By Glen McKee, Senior Horrible Prognosticator -
It’s a tradition almost as old as the baseball season itself to make predictions about how the forthcoming season will unfold. It’s not quite as much of a tradition to look back on said predictions and see how well one did. I’m never afraid of scrutiny, so here’s a look at how well I did on my predictions thus far. Have mercy on my misguided soul.
“I don’t know who will be the starting 2B on opening day.” - 100% correct and 1-for-1 so far. I’m already on a roll.
“Albert Pujols will hit fewer than 25 HR.” - Well, OK. 1-2 ain’t bad, right? I can hear some of you saying since I was so far off on this I should be 1-3. Shut your pie holes.
“Something will happen with Josh Hamilton.” - By god, I was right with this vague prediction. Thanks, Arte!
“Trout will steal more bases than he did last year.” - Woosh. By “more” I meant “less” so I should get this one right. In my defense, as you can see with this and the Pujols prediction, when I’m wrong I miss by a mile. I look like Cron before he got sent down to Salt Lake.
“Mike Scioscia will spend a lot of time looking vaguely confused.” - Back on track. I need to stick with vague predictions.
“Kole Calhoun will have a breakout year.” - Yes and no, but mostly no. A bad September killed his BA and OBP. HR and RBI up, everything else down. OK, that’s a no. Dammit.
“The starting pitching will be a strength throughout the year.” - Hard to say with this one. For the first half it was, and for the rest of the year not so much. My individual predictions were mostly wrong. Compared to our hitting it was a strength. Compared to other teams’ starters, not so much.
“Our defense will be bad.” - Yeah. Nailed it. Anecdotal evidence, but Freese and Aybar in the last series at Texas confirms this. It was pretty bad.
“Mike Trout will be somewhat forgotten by casual baseball fans this year.” - Woosh again. Everybody loves Trout.
Predictions for the rest of the league
“Surprisingly good team: Miami Marlins.” - Hoo boy. Missed by a country mile.
“Surprisingly bad team: The Boston Red Sox.” - Another halfsie. For the first half of the year the Red Sox were terrible. For the second half they were greatly improved, but nobody (including me) cared. I didn’t even know about it until I heard somebody on MLB radio mention it, but apparently it’s true.
“Surprisingly good player (non-Angels edition): Matt Kemp.” - What was I smoking? Nothing, but with a prediction like this I understand the assumption I was on something powerful.
“Surprisingly bad player (non-Angels edition): Jayson Werth.” - He only played half the season and put up a .685 OPS. Nailed it!
“Who will win the divisions and wild cards? Division winners: Blue Jays, Tigers, Angels, Marlins, Pirates, Dodgers. Wild cards: White Sox, Mariners, Cubs, Padres.” - Well, I got two division winners correct (Blue Jays and Dodgers) and one wild card (Cubs). The Pirates made the playoffs so that sorta counts, right?
“Self-serving World Series prediction? Marlins versus Angels. Angels in six. Hell yeah.” - Oh my god. I managed to predict a World Series where both teams didn’t even make the playoffs and one of the teams finished 20 games under .500. No, it wasn’t the Angels. At least I admitted this prediction was self-serving.
So there you have it. I have no business whatsoever making predictions after this fiasco, but you can bet your rear end I will. Maybe next year I’ll do a little bit better. As a bonus, my new, non-self-serving prediction for the World Series: Pittsburgh versus Toronto (a ratings nightmare for MLB), Toronto in six.