but hardly one that has you scrambling to fill out an All-Star ballot.

This year's All-Star Game will mark the 10-year anniversary of one of this era's landmark All-Star moments: the 2001 game at Seattle's Safeco Field where Alex Rodriguez, just before the game's first pitch, made Cal Ripken Jr. switch positions from third base to shortstop, where Ripken had played his first twelve All-Star games. The tribute was a last hurrah at shortstop for Ripken, who was playing the final season of his Hall of Fame career. It was also a glimpse into A-Rod's future in New York. Was there also something about that moment that conjured up a superstar void at the third-base position that hasn't yet been filled? Ten years later, perhaps ironically, it's A-Rod who may be the most deserving All-Star third-base choice but the list seems shorter than it should be.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Follow Steve Berthiaume on Twitter @SBerthiaumeESPN

An interesting thing to note as we near the midpoint of the season, at least in the American League, is that we're not seeing some of the extreme overperformances as far as teams' expected records that we have in recent seasons. Sure, we've seen some early surprises in terms of the Indians racing out ahead initially, but now that we're 70 games or so into the season, the simple fact is that nobody in the AL is coming close to outperforming their expected record.

The basic method was devised by Bill James more than 30 years ago, a simple Pythagorean method using a team's runs scored which allowed you to project that team's record. You might prefer to employ the subsequent Pythagenpat formula developed by David Smyth to refine the exponents and yield a more precise result, or refer to Clay Davenport's work on adjusted standings that evaluate a team's expected runs scored and allowed (to get to "second-order wins") and then take into account the strength of that ballclub's opponents to get to "third-order wins."

Consider the five teams outperforming their expected record so far this season, referring to the Pythagorean win-loss records at Baseball-Reference.com as well as Clay's projected third-order wins:

Generally speaking, whatever the methodology, the answers are generally the same. The Indians owe a lot to having one of the best marks in the league in one-run games (13-8, when something closer to .500 is what you'd expect), while the the Rays and Orioles get some benefit of the doubt via third-order wins because of a schedule that pits them against the toughest top-to-bottom division in baseball.

In the wild-card era, overperforming your expected record by a couple of games might seem fairly significant, but it's not as significant as we've seen in recent seasons. The Angels enjoyed a three-year run from 2007-2009 of outperforming their expected record on average by more than 10 games per season (via third-order wins). It simultaneously defied the analysts' expectation they'd regress from one year to the next while reflecting the number of virtues that Mike Scioscia cultivated as a manager: a solid rotation and an effectively deployed bullpen, as well as some of the best baserunning to play off a contact-driven offense.

Looking at this year's "overperforming" teams in the league, nobody's close to duplicating the Angels' feats, and no AL club's likely to win 10 or more games than expected at this pace, especially as the Indians' run seems to have shot its bolt. This strikes me as particularly interesting given that scoring is down from just under five runs per game in 2006 (4.97, to be precise) to 4.3 R/G per team today, or close to 16 percent. Less scoring makes for narrower margins, but it also involves less opportunity to fatten up a team's offensive tallies against a bullpen's worst pitchers.

If nobody's much more than three games above their expected records, who have the significant underperformers been? Via simple Pythagorean records, the two teams three games worse than their expected records are the A's and the Yankees; and via third-order wins, the A's (-3.1) and Yankees (-3.6) come out as those two teams doing worst in the league relative to their expected records. It would be hard to imagine two teams with less in common, since they're separated by 150 points in winning percentage.

That said, as offense-deprived as the A's have been, it's probably no surprise to find them enduring a case of their fortunes taking a turn from bad to worse. Being an MLB-worst six games under .500 in one-run games adds insult to the oft-injured Athletics. (Interestingly enough, the Angels and Rangers are both five games under in one-run games, which perhaps helps to explain why the Mariners look fairly good these days.) If the A's were at their expected record (33-37), they'd be in a three-team pack about three games behind the Rangers.

