At the end of March, our writers were called upon to predict how 2017 would go. It was ugly. But some things we did get right.
It’s playoff time – the real playoffs, that is, and not just the wild, wild, Wild Card games. Though the Atlanta Braves aren’t participating, we cobbled together our guesses where every team would finish. I will spare you the individual results, but the consensus picks… were not terrible.
Mostly.
Let’s dig in:
NL East
Yeah, we figured Washington would win. 91% of us said so. That wasn’t up for much debate.
Beyond that, it was Mets 2nd, Atlanta 3rd, Miami 4th, and Philly 5th. So we got 3 of 5 right.
I do remember my own analysis at the time – that the Mets should finish second, but also had the potential to be the one team that could implode upon itself. Boy, did that ever happen.
I also suggested that Washington might also be one more major injury away from disaster. This was after Adam Eaton was lost for the year, and in truth, that team more-or-less had an additional major injury… they just rotated it around for a few weeks at a time – and survived it anyway since the rest of the division was so terrible.
I personally had the 72-90 Braves at 82-80. It should be easy to see where that downfall came from: Bartolo Colon, Julio Teheran at home, and various bullpen meltdowns. Fix those things and this truly becomes a winning (at least above .500) club.
The Marlins ended up with a juggernaut offense. I pretty sure that several fans – and team members are really lamenting the loss of Jose Fernandez now, as he would have been a difference maker for them.
NL Central
Yes – we picked the Cubs. We just didn’t guess they would have taken this circuitous route to get to the playoffs again.
We all whiffed on Milwaukee, neither expecting that their hitting or pitching would hold up. They have to be the surprise team of the National League, even more than the Rockies.
Our order: Cubs, Cards, Pirates, Brewers, Reds. Insert Brewers into the second slot and everything else is good as the Cardinals faded late.
In fact, there were 3 odd outcomes in this division: the Cubs being merely mediocre for so long before they found the light switch, the Brewers, and then the Cardinals for being bad at baseball. It was only their pitching that got them as far as it did, given pitching issues and the lack of… well, it was Matt Adams… not what you normally expect from Cardinal baseball.
NL West
That the Padres did not lose 100 games still stuns me, but it was their stop-gap veteran pitching that kept that from happening – better, really, than the Braves managed to accomplish (because Atlanta had a viable offense).
It stunned the rest of the writing crew, too, as this was a unanimously last-place call.
But here’s where I get to brag just a little: I had the NL West as Dodgers, Snakes, Rockies, Giants and Padres… swap the last pair and I would have nailed it.
But a 98 loss season from the Giants? Who knew that was coming?
Our composite result had the Dodgers winning, Giants second, Rockies 3rd, Arizona 4th, and the Pad Squad bringing up the rear.