December 2011
Re-View of the Preview: Boston Red Sox
Let’s start off with the link to the initial entry, here.
Predicted record: 94-99 wins
Actual Record: 90-72
This is yet another one of those teams that really confused me when it came to this season. However, as you can see by the margin in records, they didn’t completely fool me. For example, Adrian Gonzalez didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but he was in a ballpark range of what I predicted (click the link to the original entry at the top of this entry to find out what said expectations were). Then there were players like Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford who completely defied my expectations for them.
The result of these unpredictable swings being, the Red Sox underachieving a bit and not getting into the playoffs, leading to a mass leadership upturning this past offseason. However, I DID predict that the rotation of the Red Sox was not the unstoppable force people were predicting it to be, I’m not saying I knew they were eating chicken, but the pitchers in their rotation did not make it great by any means.
So that is that. I sort off predicted what the Red Sox were going to do in 2011, even if I was off by a few wins like most people.
Re-view of the Preview: Tampa Bay Rays
Never mind what I said about my worst predictions being in the AL Central. Here is the link to the horrible prediction in form of entry.
Predicted Record: 65-70 wins
Actual Record: 91-71
So… at best I was 21 games off with this prediction. I still don’t know how the Rays did this. I don’t know if I mentioned this in the entry of my 100th ball game at Tropicana Field, but they have a “pump-up” segment before each game that is a highlight reel for the Rays that begins with the showing of the quote “Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.”- Branch Rickey. Well, they certainly explicated the quote throughout the year. I didn’t closely follow the Rays during the season, but one example of the Rays winning games through smart moves was the acquisition of Casey Kotchman. That said, it doesn’t make sense that they won the number of games that they did.
My main point in the entry was that they lost most of their relief pitching and I honestly don’t know how they made up for the pitchers they lost. I have seen the roster, but they lost some quality pitchers out of that bullpen. I think I compared the Rays of 2011 to the Rays of 2007, or whenever the year they were in last place was. This was mostly out of comparing the bullpens and offenses. The thing I didn’t account for was the new Rays ownership, who has really made a difference. On a side note, I am and have been reading The Extra 2% for a while (just because I have been really busy and have like 10 baseball books in front of it), but from what I can tell, it is going to be a really good book and shows why the Rays have been winning, because of the attention to detail.
I apologize to the Rays for grossly under-estimating them.
Re-view of the Preview: Kansas City Royals
First of all, here is the link to the first entry. By the way, I always put the link to the previous entry on the word “here” just because it would be tougher to link a whole phrase of words.
Predicted record: 68-73 wins
Actual record: 71-91
This prediction I pretty much got right, which in the AL Central is the equivalent of throwing a strike to the Home Plate at Yankee Stadium from the upper deck. I didn’t really get the prediction right, though, as to how exactly the Royals would win their games. I really predicted, because it was mostly an entry on the offseason moves, that the Royals would win their games through all of their newly acquired pitching. However, I failed to look at what they already had on their team. The Royals offense, was their main asset.
I failed to see their offensive potential, because they really didn’t have much. The main reasons the Royals succeeded so were: Billy Butler doing what he always does, Alex Gordon finally living up to some of the hype, and Eric Hosmer coming up and helping. There were other people, but these were the main reasons, as far as I can tell from what I watch of the Royals during a typical baseball season (I really don’t watch them much at all).
Whatever the case, I’m glad that I’m starting to go to the AL East in this series of entries where I (hopefully) did better on my predictions than I did in the AL Central. This was just brutal. I truly messed up on these.
The first entry in the AL East will be the Red Sox, I believe. Maybe not. I can’t remember if I did it in order of the last season’s record or of the predicted record. If it was the former case, it will be the Rays that come first.
Re-view of the preview: Cleveland Indians
First off, here is the original entry detailing the Indians 2010 season, their offseason, and predictions for their 2011 season, which is now over.
If you are new to the “Re-view of the preview” entries, they are entries looking back at a series of entries I did last season called “Offseason Recap and Preview”, which were entries that examined teams’ free agent signings and trades during last offseason. I then went on to predict how the moves would affect the respective teams and their records for the 2011 season. First, I attach a link to the initial entry as you saw above. Then I go into how well I actually predicted that team’s season now that the season is over and I can actually see the discrepancy in record.
Predicted record: 73-78 wins
Actual Record: 80-82
Although it may seem like the two records are pretty similar, I really underestimated the “Tribe” they started off really well and cooled off from then. When I saw them play in Chicago, I think it was the first time I really had a look at their entire lineup and I do believe their first half record was closer to the mean and their second half was a *bit* of bad luck and they could easily have won in the 84-ish range.
My mistake in looking at this team was that although they had a tough(er) 2010 season, they had some prominent players injured and the return of these players made them a better team than the net gain from their “Notable” additions and subtractions during the offseason would suggest. Their pitching pretty much stayed the same, if you ignore the addition of Ubaldo Jimenez.
Overall, I kind of, sort of pegged this team.
Recent Comments