Re-view of the Preview: Baltimore Orioles
First off, here, is the link to the entry where I didn’t get carried away in the (at the time I wrote the entry) magic of the ”Buck Show”.
Predicted Record: 70-75 wins
Actual Record: 69-93
Yes , I did give the Orioles an A+. Yes, I did only increase their win total by 4-9 games.Let me explainthe logic. The Orioles were on their way to at least an 100 loss season before Buck Showalter stepped in as manager. I knew that Buck was agreat manager, but I also knew he couldn’t keep winning at the level he was at the end of the 2010 season, because he had never done so with a team of the skill level of the Orioles. Therefore, I lowered their record of last season by 5 games to 61-101, gave the Orioles 3 of those wins back for the buck factor, to raise their record to 64-98, then examined the net wins added on by their acquisitions and came to the decision that they were a 70-75 win team. Certain players’ undeperformances (Cough, cough, Kevin Gregg, cough, cough) then lead to their underachieving my expectations for them this year and fall just below the record range I predicted for them.
I still stand by my point that the Orioles helped their potential win total last season more than the Red Sox did. Case in point, what match-up ended the Red Sox’s season? The Red Sox may have boosted their potential win total for next year or the years afterward, but the Orioles are much better than they would have been had last offseason never happened. I certainly stand by my point now more than ever when I say that the Orioles *need* starting pitching to win even more games. I was in Baltimore for only three games and I could tell that this was the case.
Again, not a totally correct prediction, but I did very accurately predict how well the Orioles did in 2011.
Re-view of the Preview: Toronto Blue Jays
Here, is my entry analyzing the Blue Jays’ 2010-11 offseason and predicting their 2011 season’s successes.
Predicted record: 77-82 wins
Actual Record: 81-81
Some how someway I predicted the Blue Jays’ 2011 pretty accurately. Let me explain my relationship with the Blue Jays: I do admire them as a team, but because of the circumstances (distance and the TV situations this creates), I pay attention to them probably the least out of the teams in the AL East with the Rays a close second.
Truth be told, I have little to no idea how the Blue Jays won their games. The extent of this knowledge is propbably that Jose Bautista was really hot in the first half and ended up with 50-some odd HRs.
I can’t really tell you how, but I was right in predicting the Blue Jays’ season even if I did pay less attention to them than I normally do in most seasons. Although, I do stick with my prediction of them getting better in the next few years as a result of Alex Anthropoulos, as he has demonsrtated his above-average ability to piece together what seem to be great trades (you can’t really evaluate any trade until all of the players in the trade leave the respective teams they were traded to).
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.
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