The first three month of 2025 the Detroit Tigers got off to a 53-32 start but then in the back half of the season they played 34-43 baseball. From April 1 through September 27 they were in first place for all but two days, then they lost their final game of the season and finished in second place one game out of first behind the Cleveland Guardians. That isn’t going to happen again and the Tigers are going to be the American Leagues Central Division Champions with 91 wins.
The Kansas City Royals are going to get their starting pitching rolling again in 2026 and will give the Tigers a run for their money but in the end the Tigers with ace pitchers Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez will prevail and the Royals will finish second with a 86-76 record.
The Minnesota Twins will play better baseball than most of the talking heads and Twins fans are expecting. It is easy to understand why everyone is writing off the Twins for 2026. First of all, President Derek Falvey orchestrated the fire sale of all fire sales and traded away 11 players from their active and 40-man rosters. This mid-season sell-off, driven by ownership to cut payroll, included key players like Carlos Correa, Griffin Jax, Jhoan Duran, Willi Castro, Harrison Bader and Ty France affecting nearly 40% of their active roster. Then when the season ended Falvey fired manager Rocco Baldelli and most of the coaching staff. The Pohlad family had stated they were going to sell the team but changed their minds and brought in several minority owners to pay off about $500 million of debt the team had accrued. When the Pohlads finally announced who the new minority owners were in mid-December they also announced that Tom Pohlad would take over day-to-day oversight of the organization, succeeding his brother Joe Pohlad who supposedly was not totally on board with the change but in the end relented. If that wasn’t enough, the Twins and Derek Falvey supposedly agreed to part ways at the end of January just a couple of weeks before Spring Training was to start. During the off season the Twins made no moves of consequence on the free agent or trading fronts. After Spring Training started their ace Pablo Lopez came up with and elbow issue in his first day of practice and has since under-gone TJ surgery and is out for the season. Even with all this going on this long time Twins fan still predicts a better than expected season for Minnesota, one in which they finish in the middle of the pack with an 80-82 record primarily because they have numerous good young players that will be called up as the season progresses.
The Cleveland Guardians won the division on the last day of the 2025 season but they won’t be in the running this year and will finish fourth with a 75-87 record just barely beating out the Chicago White Sox.
The improving Chicago White Sox have lost 100 or more games for three consecutive seasons but they will finally break that streak and finish with a 74-88 record but it still will leave them as the last place team in the AL Central. Maybe next year boys!
Those of you that are disappointed in my prognostications need not fret because my picks in the past have not always seldom never been correct. So don’t worry about it and enjoy the 2026 MLB season. If I don’t get it right this year, there will always be next year.
Just like Yogi Berra said, ( or Joe Garigiola): “You know, you never know”.