On Opening Day, I posted 50 predictions for the baseball season. Now, seven months later, here they are! The original predictions are in bold with commentary below each one. Be warned: about half were complete duds.
1. The American League MVP will be Adrian Gonzalez.
Didn't even finish the year in the American League. Poor start, this.
2. The Albert Pujols-less Cardinals of 2012 will win more games than last year's version.
No, they ended up winning two fewer games than last year. Still, there wasn't a massive drop-off without Pujols.
3. Three Kansas City Royals will have monstrous breakout seasons: Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, and Lorenzo Cain.
Butler yes, Hosmer and Cain no way. Why bet on the Royals?
4. On that note: Eric Hosmer will have a better year than Prince Fielder.
More Royals optimism that crashed and burned. Hosmer was awful.
5. While we're at it: the Royals will score more runs than the Tigers.
Wrong. The Tigers did in fact regress offensively in 2012 compared to 2011 despite Fielder's addition, but using the Royals as the benchmark was a bad idea.
6. Giancarlo Stanton will lead the National League in home runs.
Only Ryan Braun (41) hit more homers than Stanton (37) in the NL. And Stanton only played in 123 games. So he led baseball in home runs per at-bat. I'll bet Stanton makes this one come true next year.
7. David Wright won't finish the season as a New York Met.
My pessimism wasn't rewarded.
8. The Cy Young winner in the National League will be Zack Greinke.
Apparently, all of my picks for major awards just switched leagues.
9. One season after hitting .169 with 11 home runs, Adam Dunn will hit at least .230 with 35 home runs.
Hey! This one didn't do so bad! Dunn finished with 41 homers but a .204 average.
10. Madison Bumgarner will earn more Cy Young votes than either Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain.
Bumgarner was certainly better than Lincecum. Not better than Cain, though.
11. Prince Fielder will fail to hit 30 home runs.
Okay, he hit exactly 30. Prince is obviously messing with me.
12. A season after struggling to a .243 batting average with 10 home runs, Hanley Ramirez will make a run at the MVP with a massive bounce-back season.
"Bounce-back season"? Yes. "Run at the MVP"? Uh, nope.
13. Yet the newly-minted Miami Marlins won't get a playoff spot.
Not only did this come true--they finished in last place. Win.
14. The once-downtrodden Pirates, Royals, and Nationals will all finish at or above .500.
Nationals pulled it off. Pirates did it in an alternate universe where the season ends in July. Royals are still the Royals.
15. The National League Rookie of the Year will be Trevor Bauer.
Wasn't ready for the majors this year.
16. Alex Rodriguez will finish in the top ten in A.L. MVP voting.
[insert snarky A-Rod joke here]
17. San Diego's Cory Luebke and Edinson Volquez will be more valuable than Cincinnati's Mat Latos and Johnny Cueto.
The motivation for this one was a trade that involved both Volquez and Latos. And this was an embarrassingly bad prediction. Like, stunningly bad. I refuse to even reveal the numbers.
18. The new Dodgers ownership group, desperate to make an immediate impact, will push for at least one shortsighted trade that will hurt the franchise long-term.
Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford are nodding furiously. This counts as a win.
19. A season after hitting 32 home runs, Jacoby Ellsbury won't hit 15.
He didn't even hit 5, so this is a win.
20. They were once traded for each other, but Drew Pomeranz of the Rockies will outpitch Ubaldo Jimenez of the Indians.
They were both dreadful. It's a push.
21. The Philadelphia Phillies will sign Cole Hamels to an extension worth more than what Matt Cain got.
Hamels: $144 million. Cain: $112.5 million. Win!
22. The Cy Young winner in the American League will be David Price.
Price had the best season of his career, winning 20 games with a 2.56 ERA in 211 innings. He'll probably finish second in the Cy Young vote to Justin Verlander. Still happy with how this one turned out.
23. Brian Matusz's ERA will be top 15 in the American League after it was over 10.00 last year.
Matusz as a starter: 5.42 ERA
Matusz as a reliever: 1.35 ERA
So it depends how you look at things, I suppose.
24. Daniel Bard will flop in the rotation; Chris Sale will not.
Bard: 10 starts, 6.22 ERA, 38 K's, 43 walks, 59.1 innings
Sale: 29 starts, 3.05 ERA, 192 K's, 51 walks, 192 innings
This was a pretty good one.
25. The best first baseman in the National League not named 'Votto' will be Ike Davis.
Meh. Davis hit 32 home runs but had a .227 batting average. Expected better.
