When the Leaves win a Stanley Cup, I promise to feign interest. Until then, I’ll stick to baseball and respect hockey for what it really is: the Baseball Off Season.
Let’s start this off by looking back at last year’s pitching predictions and pulling out some highlights shall we? If anyone wants a refresher of thinks I might be slanting thing, you can check it out HERE.
So, I had a few good lines in my predictions for the 2011 pitching staff. My favourite may have been, “there is neither enough lightening nor bottles to make this work”. Quoting myself as I soar to new heights!
Here is the run down:
Rickey Romero
My Prediction: 15-10, ERA; 3.75 K’s; 200, BB; 90, Innings Pitched; 225.
Reality: 15-11, 3.60, K’s 178; BB’s 80; IP 225.
IN HINDSIGHT: Are you friggin’ kidding me???? NAILED IT BABY! NAILED IT!!!
Brett Cecil
My Prediction: 17-7 ERA; 3.90 K’s; 150, BB; 70, Innings Pitched; 225
Reality: 4-11, 4.73, K’s 87; BB’s 52; IP 123.2.
IN HINDSIGHT: Pretty close on the walks, eh? Cecil was the ONLY surprise for me this year. And truth be told, I felt a little guilty predicting everyone to suck so I probably went a little soft on him. But there was no way I would have predicted this disaster!
Brandon Morrow
My Prediction: 12-6 ERA; 4.00 K’s; 200, BB; 70, Innings Pitched; 225
Reality: 11-11, 4.37, K’s 203; BB’s 69; IP 179.
IN HINDSIGHT: Last year I wrote, “Welcome to the duplicity that is baseball. Brandon Morrow, meet A.J. Burnett.” There will be WAY more on that later and I promise you’ll be shocked! Sure the win totals are worse than I projected; but everything else is pretty accurate. And considering that EVERYONE thought that I was being unfairly low at the time, I’m counting this as a win.
Kyle Drabek
My Prediction: 5-11; ERA 5.00; K’s 110; BB 60; Innings Pitched 130.
Reality: 4-5, 6.06, K’s 51; BB’s 55; IP 78.2
IN HINDSIGHT: Of course my prediction assumed that the whole tragedy would play out for an entire year, which it thankfully didn’t. But do the math and it would pretty close had they decided to ruin him further.
There’s no sense looking at the other pitchers because they didn’t start a significant number of games OR were traded. Now the hitters.
Travis Snider
My Prediction: Average .255, HR 22, RBI 75, RUNS 75, SB 3
Reality: .225, 3 HRs, 30 RBI, 23 RUNS, 9 SBs.
IN HINDSIGHT: Well. That was a miss. He’s been up parts of 4 years now. Played nearly half the games in 2011 as he did in ’10 or ’09. I understand people wanting to dismiss him, but the reality is that he’s younger than Drabek who everyone seems to be willing to let ‘grow and develop’. He may be a AAA player. He may be Paul Molitor. Time will tell.
Rajai Davis
My Prediction: Average .280, HR 4, RBI 30, RUNS 80, SB, 40.
Reality: .238, 1 HR, 29 RBI, 44 RUNS, 34 SBs
IN HINDSIGHT: Probably a bigger disappointment than Snider. The outfield speed and defence was never realized and giving up a free out in the 1st inning for half the season probably cost Bautista 15 RBIs and the club 5 or 6 wins. If he’s back, he’ll be the 4th outfielder at best
Yunel Escobar
My Prediction: Average .290, HR 10, RBI 55, RUNS 90, SB 5.
Reality: .290, 11 HRs, 48 RBI, 77 RUNS, 3 SBs.
IN HINDSIGHT: That was pretty accurate! Escobar missed 20 games in 2011. I think he has the potential to be 300 hitter with 10+ HR potential. A legit control hitter with gap power.
Edwin Encarnacion
My Prediction: Average .260, HR 25, RBI 85, RUNS 70, SB 5.
Reality: .272, 17 HRs, 55 RBI, 70 RUNS, 8 SBs
IN HINDSIGHT: Reasonably accurate except for the RBIs. Here’s a stat that I find staggering. He had 53 extra base hits and they produced only 55 RBI. Edwin seems to be affected by pressure situations more than anyone. With men on (any number / any base) he hits .233. However with 2 out and nobody on, he his .455. That's just weird. The other issue with Edwin is that you need to live with his pathetic first half performance. His OBA was 99 points better in the second half and his BA soared by 36 points.
John Paul Arencibia (I'm not using his initials, they still make me ill)
My Prediction: Average .260, HR 15, RBI 45, RUNS 35, SB 0
Reality: .219, 23 HRs, 78 RBIs, 47 RUNS, 1 SB
IN HINDSIGHT: I was never 100% sold on Arencibia. I’m slowly changing my mind. He’s a good in-game signal caller, not a great positional catcher. That can be taught though. You can teach work habits, not smarts. In 400 minor league ABs he’s a .275 hitter with a .319 OBA. The boy doesn’t walk. Not much anyway. The fact that he took 38 free passes last year is promising. I think we’ll look back at his .219 average in 5 years as an aberration. I fully expect him to be in the 250-270 range and the HRs to level out in the high 20’s. By the way, the 23 bombs he hit in 2012 are a new Blue Jay record for catchers.
Adam Lind
My Prediction: Average .270, HR 25, RBI 90, RUNS 80, SB 0
Reality: .251, 26 HRs, 87 RBI, 56 RUNS, 1 SB
IN HINDSIGHT: Pretty much as expected. The big problem with Lind 2 years ago was his complete inability to hit left handers. He made a significant correction in that this past year. Now the big issue are the prolonged slumps. In the first half of the year Lind hit .301 with a slugging percentage of .515, 16 HRs and 52 RBI. In the second half he hit .197 and everything else was pretty awful.
Jose Bautista
My Prediction: Average .255, HR 35, RBI 100, RUNS 90, SB 5, All Star
Reality: .302, 43 HRs, 103 RBIs, 105 RUNs, 9 SBs, All Star.
IN HINDSIGHT: He delivered. Almost everyone (Carl Crawford) who signs a huge contract doesn’t deliver. Full marks.
Overall, if I was to score my preseason predictions, I'd give myself a B-, a passing grade for sure. Of course, it really doesn't mean much. However, it gives us the basis for some 'go forward' trends as we head into 2012.
Okay...this gets our feet wet. Next week, Albert Pujols...the man, the myth, the best player in baseball. Ever? How does his career project and what can you reasonably anticipate after 5 major league seasons; at least from my point of view.
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