Pitchers and catchers have reported, spring training is starting and baseball that counts is looming, which means the offseason is nearing an end. Now, we can take a look and proudly declare who won or lost the offseason before actual baseball does it’s thing and makes us realize how foolish we were. For teams that appear to be attempting to contend, we’ll be looking at whether the moves they made should help them do so. For rebuilding teams, we’ll be looking at whether they are getting enough for the players they are trading away. And then there are the teams that don’t seem to know what they’re doing or otherwise don’t fit into either of those categories, but don’t worry, we’ll address them, too.

Today we’re covering the AL Central, but, in case you missed it: here’s the NL West,  AL West, NL East, AL East and NL Central, .

Cleveland Indians

Despite being ten games under .500 in early August, Cleveland was able to turn it around and finish at 81-80, only 4.5 games back from earning a Wild Card berth. The Tribe has had a relatively quiet offseason, both in terms of the numbers and types of moves, but let’s look at each of the moves and see if it should be enough to get them to the postseason in 2016.

The first signing of note was Rajai Davis to a one-year, $5.25 million contract with incentives that could take it up to close to $6.5 million. The 35-year-old Davis is coming off a .258/.306/.440 2015 with the Tigers. With their star outfielder Michael Brantley out to start the season after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery, they certainly needed some depth until his return. Plus, with Davis’s career numbers against LHPs (.296/.351/.448), the Indians could deploy him in some platoon situations once Brantley returns.

The next move was signing first baseman Mike Napoli to a one-year, $7 million contract with $3 million in incentives. Napoli’s overall numbers last year (.224/.324/.410) were buoyed in large part by how he hit down the stretch after being traded to Texas (295/.396/.513)  and Cleveland is clearly banking on him delivering something closer to his career 123 OPS+ or the 143 OPS+ he put up with Texas last season, rather than the 85 OPS+ he put in Boston. This move will presumably shift Carlos Santana to a primary role as DH and put the kibosh on discussions of his defensive abilities.

Cleveland also signed reliever Tommy Hunter to one-year, $2 million deal. Hunter’s 2015 overall numbers were disappointing compared to his 2013-2014 (2.88 ERA, 6.9 K/9,1.6 BB/9) but he his numbers were crushed by giving up a ton of hits after he was traded to the Cubs. Hunter underwent offseason core-muscle surgery and won’t be ready at the beginning of the season, and he’s a smart bullpen depth addition as a bounceback candidate given the modest cost.

The last big signing for the Indians went down just last week when Cleveland signed 36-year old Juan Uribe to a one-year deal worth a little less than $5 million. While Uribe’s 1.7 WAR, 105 OPS+ 2015 was a bit of a disappointment compared to his 2013 and 2014, that really speaks more to how excellent his prior two season were, where he hit .295/.334/.439 and put up 8.1 WAR. Uribe has played excellent defense at third since he started playing there full time, which has helped him quietly been one of the most valuable third basemen since 2013, despite his more average hitting last season.

With Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, Trevor Bauer, Cody Anderson and Josh Tomlin all available to start games, there was a lot of mumbling about whether the Indians would trade away a piece of their excellent pitching staff for some offensive help, but that didn’t happen. Rather, Cleveland opted to hold on to all of their pitchers and sign veterans to one-year deals.

If Cleveland’s pitching is as good as it was last year, Brantley recovers to prior form and shortstop Francisco Lindor continues to rake after coming in second in Rookie of the Year voting, the moves they made could have them running away with the division, much less earning a Wild Card berth. While there were better options for upgrading the offense available, them’s the breaks when you’re a bottom-payroll team, and multiple projections have Cleveland taking the division, so they must have done something right.

