July 10, 2013

Talkin' Baseball: A Look Back At Predictions

I usually take a look back at predictions during the All-Star break but since I'll be on vacation that week I won't have a chance to look back at my terrible predictions. This year though the Colonel also made some bad predictions so we both have to look back! Here are our bad predictions and our comments on them.

The Colonel

1. Teams Will Stop Paying High Prices for Japanese Talent and Look Elsewhere in Asia: This is more of a prediction for the upcoming offseason. I made this prediction because the A's out of all teams paid a lot of money for a Japanese player who is currently stuck in Sacramento. So I still wonder if teams will pass up Japan for other countries like Korea and Taiwan for players in Asia?

2. The AL West Won't Be As Good As Thought: I thought the A's would regress a little bit but they haven't. So this is a legitimate 2-team race for the division. That being said, this division isn't as good as thought. The Angels are terrible, Mariners are always rebuilding, and the Astros are trying to tank.

3. The Astros Won't Be As Bad As Everyone Thinks: Well...........they're not 62 Mets bad but they'll probably be very close. They currently have 32 wins so they should at least win 65 wins this year but it will be close.


4. Nothing Will Still Be Done About The A's And San Jose's Territory Rights: Well MLB hasn't done anything, but San Jose has. The city of San Jose has sued MLB to get the A's to their city. MLB hired the lawyer who prosecuted Oliver North so they'll be well represented in this case.

5. The MLB Players Union Will Try To Grab Back Some Power From the Owners: Couldn't have been more wrong here. Reports are the union will actually give up the players accused of visiting and using Biogenesis products. I still believe they'll try to grab back some power in the future but not right now.

6. The Yankees Won't Make The Playoffs: They're currently in fourth place and six games back and don't have Jeter or ARod and are playing Travis Ishikawa and Lyle Overbay at first. There's still a lot of season left and they're only six games back but it's not looking good for the Yankees right now. Losing two straight games to Royals doesn't help.

7. Manny Machado Is Going To Have A Big Year: Can I get a "Boo-Yeah!" Stuart Scott? Machado is currently on pace to break the doubles record for the year. He already has 123 hits before the all-star break and would be the Orioles best player if it wasn't for Chris Davis. The only thing that kinda bothers me about Machado is that he has to hit for average to have an slightly above average OBP. I wish he would just be a little more patient at the plate. That's nit-picking though so enjoy the great Machado this year.

8. There Will Be 1000 fawning articles on the Rays front office and Joe Maddon: I haven't seen as many fawning articles on Maddon this year. I'm sure if the Rays make a playoff run though we'll get them.

9. The DH Is Coming For the National League: I still believe this is coming. Maybe as a concession to the players union for going so hard at the Biogenesis case? Either way it's coming and it wouldn't surprise me to see if it happens by no later than 2015.

49er16

1. The Blue Jays Won't Win The AL East: So much talent, a little too much Marlins stink on them. The Blue Jays went on a run a couple of weeks back that had everyone thinking that they could jump back into the race and have gone 4-6 since. Whoops. Another year with no playoffs for the Blue Jays.

2. Fredi Gonzalez Will Be Fired Mid-Season: I still believe he'll be fired by the Braves eventually. For right now though I'm wrong and the Braves are in first place and six games ahead of the Nationals and everyone else in the mediocre NL East.

3. After Enough Complaining About the Astros Sucking, MLB Will Finally Tweak The Unbalanced Schedule: The Angels screwed everything up. They were suppose to be good. They were suppose to give the AL West three playoff teams and everyone else the complaints to finally get baseball to tweak the unbalanced schedule. The Angels have sucked and you're hearing almost no complaints about the unbalanced schedule except for a few people.

4. Either The Pirates or Royals Will Make The Playoffs: The Pirates just a few days ago had the best record in baseball and first place in the NL Central. They've ran into the buzzsaw named the A's recently and have dropped in the standings slightly so it's looking good for the Pirates. The Royals have been up and down all season. They look good. They look like crap. They're currently 5 games out and in the AL Central that's not really out of the race.

5. The Orioles Won't Regress As Bad As PECOTA Is Projecting: The Orioles have regressed this season because their bullpen isn't as good as it was last season but they haven't regressed as badly as PECOTA had them. The Orioles haven't quite regressed because Chris Davis and Manny Machado have had career years and the Orioles have been improving their team through trades this season.

6. If Mike Trout Struggles For Only A Couple Of Games, Writers Are Going To Make A Big Deal About His Weight: Trout actually struggled out of the gate but you didn't hear any weight arguments and now Trout is playing like the guy from last season. Damn I was really hoping for some overreaction to his weight gain this season.

7. Deadspin and Yahoos! Jeff Passan Will Continue To Write About The Marlins All Season: Passan had one article about Loria meddling with the pitching rotation and Jose Fernandez and Deadspin has been kinda quiet on the Marlins front so this prediction was a failure.

8. There Will Be 1000 fawning articles on the Rays front office and Joe Maddon: The Rays are now in 2nd place so don't worry the fawning articles on Maddon are coming.

1 comment:

  1. The Blue Jays have too much Marlins stank.

    ReplyDelete