When Personal Predictions go Wrong

At the start of every season, people often like to make their own, personal predictions on the upcoming baseball season. Well before the start of the 2007 season I decided to make some of my own, ranging from the entire standings of the MLB, the playoffs, the awards, and individual statistics for the most of the Yankees players. I did this during my intro to psychology class last semester because, well I was bored and I could not draw stupid sketches forever. I thought it would be fun to share my predictions because, well, the suck. For now, I’ll start with sharing my predictions for the standings and the playoffs, and next time I’ll finish up with the awards and the Yankees player’s predictions. Let me warn you, things are about to get ugly.

AL East- 1st. Yankees, 2nd Red Sox, 3rd Blue Jays, 4th Devil Rays, 5th Orioles. I would not have been able to look at myself in the mirror if I had picked anyone but the Yankees to win this division, so I didn’t. I picked the Yankees to win it and the Red Sox as the wild card, but it ended up flip flopping. The teams were so close that I can’t kill myself on that one. I was a little aggressive in picking the Devil Rays to finish out of last place for just the second time in their team history because I thought their young talent would propel them past the hapless O’s, but it didn’t happen.

AL Central- 1st. Tigers, 2nd Indians, 3rd Twins, 4th White Sox, 5th Royals. I was very tempted to pick the Indians over the Tigers but resisted thinking the AL Champs plus Gary Sheffield would still have enough to take the division. Well they didn’t. I was also tempted to pick the Indians as the wild card but didn’t do that either. Oops. I knew the Twins without Francisco Liriano would not be able to contend this year so at least I was right on that one. The White Sox and Royals, they’ll probably be getting similar projections from me for next year.

AL West- 1st Angels, 2nd A’s, 3rd Mariners, 4th Rangers. My best picks yet, sadly. The Angels were the only division winner I picked correctly sadly enough. I thought the A’s would find enough young pitching to at least compete but they didn’t this year, so the Mariners surprised me and everyone by finishing second and the Rangers surprised nobody by finishing last.

NL East- 1st Mets, 2nd Phillies, 3rd Braves, 4th Marlins, 5th Nationals- I picked the Phillies as the Wild Card but they went a step further and unseated the Mets due to their epic collapse. I thought the Nationals would be one of the worst teams of all time but they weren’t even in last place. Maybe next year they’ll be as bad as I thought they’d be this year.

NL Central- 1st Cards, 2nd Astros, 3rd Cubs, 4th Brewers, 5th Reds, 6th Pirates. This was one of my worst calls ever. I guess I didn’t expect Chris Carpenter to be out for the season but I should have known an 83 win team that didn’t get any better was likely to regress even further after losing Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver, and Jason Marquis. At least the Reds and Pirates were as bad as I thought they’d be, but the Reds will be one of my favorite sleeper picks for next year.
NL West- 1st Dodgers, 2nd Padres, 3rd Giants, 4th Diamondbacks, 5th Rockies. Hmm, I guess I picked the Rockies, the NL champions, to be in last place. Oops. That’s not even counting the fact that I picked the division champions to be in fourth place. I’m going to pretend that didn’t happen. I don’t really regret it since the Dodgers did have a talented team, and they’ll likely be my pick again this year and the Rockies and Diamondbacks also seem like good bets to regress next year.

Ok, with the division winner’s set up and virtually all wrong anyway it hardly seems mentioning who I picked to go through the playoffs, but I’ll do it anyway. I had the Yankees vs the Angels and the Red Sox vs the Tigers in the ALDS, with the Yankees and Tigers advancing and then the Yankees advancing to the World Series. In the NL I had the Mets over the Cards and the Phillies over the Dodgers in the NLCS So my World Series ended up being the Yankees vs the Phillies and I of course picked the Yankees to win it all. Whether I truly believed it or not is debatable but I knew I could not bring myself to pick against them, we’ll see if I’m able to do it next year.