Grade: B

Kansas City Royals

We finished up the Indians talking about projections, and that’s where we’ll start with the reigning champs. In 2013, PECOTA projected the Royals to go 76-86 and the Royals flipped those numbers around. In 2014, PECOTA went with 79-83 and the Royals won 89 games and came within a game of winning the World Series. In 2015, PECOTA went with 72-90 and the Royals went 95-67 and won the damn thing. Even PECOTA developer and sabermetric superstar Nate Silver addressed the fallibility of the projection system during the 2015 season as the Royals were once again outperforming their projections. Well, the 2016 PECOTA projections are out and they have the Royals going 76-86 (worse than the rebuilding Brewers) and finishing last in the division. Let’s see if their offseason really portends all that doom and gloom.

There weren’t too many trades to speak of this offseason, as the only trade sent a young infield prospect, Jose Martinez, to the Cardinals for Tony Cruz, who represents a potentially minor upgrade over presumed incumbent backup Drew Butera. Salvador Perez is still going to be catching as many games as possible (he’s already been breaking modern records on that front), so that’s about all there is to say about that.

In terms of the bullpen, the Royals non-tendered Greg Holland this year, which was totally unsurprising since Holland underwent Tommy John and missed the end of the season. While the bullpen didn’t exactly struggle in Holland’s absence, KC brought Joakim Soria back into the fold on a 3-year, $25 million deal, and this move certainly strengthens the bullpen situation (unless the rumors about possible conversion to a starter end up to be true).

When December passed and the market for outfielders sitting relatively untapped save for the Heyward signing, the Royals signed Alex Gordon to a four-year deal with $72 million guaranteed. This was a big pickup for the Royals, as earlier in the offseason it didn’t appear that the Royals would be able to bring Gordon back. What appears to be a hometown discount on Gordon’s part is a blessing for the mid-market Royals, and it makes it highly unlikely that Gordon won’t produce enough to outperform his contract. This was, by far, the best thing to happen to the Royals this offseason.

Moving onto pitching, with mid-season pickup Johnny Cueto gone to the Giants, the Royals needed to do something to upgrade their rotation. The big pitcher they signed, Ian Kennedy, doesn’t exactly scream “upgrade” and, if Gordon was the best thing this offseason, Kennedy is the worst. Kennedy may have gotten Cy Young votes in 2011, but in 2012 he was merely average (101 ERA+) and since then, he has been pretty terrible, with an 84 ERA+ over 2013-2015. GM Dayton Moore is clearly hoping that Kauffman Stadium and the Royals’ defense will help Kennedy bounce back, but this is a pretty big gamble on their part. Counterpoint: if they could turn Edinson Volquez around, maybe they can do the same with Kennedy.

The Royals are also taking a flyer on LHP Mike Minor, signing him to a two-year $7.25 million deal with a mutual third-year option. Although Minor’s 2015 (75 ERA+, 4.77 ERA) led to his non-tender by Atlanta, he’s also only one season removed from a 117 ERA+ and 3.21 ERA, so he’s definitely a bounceback candidate.

With Zobrist gone, second base looks like a black hole with Omar Infante atop the depth chart, but other than that, the lineup looks pretty solid. The starting pitching has a bunch of question marks, but the defense behind them should still be stellar and the bullpen should be able to come in and save the day yet again. All in all, while it would have been nice to see the Royals upgrade the rotation further or do anything at second, the mostly young core is still together and their biggest move of the offseason was a great signing to keep said core together. While the projections clearly don’t like the Royals as assembled, the front office is either seeing something the projections don’t or getting lucky year after year and, either way, I’ll take the over on the PECOTA projection.

Grade: B-

Detroit Tigers

While the Royals’ goal this offseason was to basically keep the gang together and make a few minor tweaks, the Tigers clearly wanted to shake things up after missing the postseason for the first time since 2010 and finishing under .500 for the first time since 2008. With owner Mike Ilitch on the record saying that he would pay whatever it takes to win, newly promoted GM Al Avila was the busiest GM in the division, so let’s take a look at the moves he made.

