Gut Response: Are the Royals Better than the White Sox?

The White Sox pitching staff is still really good — Danks, Floyd, and Peavy (for the 2/3 of the season when he pitches) are above average starters, Sale might be too (and might come pretty close to replacing Buehrle’s value), and Humber is not bad for a back of rotation starter. Thornton is really good too, and Reed has a good chance to be too.

The position players are kind of a mess. The Royals might not have a player as valuable as Ramirez (factoring in defense and position), and Konerko is still a very good hitter, but after that, every other position is a bid question mark — they could be decent as they all have talent but they could be horrible.

The Sox are in trouble long term, but they might have enough talent to push .500 this year (I would take the under though).

this is the mix of teams that could be anywhere from No. 2-4 in the Central.

I look for both teams to be within a game or two of .500, but give the Royals a better chance of staying relatively healty.

The ChiSox won’t score any runs, and while Peavy, Danks, Sale and Floyd are good— I doubt they will be so good that any of them will win more than 12 games. Especially after they get frustrated from a lack of run support and mediocre ’pen. I imagine Floyd and Humber or Peavy will get traded at the deadline for some prospect bats. Sox will win 60-66 games.

KC in the meantime has put together a great bullpen which should make its mediocre rotation seem better and produce at least two 15 game winners (I’m guessing Hoch and Sanchez). And KC will score a good amount of runs. KC should win 79-85 games (hopefully more).

Case closed.

The White Sox are a team that is on the downhill slide and moving quickly. For as goofy as he is, I think WS will miss Guillen. Ventura’s inexperience will be costly to them. Sox bullpen isn’t going to help them. Rotation is strong but can Peavy really be counted upon? Yes, Dunn and Rios can be as bad. Dunn is at an age when his skills could drop off the production cliff. Rios hasn’t been good in a while now. Kornerko and AJ are on the downhill, too.

Going to be a long summer for the Sox. Put it on the board!

We’ve got a better lineup, and one that has upside, while their guys are all going to get worse. Dunn is dunn. Their only player I like is Konerko, and he’s not getting any younger.

My WAG is the Royals win 78, the Twins are in the 60s, and the Sox struggle to win 72. Cleveland comes in somewhere around the Royals, and Detroit takes the division by a wide margin. This year. Just wait until 2013. (Wait, have I ever heard anyone say that before?)

Danks and Floyd are both solid starters but I think the other 3 are questionable for different reasons. Humber is a huge regression candidate, I don’t believe at this point he’s “turned the corner”. Sale has been good from the pen but there is no guarantee he can make the transition to the rotation. Peavy is an injury risk and there is little in the way of SP depth in the system.
I think their offense will be so bad that it might even make our rotation good. I don’t envision a lot of improvement from Dunn and Konerko is definitely on the downside of his career. Their young players really haven’t impressed me that much either. Beckham de Aza and Morel COMBINED for 1.8 fWAR last season. Viciedo had 2.8 fWAR but in his age 27 (prime) season.