AL Central Position Player Projected WAR

Glorious tables to follow.  All the data is from fangraphs' two WAR projections, CHONE and the fans.  Points of note:

1)There were a few very young/obscure players whom the fans didn't have at least 10 votes on, in which case CHONE was used.  

2)Each lineup projected by the fans has on average 15% more wins than CHONE projects.

The fans very consistently seem to provide optimistic projections of both playing time and rate stats for expected starters.  I think these can be thought of best as perfect world projections, where the player neither slumps nor gets injured.  CHONE is instead a weighted average, with regression built in for both such phenomena.  The difference between the two is possibly a useful measure of upside.

For reference: Average for American League lineups is about 16 WAR.  For a starting staff, it's 13 and for a bullpen, it's 4 WAR.  A team with a replacement level lineup, staff and bullpen would win 48 games.  16 + 13 + 4 + 48 = 81 wins, an average team.

Total

White Sox

Beckham has to hit something like .280/.350/.450 to manage that mark, but it's hard to see him missing that.  Total Zone hates Alex Rios and all the other metrics disagree with TZ, so assume Rios will be in the 2-2.5 range.  Also, I think The Versatility Show could be worth 5-10 runs if Ozzie played his cards right.  So that's what'll be in play if he gets his wish.  Unless Vizquel gets significant PT there.  Which should be cause for firing, since it's totally indefensible.  It's more like a 3 win gap between the Sox and Twins' lineups.

Twins

The Hardy acquisition was a real difference maker.  Hardy has been worth 11 runs more than the average shortstop per 150 games played defensively over his career.  When he hits for league average, he's worth nearly 4 wins.  This makes up nicely for OC's absence, though it also means Delmon Young will play full time.  The fans don't see that one working out.  Meanwhile, the Twins still have room for upgrades.  Because of Punto's flexibility, they can probably find someone decent and cheap out there to play either second or third who won't suck quite as much as Brendan Harris.

Tigers

A bunch of players at or below average and Miguel Cabrera.  Austin Jackson, Ryan Raburn, Scott Sizemore and Alex Avila represent the upside on this squad, which is to say there probably isn't that much.

Indians

Cabrera, Sizemore, and Choo are a nice little core that expects to add Carlos Santana at some point this season, with only Hafner representing anything near old on the team.  The Indians are a year away or more, depending on how the pitching shapes up, but they could surprise if they mature early.  Supposedly, there's plenty of talent, including pitching in the pipeline like Nick Hagadone and Alex White.  Mark Shapiro isn't expecting the Indians to stay down for long, we probably shouldn't either.  

Royals

I guess this isn't current, since the Royals just signed Scott Podsednik to play somewhere for this team, but not to replace the actual problem, Jose Guillen's Terrible Contract.  $12 million dollars, 0 wins.  If the Royals got market rate production from that money this season, they'd win 80+ games.