Avila’s first move of the offseason was to send a couple of prospects, Javier Betancourt and Manny Pina, to the Brewers for their closer, Francisco Rodriguez. This move was pretty clearly a win for both sides, with the Brewers rebuilding and the Tigers wanting some stability in their bullpen. While K-Rod’s velocity has been decreasing for a few years now, his strikeout-to-walk ratio has been improving (2013: 3.86, 2014: 4.06, 2015: 5.64) and he’s remained effective by changing up his pitch repertoire and throwing his changeup more. The Tigers are only on the hook for one season but have a team option for another year if all goes well. All in all, not a bad way to start the offseason.

The bullpen tinkering didn’t stop there. Detroit signed 32-year old journeyman Mark Lowe to a two-year, $11 million contract. While Lowe is coming off his best season by far (1.96 ERA, 5.08 SO/W and 1.055 WHIP), his numbers from 2011 to 2014 (4.28 ERA, 1.69 SO/W and 1.466 WHIP) tell a different story, making this a somewhat iffy move. The last major bullpen move of note was trading a couple of lesser prospects to the Yankees for LHP Justin Wilson, who throws 95, has three years of team control left and has been putting solid numbers for the past three years (3.05 ERA, 2.38 SO/W and 1.61 WHIP) makes a lot more sense.

On the starting pitching front, the big news this offseason was, of course, signing Jordan Zimmermann to a five-year, $110 million deal (covered previously here). While Zimmermann had a down year last year relative to his prior four, the price of his contract relative to the other premium pitching free agents makes this a worthwhile move on the Tigers’ part and a big win for them. On the other hand, the Tigers went out and signed Mike Pelfrey to a two-year, $16 million deal. While this isn’t a ton of money committed, Pelfrey is coming off of his best full season since 2010, has struggled with injuries and his “best full season” was a 4.26 ERA and 1.4 WAR over 164 innings. While there were worse ways to commit money this offseason, this signing is pretty “meh.”

In the outfield, the first move to replace the departing Rajai Davis was to trade a couple of unheralded pitching prospects to the Braves to bring Cameron Maybin back into the fold. Maybin is coming off of a year where his defense suffered and brought down his overall value and he’s had a few years of lackluster performance at the plate since putting together strong back-to-back years in 2011 and 2012. If this was the big move in the outfield, it would have been a disappointing offseason, but the Tigers signed Justin Upton which pushes the Maybin trade into “depth” territory. We’ve already covered the Upton trade in depth here, but it suffices to say that this was a great signing at a great price for Detroit.

All in all, the Tigers made some great signings, accompanied by some OK signings. You have to squint to see a championship team here, but the division is really up in the air. Plus, Detroit has a lot of money and years committed to aging veterans already and they made it through this offseason without tying their hands too much for the future and improved their bullpen, to boot, so they look like they did pretty alright.

Grade: B+

Chicago White Sox

Last year around this time, the White Sox were one of the “it teams” of the offseason when they looked to build around their young talent in Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton. They added Jeff Samardzija, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, Zach Duke, and $28 million payroll but they only improved three wins to finish with a 76-86 record, good for their third straight season with a losing record. Did they do enough this offseason to finally take advantage of their young core?

By far the biggest move for the White Sox was the three-team trade with the Reds and Dodgers that sent third baseman Todd Frazier to Chicago. First off, third base was a wasteland for the White Sox last year. Even though Frazier cooled off in the second half, he was still worth 4.0 WAR last year, good for a positive 5.3 WAR differential at the hot corner. So, yeah, this is clearly an upgrade for Chicago. Not only that, but as discussed in our review of the Reds’ offseason, the Reds clearly should have gotten more for Frazier, which makes this situation even better for the White Sox, as they, by the power of deductive reasoning, underpaid for Frazier. This was a huge coup for Chicago.

Additionally, having Frazier at third allows Chicago to play defense-first Tyler Saladino at short rather than third, where his bat was certainly not going to cut it. GM Rick Hahn also signed Jimmy Rollins to a minor-league deal, so he may end up as the starter come opening day. Either way, shortstop was a problem last year, but with some combination of Saladino and Rollins taking over for Alexei Ramirez while Chicago awaits the arrival of promising prospect Tim Anderson, this is another small upgrade.

