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.
AL East
Our guesses: Boston… then it gets fuzzy… with the Rays at the bottom.
One of us (I didn’t get the names attached to the response form – bummer that) got all five positions correct. Two others were close (swapping Toronto and Baltimore). The rest had various shuffles in the middle of a muddled division.
Four of us thought the Yankees were good enough for 2nd place. Not sure how many thought they would be nipping at the heels of the Red Sox down to the last week of the season, though.
Behind those clubs, it was mostly a battle to see whose pitching would survive the longest – and that was Tampa (though we didn’t really think the rest of their offense would hit as well as it did).
Toronto simply could not breach the .500 mark and Baltimore’s slow fade to the bottom lasted for the entire Summer.
AL Central
This was pretty clear… and pretty clearly bad.
Our prognostication was Cleveland, Detroit, KC, the White Sox, and Minnesota. Oops. As least we got the winner right.
Only one respondent had the Twins as high as third place… nobody had the Tigers any lower than third. So this was our worse division overall… but we’ll safely claim that most others generally agreed.
AL West
We went for Houston, Seattle, Texas, the Angels, and Oakland. However, 3 different teams got first place votes.
We nailed the Astros and A’s… nobody voted Houston worse than 2nd; nobody voted Oakland better than 4th.
There was a whiff with the Angels – and I didn’t think they’d have any kind of viable pitching, either – as only one voter thought they’d finish in second place.
In truth, the 2nd-5th positions in this division were only separated by 5 games… with Seattle and the Rangers ending up tied for 3rd/4th at 78-84. So it was a dogfight… for the leftovers.
WildCards
There was no consensus here whatsoever, so I’ll skip ahead. I will say that I predicted the Diamondbacks and Twins would prevail over the past couple of nights. I was happy with that second pick… until the bottom of the 1st inning.
The End of the Book
Over World Series picks varied widely as well. In the Spring, I picked the Cubs over the Red Sox… still viable, but having seen the season play out, I am now onto the Indians over the Diamondbacks in 6 games.
The rest of our writers picked the Indians 4 times as winners, once as a WS repeat loser.
The Red Sox were included 5 times – winning twice.
The Dodgers got three votes… twice winning and once not.
None of us picked the Nationals.
Post-Season Awards
ROOKIES: Our picks were…
- NL Rookie of the Year – Dansby Swanson. That ain’t gonna happen.
- AL Rookie of the Year – Andrew Benintendi. Nice season, but that won’t happen either.
- I picked Swanson and Yoan Moncada. Pffft.
One of us – I’m guessing it was Fred – picked Corey Seager and Aaron Judge. Two others also picked Judge. That could be spot-on.
THE CY GUYS:
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NL: Lots of Syndergaard and Kershaw mentions. None of us named Scherzer because of who he plays for. In all seriousness, Kersha might sneak in there since Max and Strasburg could end up splitting votes.
AL: Lots of Chris Chris Sale mentions with a smattering of Corey Kluber and a couple of Aaron Sanchez (oops).
MVP CANDIDATES
- NL: 4 of us listed Freddie Freeman, 2 Kris Bryant… the rest were a bunch of names of the usual suspects… none of them including Stanton. This could be a very close vote among numerous candidates.
- AL: 6 votes for Trout (duh), 2 for Cano, the rest scattered. Nobody thought Judge would be getting much consideration.
That’s quite enough for now… all I can say is… we tried!