The Indians won just 65 games a year ago, and in the process, traded away two of their best players in Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee. Their trades of major league talent for minor league prospects emphasize that the team is rebuilding, but yet, I think Cleveland could surprise quite a few people this year. This team isn’t that bad.

At the plate, these guys are going to do some damage. Asdrubal Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, and Shin-Soo Choo are all good on base guys with power and speed, and then some combination of Travis Hafner, Russell Branyan, and Matt LaPorta provide some power in the middle. Even the 7-9 hitters won’t be terrible, especially once Carlos Santana claims the catching job at some point during the season.

The pitching has issues, certainly, and I wouldn’t pick the Indians to win the AL Central this year, but they could hang around for a while and make things interesting. And the future only looks better in 2011 and beyond.

The core of the team is young and cheap, as the organization has quality players or high level prospects at nearly every position on the diamond. The rotation is a big question mark, but there are a quantity of arms to sort through with differing levels of potential. The bullpen is full of young power arms who rack up strikeouts. Give this team a year to mature and figure out how many starters they need to add, and they could be a serious contender in the AL again. There’s that much young talent in place.

And, despite the backlash against the Indians front office for the lack of results, this is still one of the best run organizations in the game. They have a large enough payroll to win, especially considering how many below market contracts they’ll have on the team, and the farm system is deep enough to provide necessary trade chips for when the organization shifts into go-for-it mode.

Don’t sleep on the Indians – they’re on the verge of being good once again.

On talent, the Dodgers may be top ten. They’re the favorites in the NL West this year (or at least co-favorites with Colorado) with a club built around mostly young talent, including several of the best under-27 players in the game. The core trio of Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, and Chad Billingsley are tough to beat, and they’re surrounded by quality or upside at most spots.

So, why are they 14th? The Divorce. The uncertainty surrounding the ownership of the Dodgers is a big problem. Frank McCourt can talk about how it will be business as usual once everything gets settled and the court gives him control of the team, but that’s not the only possible outcome, and he knows it. There’s a reason they didn’t really spend any money this winter.

The whole thing is a mess. The revelations that have surfaced in the divorce proceedings paint the McCourts in an even less flattering light than before, which is saying something. Any owner that would essentially use his team as an ATM to finance his personal lifestyle is a problem, and that description undersells how the McCourts behaved with Dodger money.

As a Dodger fan, I can only imagine the frustration when you see the team declining to offer arbitration to players who clearly won’t accept it, because of the perceived risk, yet later finding out that the team has both of the McCourts sons on their payroll at a total of $600,000 per year, when neither actually work for the Dodgers. I bet Logan White would love to have another $600,000 to spend on the draft. I can only imagine how much they could upgrade their information systems with a $600,000 per year investment.

Regardless of how it turns out, the McCourts have been exposed as people you don’t want owning your team. Through their own personal issues, they have created a cloud that hangs over the team, and is now affecting the way they put together their ball club.

If I’m a Dodger fan, I’m hoping that the Judge orders a sale of the team. But, no matter what, this doesn’t look like its going to end any time soon, so while 2010 should be an exciting year for LA fans as they push for a playoff berth, it’s all secondary to the drama of the owners.

Ahh, the Mets. So much to say in just 600 words.

Obviously, they’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last year. Omar Minaya has taken a beating here and elsewhere, and the organization appears to be in something of a mess, with the organizational flow chart kind of summing up the front office. Feuds with the players and media, a GM who may or may not be allowed to handle conference calls, an involved (to say the least) ownership group… it’s all just a big circus at times.

It didn’t help that everything that could have gone wrong last year did, from the star players getting hurt to David Wright losing his power, and the team fell apart as a result. As such, the Mets have been the butt of many jokes over the lsat 12 months. Spending a lot of money to be terrible will do that to you, especially when you play in New York.

But, despite all the jokes and all the problems, the Mets actually aren’t in that bad of shape. The revenue stream from being in New York with a new ballpark is significant, obviously, but the core of a good team is still there. Despite last year’s debacle, few teams have a group that can match Wright-Reyes-Beltran-Santana. And it’s not exactly barren after that, either.

Jason Bay may be wildly overpaid, but he’s not useless. There is a mix of solid role players and some good young players. The farm system boasts a couple of high ceiling youngsters. The roster isn’t perfect, but with a few breaks, they could contend this year, and a better management team could build a beast of a team with the resources they have.

In many ways, the Mets are where the Mariners were a couple of years ago – the joke of the league, with some core talent dragged down by bad decision making upstairs. But, a new front office can fix a lot of things in pretty short order, and since the Mets front office probably can’t survive another bad year, the options for them are essentially win or clean house. Neither option is all that bad.

