BaseballProspectus.com's Joe Sheehan bashed the Minnesota Twins and half-heartedly endorsed the Chicago White Sox in his recent forecast of which teams will make the playoffs. (Read the article by clicking here [1]. Sports Illustrated picked up the story for its Web site.)

Not that the Twins are a shoe-in to win the American League Central Division, but they certainly don't need to make a "surprising trade," as Sheehan insists.

I would also argue that the Twins don't have, as Sheehan says, "massive holes in their lineup." Because they don't have holes in the lineup, the Twins are leading the league in batting average with runners in scoring position. Sheehan calls this "overperforming," a theory which is pessimistically reiterated throughout his forecast -- all young players who are perfoming well can be predicted to fail. Nice.

Instead of taking the pessimistic approach, you and I can choose to take the optimistic approach, which is this: The Twins are actually an exciting team to watch. They are a good team. And they have a lot of talent. They could win this division. The Tigers started out the season 0-7, and no team has ever come back to win the division after that kind of start. They probably won't win it. The White Sox are, well, the White Sox and not really a threat to do anything in the playoffs even if they get there. They probably won't win the division, since their habit in recent years is to fall apart.

By the way, Sheehan pokes a hole in his own prediction by saying that the top two young pitchers for the White Sox will fail, too.

The one thing the writer might be right on is that Francisco Liriano will make an appearance in the bigs this year.

And just for the record, I foresee the Twins -- holey lineup or not -- coming from behind and taking the pennant from the White Sox.