The Yankees' predicament is different, but there are a few different things going on. Beyond a slightly below-average record in one-run games (8-11), they've also managed to pile up a ton of runs in blowout wins. To some extent, that's the benefit of a strong top-to-bottom lineup with little or no mercy in it, but mounding up blowout runs doesn't help you much with season-total metrics. Baseball-Reference's "Simple Rating System" grades the Yankees as the best team in terms of the number of runs they're better than an average team (1.7), better even than the Red Sox -- but it's Boston that has run up an 8-1 record on the Yankees.

As much as some of us might grumble about the seeming decline of in-game tactics in recent seasons, one of the simplest yet most reliable gambits in any skipper’s arsenal is platooning. If you lack a great everyday player at a position or in a particular lineup slot, you can always try to compensate for the limitations of the alternatives by mixing and matching.

With runs so scarce these days, you might expect to see some more of this. However, the major requirement for operating a platoon beyond mere willingness is roster space, no easy feat in the age of the seven-man bullpen (sometimes eight). With that limitation, which teams are making room to platoon these days? We’ll start by looking at the American League today, and then get to the NL on Friday.

The AL’s easy heroes in this department are the Rays, because they’re the most ambitious platoon-minded team around. In doing so, though, they’re reaping the benefit of employing multi-positional players like Ben Zobrist and Sean Rodriguez. Zobrist plays every day between second and right field, so that Rodriguez is actually somewhat loosely platooned with right fielder Matt Joyce. Between Joyce’s career .552 SLG versus right-handers and Rodriguez’s .789 OPS against lefties, it’s not that unwieldy of an arrangement. Lately, they’ve had less space to keep that going during Reid Brignac’s time on the Bereavement Leave list, and Brignac’s bat is going to have to come around, but as tactical weapons go, you can still count this as a reliable standby in manager Joe Maddon’s bandolier. They’re also platooning John Jaso and Kelly Shoppach at catcher, another holdover arrangement from last year.

Beyond the Rays, nobody in the league is consistently running two platoons simultaneously, and what few platoons that exist generally fall into one of two groups -- platoons in an outfield corner or platoons behind the plate as a way of keeping catching workloads manageable.

In the outfield, the Yankees, Red Sox and A’s are platooning with a particular hitter, while showing there are different ways to tailor the job. The Yanks are using Andruw Jones as the platoon Bomber he was signed to be, but not at any one teammate’s expense, as he’s spotting for Brett Gardner, Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada. That’s less of a straightforward platoon than a case of making sure that Jones starts versus lefties, and using that commitment as a way to give everyone else a day off. The A’s are using Conor Jackson in a similar way, spotting the ex-Snake for David DeJesus, Daric Barton and Hideki Matsui against lefties. The Red Sox are running a much more straightforward platoon in right field with Mike Cameron subbing for J.D. Drew, but we’ll see how long it lasts, since Cameron isn’t hitting anything against anybody.

After that, there’s little that is set in stone. The Orioles might be ready to commit to a similar outfield arrangement once Derrek Lee comes back from the DL. Once that happens, Luke Scott will presumably move back out to left field, where Nolan Reimold has already clouted three bombs against southpaws in less than two weeks since his recall. The first-place Indians dabbled with a platoon in left field as Manny Acta compensated during Grady Sizemore’s absences, but Sizemore’s back, and once Travis Hafner gets reactivated the only lineup slot the Tribe might reliably platoon at is DH, with Shelley Duncan spotting for Pronk against southpaws.

Behind the plate beyond the Rays’ tandem, the league has a pair of stable platoon arrangements, in Chicago and L.A. With a six-man rotation and a seven-man pen, Ozzie Guillen only has room for this one platoon for the White Sox, almost always giving A.J. Pierzynski his days off when a lefty is on the mound to let Ramon Castro mash a bit. In contrast, Mike Scioscia has created a true job-sharing arrangement behind the plate, splitting the starts fairly evenly between the switch-hitting Hank Conger and the non-hitting Jeff Mathis, keeping Mathis’ bat from doing too much damage to his own offense while breaking in a rookie receiver.

