If you think the AL Central is bad, just wait for the NFC North

The Twins have spent the vast majority of this season in first place in Major League Baseball's American League Central Division. Even a brief dive into second place before the All-Star break has been corrected with two weeks of better play, vaulting the Twins back into a comfortable perch.

But in the backs of our minds, even as we haggle about trade deadline possibilities and other such things, there must be this: In any other division in baseball, the Twins would not be a first-place team. And in the American League East, depending on the night, they might be a last-place team.

It is also true, though, that you can only play the schedule put in front of you. And at least in baseball, the geographical division alignments also serve in many cases to put teams with similar payrolls together as well. There are no apologies for being the best of your group, and it's better to save the truly justified angst for October.

As I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast with Vikings writer Andrew Krammer, though, there is also this: If you think the AL Central is bad (and it is), wait until you get a load of the 2023 NFC North.

We have poked a certain amount of fun at the Vikings' notion of a "competitive rebuild" since the term was first floated in 2022 — more at the name than the notion — but perhaps what General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah really means by it is this:

As long as the Vikings are in this division, they can undergo a major overhaul and stay competitive simply by default.

As a flawed and fortunate team with fourth-quarter fortitude a year ago, the Vikings won 13 games last year and had the division essentially wrapped up by the midpoint.

The Vikings will not go 11-0 in one-score regular-season games again, nor do we know if half of their defensive starters are any good.

The Packers traded Aaron Rodgers and will now turn over a mediocre roster to an unproven quarterback in Jordan Love.

The Bears could ascend, but they have a long way to go.

That should leave an opening for the Lions, but alas they are the Lions. Something always goes wrong and indeed some already have this offseason.

Betting odds suggest it will be hard for any team to crack double-digits in wins in the NFC North this year, and rational minds agree.

By October, we might be talking about the 86-76 AL Central champion Twins (.531 winning percentage). And by January, we might be talking about the 9-8 NFC North champion Vikings (.529 winning percentage).

Here are four more things to know today:

*Remember how it seemed for a while like the Vikings would hire Jim Harbaugh as their head coach? That was only about 18 months ago. Now Harbaugh is facing a four-game suspension at Michigan.

*Speaking of Rodgers, I enjoyed this piece about his adaptation to life in New York. While I think Rodgers has been this person for a while, it strikes at the heart of his personality: He wants to be thought of as interesting, and it's easy to do that in one of the most interesting cities in the world.

*Loved the last line of Jim Souhan's column on Byron Buxton's knee: "It's only a $100 million decision that could determine the fate of a first-place team and the career arc of one of the most talented Twins of all time."

*Wednesday's podcast features Star Tribune columnist La Velle E. Neal III on five pressing Twins questions.