For the majority of the life of the AL Central it has been a bit of a punching bag for the AL West and AL East. The Red Sox and Yankees were dominant for years, leveraging their massive resources and cagey front offices into 90+ win seasons like clockwork. The Angels, too, gradually morphed into a perennial contender shaped by massive payrolls. Then all it took was particularly savvy front offices for teams like Texas, Oakland, and Tampa Bay and all of a sudden you had 40-50% of the AL as strong teams, none of which were in the Central. As many observed coming into this season, however, the landscape of the American League looks very different - in the preseason, there weren't any readily identifiable "dominant" teams. Uncertainty about which .500-ish looking teams would hit their upsides or disappoint made it unclear as to whether any division would stand out as good or bad. So far, though, the AL Central has been the best division in the league.