Looking for AL platoons that don’t just involve the five corners or the DH slot? The Royals and Mariners have second-base platoons going at the moment, although how long Ned Yost or Eric Wedge keep to these commitments remains to be seen. In K.C., Yost is using Mike Aviles as Chris Getz’s platoon partner at second. However, Aviles is also getting semi-regular play as the team’s utility infielder, so it isn’t like he’s been pigeon-holed as much as Yost is just benching Getz against lefties. Up in Seattle, Adam Kennedy’s bat has won him a lion’s share of second-base starts at Jack Wilson’s expense -- perhaps a surprise to those convinced the Mariners’ leather fetish was getting the better of them, but Kennedy’s career record afield is far from terrible, and to Wedge’s credit he was always willing to cobble together a platoon or two during his days in Cleveland.

Overall, this makes for fairly slim pickings, but is there potential for more than this? The Tigers might be the team with the most potential variations, to the point that Jim Leyland could flirt with multi-positional solutions every bit as creative as Maddon’s. After all, the Tigers broke in Ryan Raburn in a multi-positional utility role with a lean toward starting him against lefties in the past, and using youngsters Andy Dirks and Casper Wells as platoon outfielders now. Raburn and Brennan Boesch have struggled to stick in regular roles, opening up a host of possibilities for Leyland to try to hide some of his players from the sources of some of their struggles.

Although Leyland’s track record for building platoons at all five corners is fairly extensive, it’s worth noting that he’s also fairly adaptable; while Victor Martinez has started eight of his 12 games behind the plate with a lefty on the mound, the lefty-batting Alex Avila isn’t getting hidden away from southpaws, having drawn eight starts of his own against them, while hitting better than well enough to beat a platoon label, a reminder that a platoon isn’t automatically a positive end unto itself.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

New York Yankees (29-23)

For all the dithering and complaining that’s been going on in the Bronx, the Yankees have the second-best record in the American League, propelled by the best offense in baseball. Russell Martin (.253/.363/.479) has been a gem, helping replace the disappointing production of Jorge Posada (.169/.285/.338,) and Curtis Granderson (.276/.350/.613, 15 homers) has learned to take advantage of the short right-field power alley in the new Yankee Stadium. Mark Teixeira (.258/.368/.546) looks like he has declined, but that’s masked by the low offensive numbers around the game. His 148 OPS+ would basically be tied for the second best of his career, and he’s easily been one of the top three first basemen in the AL. CC Sabathia (6-3, 2.98) has been predictably excellent, A.J. Burnett has returned to form, and the Yanks are getting great work out of retreads Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. It’s like 2005 all over again! Mariano Rivera (2.11 ERA and 13 saves) continues to defy logic on the back end and is backed up by the incredible David Robertson (35 K's in 21.1 innings and a 1.27 ERA). This isn’t exactly how they drew it up, but it’s working.

That said, the AL East is wide open and the Yankees could really use a boost by Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner. Also, anything they can do to hustle Jorge out of the lineup in favor of Jesus Montero will pay dividends. Especially since they are stuck with Derek Jeter’s mediocre production (.259/.321/.325) as the starting shortstop. And if we could stop having manufactured controversies such as “batting order-gate,” that would be awesome, please. Grade: A-.
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Boston Red Sox (30-24)

After a brutal 2-10 start that caused Red Sox Nation to go into full-on panic mode, the Boston has righted the ship by going an impressive 27-13 over its past 40 games. Adrian Gonzalez, fully recovered from his offseason shoulder surgery, has led the charge, producing a .342/.374/.602 triple-slash line with eight home runs and 30 RBIs in May. Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz have provided steady, ample lineup protection for Gonzalez, combining some serious power with top-notch on-base abilities. Carl Crawford, after being mired in a gruesome .155/.207/.227 April slump, appears to have fully rebounded in May, hitting a far more robust .308/.333/.495 with 11 extra-base hits. Pitching-wise, Josh Beckett’s re-emergence as a true ace and serious Cy Young contender has given the Red Sox three top-of-the-rotation starters with Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz flanking him. In the bullpen, Daniel Bard and Matt Albers (surprise!) have done a great job providing a sturdy bridge to re-energized closer Jonathan Papelbon.

