Hate to start off the year with a negative column before the Indians even take the field for a regular-season game, but this doesn’t look like a team that’s ready to contend in the Central Division.

This doesn’t look like a team that’s ready to contend in any division.

Yes, it’s only spring training, but the Indians aren’t hitting and they aren’t pitching, two pretty important things when it comes to winning baseball games.

If you’re a betting man or woman, it’s a safe wager that this will continue when Cleveland opens the season April 1 against the Chicago White Sox at Progressive Field.

There’s just too much working against the Indians and too little working for them to compete in a division that got much better in the offseason and was probably already too good for them to begin with.

l Indians ace Fausto Carmona appears to have turned the corner and at least looks close to the same pitcher he was during a Cy Young-type season in 2007. Beyond that, Cleveland’s rotation is ultrathin.

When Justin Masterson is your No. 2 starter, you have serious problems from a starting pitching perspective. Third starter Mitch Talbot struggled at the end of a promising rookie season last year and has looked terrible this spring.

The rest of the rotation, fourth starter Carlos Carrasco and one of three candidates – Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez and David Huff – is largely unproven.

They say pitching wins games, and the Indians don’t have nearly enough in the starting department, especially in an offensively charged American League.

l Where is the Indians’ offense going to come from outside of Shin-Soo Choo? Choo continued to progress into an elite offensive player last year, but he is the only certified weapon in a lineup full of question marks.

Shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and center fielder Grady Sizemore are coming off injury-plagued seasons and there is no way the Indians can count on Travis Hafner after watching him the past four seasons.

New second baseman Orlando Cabrera has proved he can handle the bat well enough throughout his career, but he isn’t striking fear into opposing pitchers and never has.

If Jason Donald is the starter at third base, there won’t be much offense coming from a position traditionally associated with power and pop.

Matt LaPorta? Yeah, he’s supposed to be a run producer, but the Indians have seen none of that the past two seasons, as the key piece of the CC Sabathia trade has struggled to adapt to pitching on the big league level.

Left fielder Michael Brantley, also acquired in the Sabathia deal, hasn’t shown he can provide anything outside of some speed on the basepaths. But he has to get on those bases, and has done little of that during two stints with the Indians in 2009-10.

Catcher Carlos Santana has hit on every level he’s been, but like Asdrubal Cabrera and Sizemore, he is coming off an injury that shortened his season. Santana hit upon his arrival in Cleveland last year, but began sinking at the plate before he suffered the season-ending knee injury. There is no guarantee he produces this year and he will most likely be hitting out of the high-profile third spot in the order.

(bullet) The bullpen was the strength of the team last year and nearly all of those relievers are back in the fold.

Still, bullpens are fickle. No matter how well Cleveland’s pitched in 2010, without proven, big-time arms, it’s tough to duplicate that feat. And the Indians have just one that comes close to that description in closer Chris Perez.

There’s even an asterisk next to Perez, who will open the season as a full-time closer for the first time in his young career.

The guys expected to get Perez the ball in the ninth – Tony Sipp, Rafael Perez, Jensen Lewis and Joe Smith, among others – have all pitched well at times, but have been far too inconsistent to count on.

So there you have it. Not exactly a pretty picture from a contending perspective.

Sorry if the parade is getting rained on here, but this is what is confronting a team that looks to better a fourth-place finish in the division last year.

That could be where the Indians wind up this year as well, provided they are able to finish ahead of the Royals.

Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com.