26. The National League MVP will be Justin Upton.
I'd rather not talk about this one.
27. The first manager to get canned will be Brad Mills of the Astros.
This actually came true. One of the only constants in baseball is the Astros being terrible.
28. Andre Ethier will have a better season than Matt Kemp.
Kemp is twice the player Ethier is. Not sure what possessed me here.
29. Neither one is currently on a 40-man roster, but at some point in 2012, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt will pitch against each other.
Came close to happening when Oswalt signed with the Rangers, but he didn't make many starts and Pettitte got hurt. Close.
30. Mariano Rivera will be the only closer in the AL East with at least 30 saves.
Jim Johnson, Rafael Soriano and Fernando Rodney all had at least forty saves. Rivera, of course, got hurt. So....this one didn't exactly work out.
31. Desmond Jennings will have a better season than Carl Crawford (at about 2% of the cost, mind you).
True, just by default. Jennings was decent and Crawford only played in 31 games.
32. The Comeback Players of the Year will be Kendrys Morales and Adam Wainwright.
Morales: .273 average, 22 home runs
Wainwright: 3.94 ERA, 198.2 innings
Neither was the Comeback Player of the Year (beaten out by Fernando Rodney and Buster Posey) but both had good comeback seasons.
33. Yu Darvish will be the AL Rookie of the Year...
...Mike Trout says hello...
34. ...but Matt Moore will have better numbers...
Their numbers were pretty similar.
35. ...and Derek Holland will be the Rangers' ace.
Hahahahaha nope.
36. At the end of the season, we will look back on Billy Beane's three big trades (of Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey) and tentatively declare Oakland the winner of all three.
In exchange for those three players, Oakland received Josh Reddick, Tommy Milone, Jarrod Parker, Ryan Cook, and Derek Norris, all of whom played critical roles in the A's division title. I'll call this one a win.
37. Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau will have tremendous comeback seasons.
Both enjoyed comeback seasons. I would only classify Mauer's as "tremendous."
38. For the second consecutive season, the Houston Astros will win the fewest games in baseball.
Came true. Again: Astros are a safe bet.
39. Bobby Valentine will be a more controversial and obnoxious manager than Ozzie Guillen.
Close one, but I'll say yes, this came true. Unsurprisingly, both lost their jobs.
40. Matt Wieters will become the best catcher in baseball.
Wieters was probably the best catcher in the AL, but has to contend with Yadier Molina and Buster Posey in the NL.
41. The Detroit Tigers, even with Prince Fielder, will win fewer games than they did last year.
2011 Tigers: 95 wins
2012 Tigers: 88 wins
This was a solid one.
42. The San Francisco Giants will not make the playoffs if Aubrey Huff gets more at-bats than Brandon Belt.
It's obviously not the only reason why the Giants made the playoffs (and won it all), but Belt did have 411 at-bats compared to just 78 for Huff.
43. Robinson Cano will lead the majors in RBIs.
Another great season for Cano, just not in the RBI department.
44. For the third consecutive season, the Boston Red Sox will not reach the postseason.
This worked out.
45. Forget Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez--the Nationals' most valuable pitcher will be Jordan Zimmermann.
Zimmermann: 2.94 ERA in 195.2 innings
Gonzalez: 2.89 ERA in 199.1 innings
Strasburg: 3.16 ERA in 159.1 innings
That's pretty close. Surprised by how good Gonzalez was.
46. Starlin Castro will lead the majors in hits.
Castro finished third. It makes total sense that an uber-talented 22-year-old shortstop would lose to 38-year-old Derek Jeter.
47. A season after going for 49-for-49, Jose Valverde will blow at least seven saves.
He did blow seven, but only if you count his two meltdowns in the playoffs. Either way, he sucked.
48. The Toronto Blue Jays will win 90 games.
Oops. This was contingent on the Blue Jays actually fielding a major league team.
49. The World Series winner will be from the American League.
Thanks a lot, Tigers.
50. Our 2012 champion will be the Texas Rangers.
Remember how great this looked in April? The Rangers didn't even escape the Wild Card Game. So goes it.
Out of the 50 predictions, about 13 came true, and maybe 15 more were either pushes or came close. All the rest were trash. You just can't predict this weird sport: Philip Humber threw a perfect game and Fernando Rodney had the lowest ERA in baseball history and the Baltimore Orioles made the playoffs. See you next year, Baseball.
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