Despite their recent run of success, the Red Sox have not been without their share of struggles. After a scorching hot start, Dustin Pedroia has cooled off considerably, hitting only .211/.331/.270 since April 21. Luckily, there are signs the pocket-sized second baseman is about to turn it around. In the rotation, the performance of John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka has been so putrid that Red Sox Nation breathed an audible sigh of relief when the two pitchers hit the disabled list. If the Red Sox are going to be serious World Series contenders, they’ll have to get consistent, steady production out of the four and five spots in their rotation. While the Red Sox have improved considerably over the last few weeks, they're still a work in progress. Grade: B.
--Chip Buck, Fire Brand of the AL

Tampa Bay Rays (28-25)

The Rays are just a game and a half back of the division lead. That sounded like a dream scenario in February. So perhaps we should be easier on this club. Nevertheless, it feels like the Rays left some meat on the bone when they squandered Boston’s terrible start and their early-season division lead. True to form, the Rays are in the hunt without obvious explanation. We should be grateful that a lineup that includes, on a regular basis, Casey Kotchman, Sam Fuld, and Reid Brignac’s corpse has generated enough thump to support the most underrated pitching staff in baseball. There is no way any Rays fan would have expected that club to be three games over .500. But the Rays have been lucky, missed chances at home (13-15), played a lot of sub-.500 teams (24 games, five more than the Yankees and 13 more than the Red Sox), and have players that will surely regress toward their career averages. So, I give them points for over-performance, but deduct points for missed opportunities. Grade: B-.
--Mark Heilig, The Ray Area

Toronto Blue Jays (28-26)

Only two games back in the stacked AL East? The Jays will take it! Jose Bautista (.356/.502/.791, 254 OPS+, 20 homers) continues to destroy AL pitching and prove that 2010 was no fluke, justifying the risk Toronto took in extending him. He’s the engine that makes the No. 2 offense in the AL go, but Adam Lind (.313/.343/.516), Yunel Escobar (.293/.368/.429) and Rookie of the Year candidate J.P. Arencibia (.259/.321/.503 ) deserve a lot of credit too. Ricky Romero (5-4, 2.88) has officially become a stud and Kyle Drabek’s star is on the rise (3-3, 4.16). And the bullpen has been outstanding everywhere except the closer role. The Jays may not have the guns to stick it out against the Yanks, Sox and Rays, but they could be big buyers this year if they decide to make a push. Upgrading the rotation would be a great start, as would be finding a new starter at either second or third base, while allowing Brett Lawrie (who has 15 homers at Triple-A Las Vegas) to take over the other spot. Grade: A-.
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Baltimore Orioles (24-28)

The three major strengths and slight surprises have been the play of Matt Wieters, Adam Jones and Zach Britton. Wieters' has stepped forward to become one of the best catchers in the American League. He has thrown out nearly half of those attempted to steal and his bat is above average. Jones' bat has exploded over the past month, but with a .402 BABIP one has to question how sustainable this is. Britton has also been a surprise as he was to have been pitching in Norfolkd. Instead, the Orioles were forced to promote him when Brian Matusz was injured at the end of spring training. Britton and his 2.35 ERA are now on pace for major consideration for AL Rookie of the Year.

The weaknesses were foreseeable. Brian Roberts' fall was expected as the early 30s is historically a wasteland for second basemen. Derrek Lee's play is also eroding and he looks like another in a line of poor first base acquisitions for the Orioles. Mark Reynolds is not making contact with the bat and when he is, it is not jumping off it like it has in years past. Reynolds' defense is also just as lackluster as advertised. Perhaps the most distressing aspect for Orioles' fans has been the play of Nick Markakis. His power has been cut in half and his defense is looking exceptionally poor. Markakis' range has been evaporating over the past few years, leaving almost all of his worth coming from his ability to prevent runners from taking extra bases. Those throws have appeared often to be off line. Hopefully, this is just a hiccup in his career. Grade: C.
--Jon Shepherd, Camden Depot

