Filling the Holes: AL North

Filling the Holes will take a team-by-team look at what each team needs to address in the off-season. We'll look at this by division.

This episode of Filling The Holes is brought to you by spackle. Nothing fills a hole quite like spackle.

Cleveland (112-50, division champs): The Wahoos had a great lineup in season one. Seven regulars had averages over .300, four had 1.000+ OPS scores and they scored more than 1,000 runs. Only one player with more than 350 at bats had a batting average less than .280. Xavier Olsen, who rates in the 70s, batted.258 with an ugly .661 OPS. I think you expect more than that from a middle infielder that costs $3.8m+. Luckily, he is in a walk year. NEEDS: A second basemen worthy of playing in this lineup. A good short reliever and a good innings eating reliever.

Milwaukee (91-71, 2nd in the division, wild card): tsteve28 killed my off-season plan by locking up potential free agent Mikey Hall to a five-year, $28m extension. Hall returns to a great 1-2-3 combination that includes Yoo-Nah Kim and J.J. Lambert. Unfortunately, the other two arms in their starting five -- Carlton Sepeda and Pascual Cortes -- were not as impressive. But, the real problem lies in their startling lineup. MVP candidate Len Heiserman is in a walk year. 60-home run hitters Carlos Johnson and Felipe Hernandez and lineup ynchpin Stan Bowie, among others, are walking into arbitration hearings with pretty good cases. NEEDS: A long hard think about which players are worth it, which aren't and where the money comes from. Oh, and a good starting pitcher to anchor the back end of the rotation.

Detroit (83-79, 3rd in the division): zar had his guys in the hunt for a wild card berth until very late in the process. But, their pitching let them down and they went 12-12 in the homestretch. Ruben Otanez (22-5) and Mel Petersen (14-9) provided stability at the top of the rotation, but the seven other pitchers who started went a combined 33-57. Of course, the offense did them no favors. Only four players had double-digit home run figures and only one had a .900+ OPS. I think you expect more from a team with a $93.3m payroll. NEEDS: Starting pitchers and one more serious bat.

Minnesota (68-94, 4th in the division): Another well paid ($92.1m), underachieving club. There's at least $8m on the bottom of that stat sheet (Stan Bieser, Luis Chavez, Matt Parker) that could stand to be reallocated. It's actually a good offensive team, with five .300_ hitters and a pair of 30+ HR hitters. But, where they have in batting, they don't in pitching. Their starters were unimpressive, with only one starter achieving an ERA less than 5.00. Closer Del Holtz blew 10 saves and let batters on base nearly 36 percent of the time. Without looking, I hope that dwrightjr7 has some expiring contracts that can be turned into quality free agents or free up spots for the kids on the farm. NEEDS: Pitching. All kinds.

Blogged with the Flock Browser