So, while the Mets may do a lot of things hilariously wrong right now, I don’t think fixing the organizations is that big of a task. They don’t have to burn the whole thing down – just get some new people in charge, make some better use of the money they have to spend, and the Mets could be challenging for the NL crown again. It probably won’t happen in 2010, but I don’t think it will take that long.

There are few teams in baseball with as much variance in their potential 2010 outcomes as the Diamondbacks. They have a roster full of questions, but for each one, they also have a potential answer. Is Brandon Webb going to be healthy? Isn’t Chris Young too talented to be that terrible? Can Kelly Johnson bounce back? Is Conor Jackson okay? Was Edwin Jackson’s first half of 2009 a fluke, or will he consolidate some of his gains? Is it too early for Justin Upton to carry a team on his back?

Each of these could go either way, and have a pretty large impact on whether or not Arizona contends in the NL West this year. If a few of those questions get answered in a positive way, the D’Backs have enough talent to keep up with the Dodgers and Rockies in the NL West. Dan Haren and a healthy Webb forms a dynamic front of the rotation, and the offense could be pretty good, especially if Jackson rebounds or Young remembers how to hit.

Of course, things could go the other way as well. Webb may start the year on the DL, and his status is up in the air. C. Jackson’s moving back to the outfield after missing most of 2009, so how well he’ll play is anyone’s guess. E. Jackson is a perennial enigma who has had more bad years than good. If either Haren or Upton go down for any length of time, the parties over, because those two are critical pieces that can’t really be replaced.

The Diamondbacks could win anywhere between 65 and 95 games. I know, that’s the kind of hard hitting analysis you come to FanGraphs for. But it’s true – they may project out as a .500 club, but there are a lot of variables that could push them either direction.

Going forward, there are some really good pieces in place. Upton is one of the most valuable pieces in all of baseball. Haren is a true ace. Reynolds is a good player making a lot less than he’s worth. The core may be wide, but it is strong, and it is surrounded by guys who aren’t terrible. There are no bad long term contracts sitting on the books, and the team should have the financial flexibility to add a piece or two to help put them over the top in the future.

There is more right than wrong in Arizona. It may not manifest itself in a playoff berth this year, but if you’re an Arizona fan, I think you have to be pleased in general with what the organization has put together.

I like a lot of players on the Orioles. The core is certainly there – few teams in baseball can boast a young stable of talent like the O’s have, who can build around Matt Wieters, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Brian Matusz, plus a host of other quality guys without the same star potential but who are productive nonetheless. They also have a star player in Brian Roberts, who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how good he is. Andy MacPhail has done a lot of good things for the Orioles, acquiring talent and building a team that should be at least decent in 2010 and better going forward.

There’s just one really large glaring problem; they play in the American League East, the division of behemoths. The bar is set so ridiculously high that even with all the things that Baltimore has done well the last few years, they’re still extreme long shots to make the playoffs. They have to climb over two of the three best teams in baseball just in order to have a chance at a Wild Card spot. The degree of difficulty for the Orioles is off the charts.

And, fair or not, we have to hold this against them in a series where we’re trying to figure out which teams are in position to win now and in the future. In any other division, the Orioles are an interesting sleeper for 2010 and a potential giant going forward, but in the AL East, they’re an afterthought. They would need monstrous career years from multiple players at the same time just to get in the discussion, and then they’d still have to hope that the Yankees or Red Sox didn’t react to having another contender by just trading for the best player available at the deadline.

It’s sad, in a way. This roster should offer O’s fans a lot of hope, but due to factors beyond their control, that hope is significantly diminished. Even if Jones, Wieters, and Matusz all develop into stars, it still probably won’t be enough. MacPhail needs to continue to hit home runs on trades, have every draft pick pan out, and they need to stay completely healthy – if all those things happen, they could challenge for the AL East crown in a year or two, until their core gets so expensive that they’ll struggle to surround them with enough quality players to keep up.

It’s the crappiest situation in baseball, outside of Toronto, anyway. The O’s front office has done yeoman’s work in building a good young roster, yet there’s still a pretty decent chance it won’t result in anything besides a few better than .500 finishes and frustration at the size of the mountain they’re trying to climb. If anyone ever deserved a medal for finishing fourth, it’s these guys.