Cleveland Indians (31-20)

The Indians' season has provided far more good moments than bad. However, the bad has been really, really bad. We wonder where our starting pitching has gone, and we wonder if sometimes the Indians take the late-inning magic for granted. They seem to have developed an inability to put together a series of hits to score a run or three. The big losses over the past week have illuminated the team's weak spots. They need to put together better at-bats and score runs. Fausto Carmona and Justin Masterson need to locate their pitches better and throw more strikes. Grade B+.
--Susan Petrone and Stephanie Liscio, It's Pronounced "Lajaway"

Detroit Tigers (27-26)

If you can explain the 2011 Tigers, we're all ears. This team has been nothing less than mystifying through the first two months. They've strung together winning streaks of three, four and seven games, and skids of four, five, six and seven. Yet, they are just five game back of the Indians heading into play on Tuesday. The first two months of the season have had pleasant surprises: Justin Verlander's no-hitter against the Blue Jays, Jhonny Peralta's offensive awakening, and Alex Avila's rapid development at and behind the plate. Meanwhile, the Tigers' bullpen has given manager Jim Leyland -- and fans -- acute indigestion with its inconsistency, and the club is getting zero offense from Brandon Inge and Ryan Raburn. Still, the Tigers are in the hunt, which should make this summer entertaining, if not perplexing, in Detroit. Grade: C.
--Mike McClary, The Daily Fungo

Chicago White Sox (25-31)

Not much has gone right for the Sox so far. Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin have continued to rake. Brent Lillibridge has more homers (five) in 66 plate appearances so far than in the rest of his career combined (three in 290 PAs). And Alexei Ramirez has established himself as one of the top three shortstops in the American League. Sergio Santos and Phil Humber have risen to take up huge roles as the closer and sixth starter respectively. And Jake Peavy is back and looking OK through three starts. But offseason prize Adam Dunn has simply not hit (.181/.320/.331). John Danks and half of the bullpen have imploded, with ERAs above 5.25. A.J. Pierzynski, Gordon Beckham, Juan Pierre, and Alexis Rios are four of the least productive regulars in baseball, but have nothing on Opening Day third baseman Brent Morel, who just Sunday night drew his first walk of the season, 118 plate appearances in. The Sox are nine games back of the Indians and 10th in the American League in both runs scored per game and runs allowed. Even if everyone rights themselves, they don't look likely to make up the difference. This is not how they drew it up last winter. Grade: D-.
-- The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Kansas City Royals (23-30)

The process is under way in Kansas City with the early May call-ups of top prospects Eric Hosmer and Danny Duffy. Hosmer, in particular, has been solid, posting a line of .274/.314/.505 in his first 102 plate appearances. Meanwhile, it's all gone wrong for Royals closer Joakim Soria, who has seen his walk rate double from last season, while his strikeout rate has taken a corresponding tumble. The team flirted with contention early, but has drifted back to their natural position in the Central, where they're likely to remain for the rest of the year. Everything seems to be moving according to schedule. Grade: C.
-- Craig Brown, Royals Authority

Minnesota Twins (17-35)

Baseball in Minnesota has been an unmitigated disaster. Expected to contend after a hugely successful first year at Target Field, the Twins have seen disaster strike across the entire roster. Their starting pitching has been terrible, their injury-ravaged lineup has been abysmal, and their bullpen is a wreck. Ball fans here in Minneapolis have seen more of Joe Mauer in Head & Shoulders commercials between innings than on the field during games. Perhaps it's fitting -- the face of a franchise that has totally lost its identity is nowhere to be found. Grade: F.
-- Nick Nelson, Nick's Twins Blog

Texas Rangers (29-25)

On the one hand, it's difficult to be too displeased with an 87-win pace and sole possession of first place at the end of two injury-ravaged months. On the other hand, it could be viewed as a golden opportunity lost. The Rangers have received truly tremendous performance from a few unexpected sources, including the three-headed first base hydra of Mitch Moreland (.301/.379/.519), Mike Napoli (.229/.364/.571), and a renascent Michael Young (.340/.382/.500), and though the starting rotation depth has been so crippled by injuries that the Rangers don't really have a viable No. 6 starter right now, Colby Lewis, C.J. Wilson and Alexi Ogando have been good enough to offset most of the back-of-the-rotation difficulties.

