Prediction Pain
Being a Writer of Sorts when it comes to baseball, I’m prone to offering predictions at times when others do so; monkey see, monkey do. Today’s fun comes as we look back at those predictions and see just how far off base they were. At the outset of the season, I made two sets, one for my site and one over at Baseball Primer. On my site, I predicted the standings in each division, on Baseball Primer, I went for an actual win total based on those same standings.
The good news is that I picked four of the six division winners correctly. The bad news is that’s about all I did right. The two divisions in which I was wrong, my picks didn’t even make the playoffs (Seattle and Houston). My NL champs, the Astros, are decidely earthbound this October. And my NL Wild Card (the Mets) went up in smoke. Five out of eight playoff teams doesn’t sound awful, but given that two of those were perennials in the Yanks and the Braves, it’s not so hot.
AL East: Yanks, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Devil Rays, Orioles
AL Central: Twins, White Sox, Indians, Tigers, Royals
AL West: Mariners, A’s, Angels, Rangers
NL East: Braves, Mets, Marlins, Phillies, Expos
NL Central: Astros, Cardinals, Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Pirates
NL West: Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Rockies
More of the good, the bad, and the ugly comes when we look at the win totals I predicted for each team. The good news is that I wrote the Yankee in at 103 wins, tops in baseball, which is exactly where they stand. The bad news is that the only other team I got exactly right was the Texas Rangers, who gave us exactly the 72 wins I targeted. Here’s how I did, ranked from best to worst predictions:
PRD ACT OFF
NYY 103 103 0
TEX 72 72 0
PHI 81 80 1
MIN 91 94 -3
BAL 64 67 -3
SEA 96 93 3
FLA 75 79 -4
COL 77 73 4
KCR 67 62 5
TOR 83 78 5
BOS 87 93 -6
PIT 65 72 -7
CHW 88 81 7
CIN 70 78 -8
LOS 84 92 -8
CLE 83 74 9
ARI 88 98 -10
ATL 91 101 -10
OAK 93 103 -10
HOU 94 84 10
STL 86 97 -11
TAM 66 55 11
DET 67 55 12
SFG 83 95 -12
NYM 88 75 13
MON 68 83 -15
MIL 71 56 15
SDP 81 66 15
ANA 81 99 -18
CHC 88 67 21
Ugh. Overall, I was off by an average of 8.5 games, within 5 games on only 10 out of 30 teams, and off by more than 10 on another 10 teams. On playoff-bound teams, I was off by an average of 9.25 games, seriously underestimating the A’s, the Braves, and the Diamondbacks, and completely missing the boat on the Angels–but then again, nobody anywhere picked them for anything either. Three of the teams I had going nowhere–Tampa Bay, Detroit, and Milwaukee–fell short by 11 to 15 games, proving I can’t even sell a lousy ballclub short with accuracy.
If there’s a trend to be found in my picks, it’s a consistent underestimation of the extremes. I predicted only one team with 100 wins, five with 90 to 99, nine with 90 to 99 losses (that is, 72 wins or less), and none with more than 100. In actuality, three teams won over 100, eight finished in the 90s, four teams with losses in the 90s, and four with more than 100 losses.
But before you bust on me for how badly I did, let’s see your team-by-team win predictions, sport.
• • • • •
I’ll be revisiting my individual award picks, as well as offering some revised ones, in the next several days amid my playoff-related writing. For now, I’ll offer up some whack-ass playoff predictions that you can take to Vegas if you’re in a farm-losing mood. Since I don’t have the time to evaluate these matchups more thoroughly, I encourage you to check out Aaron Gleeman’s excellent preview over at Aaron’s Baseball Blog in addition to the stuff the pros are dishing out.
Yankees over Angels in 4 games: The Angels have been playing the Yanks as tough as any team in the AL over the last few years; they’re 24-21 against them since 1998, the only team with a winning record. They also fare well against lefties, with an OPS 40 points higher (802 to 762) against them. But the Yanks pitching seems to be clicking about as well as it has all season, and the Angels showed a bit of fatigue down the stretch as they struggled to clinch a playoff berth. This will be a hard-fought series, but the Yanks will prevail.
A’s over Twins in 4 games: NY Times writer Murray Chass calls this the Aberration Bowl because of Bud Selig’s contention that low-payroll teams which make the playoffs are an aberration. Since one of them has to advance to the second round, we’ll all be able to tell another one of Selig’s statistics (“no team in the lower half of payroll has ever advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs”) to shut up. Both of these teams are dangerous in a short series. The A’s offer their trio of front-line starters, two of which (Zito and Mulder) are lefties, which the Twins don’t hit well. The Twins don’t have the pitching that the A’s do (“What kind of playoff rotation features Rick Reed as its highlight?” writes Baseball Prospectus’ Derek Zumsteg), but they have a pronounced home-field advantage in the Metrodome, where the balls always seem to bounce their way and crowd noise can really rattle a pitcher. If they can take one of the first two games in Oakland, the A’s are in trouble. That’s a big if.
Braves over Giants in 3: The Giants got hot at the right time and outlasted my Dodgers, but Dusty Baker’s teams have yet to show me they can win in the playoffs. If anybody’s going to figure out a way to stop Barry Bonds, I’d bet on the Braves vaunted starters. And despite Atlanta’s offensive woes, I’d still take my chances with Glavine/Maddux/Millwood over Ortiz/Rueter/Schmidt, and with Bobby Cox over Baker. Considering I’d rise from the dead to spit on the Giants, I guess I’m even rooting for the Braves here.
Cardinals over Diamondbacks in 5: Snakes, I hate snakes. Especially these purple-and-teal-wearing ones. Johnson and Schilling are almost enough to get them through a five-game series, but sooner or later Bob Brenly’s dumb moves will catch up with him, and the Snakes are already hurting without Luis Gonzalez. St. Louis is peaking, they’re relatively healthy, and they’ve got emotion on their side. It’s in the Cards.
Beyond that: Cardinals over Braves in 6 and Yankees over A’s in 7 (it’s the pitching depth), meaning I will get to use the World Series ticket I’m holding for Game Two. Yanks in 6. Book it.