Organizations like the Cubs present some challenges in a series like this. They have some very obvious strengths – the printing press that is Wrigley Field, the ability to support a $140 million payroll, new ownership that at least appears to be committed to improving how the organization is run, and some really good players on the field. They also have some similarly obvious weaknesses – a lot of committed money to aging players, a front office with a long history of questionable decision making, and a roster that needs some good luck to contend in 2010.

If you just focus on the strengths, you can make a case for the Cubs to be a bit higher than this. After all, they have a real resource advantage over the rest of their division and some really good players in place. If a few things go right, they could steal a playoff berth this year, and they’ve got the finances to be a real player in the future. Their strengths are stronger than most teams strengths.

Likewise, however, you can just focus on the weaknesses and make a case that they should be lower. Their core is getting long in the tooth, with most of their best players being past their prime. They have some good young talent, but not a roster full of it, and the big contracts will hamper their ability to rebuild around guys like Soto and Castro. And, even with a sizable payroll, you can’t expect Hendry to spend it all that well, based on his track record.

When I try to balance the strengths and weaknesses, this is where the Cubs end up – in the middle of the pack, getting less out of what they have than most clubs, but having enough to keep them from being too bad. If the Ricketts demand that the front office catches up to the rest of the league, the team could rise pretty quickly – a more efficient front office could do wonders for the Cubs. There’s enough talent and enough money in Chicago that they should be a top ten franchise without too many problems. They aren’t there now, however. They may get there, but based on where they currently stand, middle of the pack is about as high as I can place them.

Billy Beane and the rest of the A’s front office got famous for being the most visible sabermetric organization, and as Matt noted, it served them well for the first half of the decade. They exploited opportunities in value to build contending teams on the cheap, and were able to win in spite of low payrolls and general fan disinterest.

Unfortunately for the A’s, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. The list of organizations that could now be described as stat-centric is longer than ever. Everyone is now reading from the same general playbook, and while there will always be inefficiencies to exploit, they are now much, much harder to monopolize. When the A’s were going for OBP or defense, they didn’t have many people bidding for those types of players – now, they’re fighting big market franchises with similar ideals when they try to pursue players like Adrian Beltre.

Beyond just a league wide acceptance of the principles the A’s have built their organization on, their division is now an ineptitude free zone. The Mariners went from disaster to contender at the same time that the Rangers built a monster farm system and have committed themselves to spending wisely rather than wasting money on big money contracts for mediocre pitchers. And, of course, there’s the Angels, flexing their big market payroll and keeping the talent flowing from their minor league system.

The AL West is no longer an easy division to win, and it’s only getting stronger. While the A’s are still a very well run team, their relative advantage over their peers has all but evaporated, and now they’re fighting an up hill battle to contend against better resourced smart teams.

Unfortunately for the A’s, their best chance to win is now to hope they catch a few breaks, and that’s the direction they’ve headed. They bet their 2010 season on the health of Ben Sheets and Justin Duchscherer; if it works, they could contend, but if they both land on the DL, there’s not enough talent in Oakland to keep up with the rest of the division.

If this was just a one year thing, that would be okay, but this is essentially what the A’s are going to have to do on an annual basis. They can’t afford low risk premium talent, so they’ll have to bet on guys with baggage to get the necessary upside onto the roster. It will work sometimes, but other years it will fail spectacularly, because the A’s playoff hopes are now going to inevitably be tied to keeping injury prone guys healthy (or hoping that whatever other risk they’ve taken on doesn’t come to fruition).

You can’t blame the A’s for adopting this strategy, given the circumstances. It will allow them to contend, just not annually. Given their budget and the relative strength of their competitors, that might be the best they can hope for until they get a better stadium, better attendance, or both.

The Reds are one of the teams that was really hard to slot on this list. On one hand, I like a lot of the young players in the Reds system. There’s a solid core of home grown players to build around, including a couple of All-Stars in Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. The outfield is as deep as it is talented, and the infield is home to the team’s best current players. There are a lot of things going right in Cincinnati.

However, there are timing issues involved that offer some challenges. The young talent may not quite be ready to overtake the Cardinals in 2010, and by the time they develop, it’s a question about whether some of the veterans will still be effective. Scott Rolen turns 35 in a couple of weeks, and his back is about twice that age. Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo both have pricey team options for 2011 that will likely be declined, and Brandon Phillips becomes expensive after the 2010 season.

Will those four still be on the team when Bruce, Drew Stubbs, Aroldis Chapman, and company start to fulfill their potential? Maybe, maybe not. As much as I like the Reds core, I don’t think they’re quite ready to overtake St. Louis for the NL Central yet. They could pull off an upset, but they’re certainly not favorites to end up in the playoffs in 2010.