Unfortunately, not much else has gone according to plan since the sizzling 9-1 start. The Rangers' entire Opening Day starting outfield (Julio Borbon, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz) was on the disabled list simultaneously at one point, and though it's now finally beginning to hit its stride health- and production-wise, the extended absence of two of the team's biggest superstars put a sizable dent in the Rangers' hopes of pulling away early. The largest outstanding issue, though, is the bullpen -- Neftali Feliz's 1.45 ERA truly belies just how awful he's been, and the injury bug coupled with all-around ineffectiveness has rendered this the Rangers' major Achilles' heel. If the bullpen is fixed, though ... well, look out. Grade: B.
-- Joey Matschulat, Baseball Time in Arlington

Los Angeles Angels (29-27)

If the Angels manage to get into the postseason this year, they're going to be exceptionally hard to beat behind Jered Weaver and Dan Haren, or Dared as I've taken to calling them in US Weekly. But can they get there? The continuing injury problems of Kendrys Morales have left the offense with little thump. Howie Kendrick has been remarkable in picking up some of the slack, but he's playing over his head. So are Erick Aybar, Alberto Callaspo and Maicer Izturis. All are good bets to regress. Jeff Mathis continues to soak up far too much playing time over youngster Hank Conger, and Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells have proven disappointing at the outfield corners.

The hope is that Russell Branyan can pick up some of the slack at first base, where Mark Trumbo is lost against righties and has a .294 OBP, and that Joel Piniero can stay both healthy and productive in the rotation. But this is a club that desperately needs to upgrade around the margins, get healthy, and maximize the value of who they have on hand. The AL West is very winnable right now, but somebody needs to start making moves. Grade: C+.
-- The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Seattle Mariners (27-26)

The 2011 season has been nothing short of surprising for the Mariners. Everyone knew going in that the team would be based on pitching and defense, but nobody expected the pitching to be as good as it's been. Felix Hernandez has been himself, but Michael Pineda has been a revelation, and both Jason Vargas and Doug Fister have exceeded expectations. That Erik Bedard has been healthy and effective is just gravy. The hitting has been decidedly lax, however. Ichiro has been very un-Ichiro-like, Chone Figgins has actually somehow been worse than last year, and Justin Smoak has cooled off considerably since April. I'm not sure how long this team can contend given the lack of offense, but considering what the expectations were coming in to the year, any contention at all is simply a bonus. Grade: B.
-- Conor Dawley, Pro Ball NW

Oakland Athletics (27-28)

It's no surprise that the A's would struggle to score, but they're averaging just 3.6 runs per game, and the players comprising the five infield positions have a collective OPS+ of 70. Newcomers David DeJesus and Hideki Matsui have been disappointments, and Mark Ellis looks like he might be nearing the end. On a positive note, the pitching has been all it was made out to be: The A's have had eight pitchers start at least two games, and the worst ERA among the bunch is Brandon McCarthy's 3.39. The starters have a 2.62 ERA and the staff as a whole has a 2.84 ERA. With three starting pitchers on the DL, and little offensive help on the way from Triple-A, the A's are in a precarious position heading into June. The Rangers and Angels (and yes, even the Mariners) have allowed the A's to hang around, but the A's look more like sellers than buyers as we head toward the trade deadlines. Grade: C.
-- Dan Hennessey, Baseballin' on a Budget

If you collected baseball cards in the 1980s, you'll remember the "rookie craze." You'd open a pack, desperately seeking that Dwight Gooden rookie card or Mark McGwire rookie card or Sam Horn rookie card. Those cards were going to pay for your college tuition.