Continuing around the diamond to second, Hahn traded a couple of pitching prospects to the A’s for Brett Lawrie. While this isn’t exactly the magnitude of upgrade that the Frazier trade was, Lawrie has, excepting his first two pretty great seasons, been worth around 2 WAR a year, hitting a bit and playing acceptable defense, making him very much an average player. As with last year’s third base situation, it’s worth noting that second base wasn’t much better. Even upgrading to “average” will clearly help out Chicago.

With first set with Jose Abreu, they didn’t need to shake up the entire infield, but they did make changes at catcher. Gone are Tyler Flowers and Geovany Soto, replaced by Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro, in the one infield swap that doesn’t really look like much of an upgrade, especially if you are into defensive metrics. This move looks pretty lateral, at best. As for the rest of the position players, Chicago is hoping for bounceback seasons from Cabrera, the continued development of Eaton, the development of Avisail Garcia and for LaRoche to get back into positive WAR territory as a full time DH.

With Sale, Quintana and Carlos Rodon as the top-three starting trio, Hahn brought in Mat Latos on a one-year $3 million deal. Clubhouse issues aside, Latos comes with plenty of upside. While his 2015 was something he’d like to forget about, between 2010 and 2014, he was a useful player (3.27 ERA, 8.2 K/9, 2.6 BB/9) and the level of commitment on Chicago’s part makes this a worthwhile gamble. Hahn didn’t really do much to upgrade the bullpen, but that wasn’t a huge problem for the White Sox last year relative to the upgrades he made, so that seems like another good move.

The moves that the White Sox made all in all look like either large improvements, small improvements or at least lateral moves. While they don’t look to be world beaters like their neighbors on the North Side, the division is (once again) up in the air, so they are definitely in the mix after a solid offseason.

Grade: B+

Minnesota Twins

While the White Sox and Tigers were very busy rejiggering this offseason, the Royals were trying to keep the gang together and the Indians were searching for some small upgrades, the Twins were, well, not doing very much at all. The Twins finished 2015 with an 83-79 record, good enough for 2nd place in the division and three games out of a Wild Card spot. It would make sense that a team that came that close to making the playoffs, that had improved 13 games from the prior season, wouldn’t sit pat while the rest of the teams in its division worked to take advantage of what could be a fairly close divisional race. Nope, the Twins made a total of two major transactions this offseason.

The first was to sign Korean slugger Byung-ho Park to a four-year contract with a team option for 2020. With the posting fee, the total damage to the Twins comes in just north of $6 million per year. While there is always uncertainty when international players head stateside, the success of Park’s ex-teammate Jung-ho Kang on the Pirates combined with the fact that Park “can hit the snot out of the ball” created a situation where Park was almost inevitably going to find a home in the MLB. Even if he is as of yet unproven against MLB pitching, Park is a great signing at what the Twins paid and it’s quite likely that he lives up to his side of the deal.

The only other move for the Twins this offseason was sending centerfielder Aaron Hicks to the Yankees for catcher John Ryan Murphy. Hicks was coming off his best year to date, but he still only posted a 95 OPS+. Murphy was also coming off his best year to date, posting a 103 OPS+ and he also comes with an extra year of team control. The move makes a modicum of sense, as Park is going to DH and probably share some time with Joe Mauer at first, and the Twins have stated that phenom Miguel Sano is going to be mostly holding down right field and are hoping that Byron Buxton breaks out.

That’s it, though. With a rotation containing Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana, Kyle Gibson and Ricky Nolasco, the Twins’ front office must be hoping that RHP prospect Jose Berrios is ready soon. While the Twins were wise not to go crazy and trade away young talent, they certainly could have stood to make some more incremental upgrades as so many of their division rivals did.

Grade: C-