So, their best days probably lay ahead of them. But Walt Jocketty will have to make some good moves to replace the current crop of veterans with a group of role players that is at least as effective, if not more so. And he’ll have to do it with limited payroll flexibility, as a good chunk of the money they’ll save by ditching Harang and Arroyo will have to be reallocated towards buying out the arb years of Bruce and Votto.

If the Reds can balance their chances of winning in 2010 with the dual goal of finding new pieces to put around their core for 2011 and beyond, they’ll be in great position going forward. But that is easier said than done, and with the Reds fan base itching for a winner, the team will likely have to make some tough decisions this summer. How well Jocketty handles the transition will determine whether this Reds team will win with this core or if they’ll have to wait for a few more pieces to put them over the top.

Unlike the last team on this list, the Tigers spend a lot of money; they just don’t spend it very well. They’ve committed nearly $130 million towards their 2010 payroll, which should be more than enough to build a contender, but $65 million of that is going to Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis, and Nate Robertson. Yikes. The money wasted on those fives guys slashes the Tigers effective payroll dramatically, and is one of the main reasons why the team has had to settle for not-good-enough options at key spots on the roster.

Overall, much like the Giants and White Sox, there are strengths surrounded by too many weaknesses, making the team an unlikely winner in 2010. There are scenarios where they could beat out the Twins for the AL Central, but I wouldn’t suggest putting money on it happening. There are just too many problem spots – the back of the rotation, the outfield, the middle infield, the health of Brandon Inge… it’s a pretty long list of areas of concern. Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera cannot win this division by themselves.

Looking ahead, the Tigers do have a large stable of expiring contracts, which should give them some additional financial flexibility going forward, but they’re also going to have to rebuild almost the entire roster with that money. Five of their everyday position players are aging free agents who will likely need to be replaced in 2011, and they’ll need new 4th and 5th starters as well. It wouldn’t be quite as large of a task if the farm system was ready to produce players that could fill these holes, but that’s simply not the case in Detroit.

The Tigers minor league system has some high ceiling young arms, but they’re not close to major league ready, and there’s just not much in the way of high level position players who can be expected to become regulars. While trying to contend in 2010, Dave Dombrowski is also going to have to get some young everyday players who he can build around, because there are a lot of holes going forward in this organization.

You can’t build a long term winner through free agency alone, and the Tigers are now paying the price for some of the contracts they’ve handed out in years past. They’re attempting to rebuild the core of the team while also contending, but from my perspective, it looks like they’re not going to get maximum results from either effort. The effect – an older team with lots of future question marks that isn’t quite good enough to win in 2010. That’s not a great spot to be in.

If there’s one thing the Marlins have been known for throughout their history, it has been for being a player development factory. They have constantly replenished their big league roster with new talent from the farm and served as a pipeline for getting talented players into the major leagues. Unfortunately, if there’s another thing the Marlins have been known for, it’s been trading those players as soon as they reach arbitration eligibility, as the team has operated on a shoestring budget that hasn’t let them keep players beyond their cost controlled years.

After years of operating this way, the players union finally complained to Major League Baseball, and the league actually forced the Marlins to spend the revenue sharing money they’ve been pocketing for years. The result? Dan Uggla is still a Marlin, and Josh Johnson has a new, long-term contract that not only bought out two arbitration years but two years of free agency, as well. For once, the Marlins did not hold a fire sale during the winter. Okay, they traded Jeremy Hermida and Matt Lindstrom, but those two are hardly irreplaceable. The core of the team remained mostly in tact, which is new for Florida, at least.

With Hanley Ramirez and now Josh Johnson locked up for a while, along with some promising rookies and one of the most impressive prospects in the game, the Marlins have the beginnings of a good team. The question, as always, is payroll. Even with the new money spent this winter, the team simply doesn’t have the type of financial flexibility needed to fill out a roster well enough to really contend. They’ve spent just over $40 million on the current team, which isn’t enough unless you’re building around a legendary core of homegrown talent. The Marlins aren’t.

So, despite their strengths in player development, and the talent on the roster that is good enough to keep them from being terrible, the Marlins aren’t really contenders. They’re a player development machine that can put together teams that play respectable baseball without costing much money, but unless the agreement with the player’s union leads to a significant expansion of the payroll, they’re going to remain a quality also ran.

It’s too bad, too, because there are some good baseball people doing good things in Florida. But the lack of investment in the team significantly limits their upside. It’s a good step that they didn’t tear the team apart this winter, but until they actively start adding pieces to help the team take the next step, it’s tough to see their organizational blueprint as one that any teams should want to follow.