Guardians Will Have More Competition In AL Central

The American League Central has acquired a reputation around baseball as being one of the ... well, weaker divisions when it comes to competitiveness.

It only took the Minnesota Twins 87 wins to win the division last season and move on to the postseason. The Cleveland Guardians on the other hand finished third with a record of 76-86.

We're a long way off from Spring Training and the start of next season, a lot can still happen, but it does appear that teams in this division want to get rid of this negative stature. The Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers are making some noise during free agency.

This also means the Guardians will have more competition if they hope to win back the AL Central in 2024.

Kansas City Royals

Kansas City was a tough team to watch last season. KC had a starter ERA of 5.12 which was the second worst in the American League. This was an obvious need to address this offseason and they've done just that.

The Royals have reportedly signed SP Seth Lugo, SP Michael Wacha, SP Kyle Wright, and RP Will Smith to contracts to bolster their new rotation pitching depth. None of these pitchers may be Cy Young candidates, but will certainly make them a better team.

Hunter Renfroe was also signed to help out with their lackluster offense.

This KC team won't be nearly like they were last season.

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers are another team who've been pretty active in the free-agent market. Detroit finished second in the AL Central in 2023 behind an upstart offense which could take a nice jump next season.

They haven't been as active as the Royals, but have been identifying the holes that need to be filled. This led them to sign SP Jack Flaherty to a one-year deal.

Cleveland still sits in a good position in their division, but they'll certainly have a much more difficult path to the playoffs based on how active the teams around them are.