I don't know if the rookie card craze still exists -- I haven't collected baseball cards in more than 20 years -- but I had a rookie craze on Wednesday night. Danny Duffy was making his major league debut for the Kansas City Royals. Zach Britton was going for the Baltimore Orioles. Jeremy Hellickson started for the Tampa Bay Rays. Julio Teheran was making his second start for the Atlanta Braves.

Here are some notes as I flipped through the action.

Danny Duffy: Listed at 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, although he doesn't look that big to me, maybe built more along the lines of somebody like Erik Bedard. ... Baby-faced, close-shaven blonde hair, looks like he should nervously be pinning a corsage on his date before the prom instead of looking calm and confident on a major league mound. ... Duffy actually retired last spring, but returned in June. He's pitched only 14 games above Class A, so the Royals are maybe rushing him a bit. ... Early on, he's relying on his fastball and occasional curveball. Works at a nice pace, moving his fastball in and out, trying to keep the ball down in the zone. Fastball speed is all over the place, according to the TV radar gun, moving around from 90 to 95 mph. ... After two scoreless innings, gets in a bases-loaded jam in the third inning with one out. Jams Adrian Beltre with an 0-1 inside fastball for a 6-4 force out and then throws two nice curveballs to get Mitch Moreland to bounce out to first. Nice job, rook. ... In the end, Duffy lasts just four innings, throwing 94 pitches, 54 for strikes. The line score looks worse than what I saw: 4 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 6 BB, 4 SO. ... On this night, he was able to get the fastball inside to right-handed hitters, but he fatigued a bit, started getting the ball up and didn't challenge the hitters if he fell behind in the count. In other words, he looked like a rookie.

Zach Britton: I love watching this kid pitch. He enters his start against the Yankees with a 5-2 record and 2.42 ERA through his first eight starts. He throws a hard sinker, and while he has just 29 strikeouts in 52 innings, opponents are hitting just .203 with a .578 OPS off him. ... He looks good early on, keeping the ball down, getting ground ball outs. The Yankees' first four hits are all ground singles through the infield. Those are the types of hits Britton gives up, as he's allowed only 11 extra-base hits over those eight starts. ... Defense lets him down in the fourth inning when second baseman Robert Andino's error leads to an unearned run. ... By the way, the last Orioles pitcher to throw 200 innings with an ERA under 3.25: Mike Mussina in 1997. And other than Mussina? Storm Davis and Mike Boddicker -- in 1984. This franchise is starving for an ace. ... Finally gives up a couple of hard-hit balls in the sixth when Alex Rodriguez singles in the gap and Robinson Cano drills a single off the right-field scoreboard. But Adam Jones gunned down A-Rod trying to stretch his hit into a double and Britton gets Nick Swisher looking to end the inning. ... Britton ends up going seven innings and gets off the hook for the "loss" when the Orioles tie it up at 1 with a run off Mariano Rivera in the ninth. ... Did I mention the Orioles need an ace? They may have one.

Jeremy Hellickson: A lot of people like to compare him to Greg Maddux, which is really code for "Right-handed pitcher, good control, knows how to pitch, not overpowering." Of course, everybody acknowledges there's only one Greg Maddux, and truth is Hellickson is nothing like Maddux, other than the lack of a big fastball. Maddux essentially relied on a moving fastball that he developed pinpoint control with. Hellickson throws the kitchen sink up at you: fastballs, changeups, curveballs, varying the speed and location with every pitch. ... He's not afraid to pitch up in the zone. In the first, he gets Yunel Escobar swinging on a 79-mph changeup that's up at the letters and gets Corey Patterson to swing through a 90-mph fastball that looks down the middle. Jose Bautista smacks a fastball at the knees into left for a single. A good pitch, in that at least Bautista didn't homer. ... Later on in the sixth, Patterson hits an outside fastball to right for a double. It wasn't a bad pitch, but Patterson was able to hook it into the corner. ... Bautista drills a liner to left on a low curve that Sam Fuld makes a nice running catch on, but Hellickson is chased when Aaron Hill doubles off the wall in left-center and Eric Thames lines his first major league hit to center. ... Hellickson had a 33/8 SO/BB ratio during his late-season call-up last year, but right now it's at 36/21 after walking three guys on this night. He lasts long enough to get credit for the win, improving his record to 5-2. ... The overall season numbers are decent, but he's also a beneficiary of Tampa's excellent defense. Without that overpowering fastball, he'll need to drop the walk rate.

Julio Teheran: Just 20 years old, his start on May 7 against the Phillies was supposed to be a one-start cameo due to a rainout backlog, but he's back already for another try. I watched that Phillies game and he didn't look ready for the majors, with little command of his fastball. ... Watching the Arizona feed as the game begins and the announcers say he threw 23 changeups in his first start. ... He gets two quick outs, goes to a 3-2 count to Justin Upton and throws another changeup. As Mark Grace says on the broadcast, "Justin was not fooled." Upton crushes it about 15 rows over the fence in left-center. ... In the fourth, with two outs and two runners on, Ryan Roberts is up. On a 2-2 count, Teheran goes to the fastball this time, but Roberts cuts down on his swing (these are not your 2010 Diamondbacks) and lines an RBI single to right. ... Teheran is done after four innings and 83 pitches and leaves trailing 2-0. Like his first start, he shows that he lacks a knockout pitch, as he again strikes out just one batter. Grace likes what he sees, however: "I was very impressed with the young man. Showed good moxie out there. Wasn't afraid. Went right after the hitters."

* * * *

I was going to rank this year's rookie pitchers, but we'll do that another time. I may be biased as a Mariners fan, but it's clear that Michael Pineda is by the far most electrifying of these rookie starters. He's like a Don Drysdale or Justin Verlander: Tall, overpowering and intimidating. When Pineda gave up his first major league homer a couple starts ago to Mitch Moreland, he had a look of disbelief on his face. He's a very confident young pitcher. Of course, I suppose if I was 6-foot-7, 250 pounds, with the ability to throw 97 mph with control, I'd be pretty confident as well.

Time will tell how good this group will turn out to be, but I did a quick look back at some rookie pitching crops of the past 30 years. This isn't comprehensive and is sorted by rookie season (not necessarily debut season, so a September call-up season wouldn't count). Anyway, here are some of the best years I found (the 2006 group looks pretty special and check out that 1984 class):

2006: Justin Verlander, Josh Johnson, Cole Hamels, Jon Lester, Jered Weaver, James Shields Matt Cain, Chad Billingsley, Adam Wainwright.

2000: Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Mark Buehrle, Johan Santana, Brad Penny, Bronson Arroyo, A.J. Burnett.

1987: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, David Cone, Chuck Finley.

1984: Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Mark Langston, Bret Saberhagen, Jose Rijo, Orel Hershiser, John Franco, Jimmy Key, Mark Gubicza, Sid Fernandez.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Thursday, we gave you the list of the past three homegrown pitchers to win at least 50 games for each NL franchise. Today, we give you the AL list.

For whatever reason, it seems the AL has been a little better at developing pitchers who meet our 50-win criteria. Whereas several National League franchises had to back to the early '80s or even the '70s to find their third guy, only two AL teams had to go beyond the late '80s -- the Tigers and Red Sox.

A quick note on the Red Sox and Yankees. This chart shows how those two teams have relied extensively on trades and/or free agent signings to fill out their rotations. After Jon Lester, the next Boston pitcher on the list is Roger Clemens, who debuted in 1984. Since then, most of their top pitchers have been acquired via trade (Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Derek Lowe), or in the case of Tim Wakefield, after the Pirates released him. Clay Buchholz, with 30 wins, is their current homegrown guy with the best shot at winning 50.

For the Yankees, we get Chien-Ming Wang, but then we have to go back to 1995-1996, when Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Ramiro Mendoza debuted. Rivera and Mendoza were primarily relievers, of course, so if you want a third starter, you have to go all the way to Ron Guidry. (I didn't include Orlando Hernandez, who was really an international free agent and not a homegrown product.)