With the MVP votes finally tallied and the chatter about the annual Hall-of-Fame vote ready to kick off, I thought it high time to revisit the bold predictions and prognostications I made at the start of the season, to see where I landed. And as a bonus, I’ll revisit some of the bold predictions of the BJOL readers, to see if any of you should get this gig next year.

 

 

Nope. While Mike Trout’s season was very, very good, it is hard to call it historically remarkable. Sure, he posted a career-high .460 on-base percentage. And he was 22-for-24 on stolen base attempts. But he’s not even going to win the AL MVP award, which is the bare minimum for a Mike Trout Historic Season. 

 

I was really basing this prediction on Trout’s insanely low strikeout rate during spring training (it was zero, by the way. Zero percent of his spring training at-bats had ended in a strikeout.) But Trout’s regular season strikeout rate actually jumped up a little in 2018. Which is a shame, of course. Here’s hoping he can get his act together and do better in 2019. 0-for-1.

 

 

When I made the prediction, I said that either Albies or Acuna would get votes for the MVP. I hadn’t realized that Albies has blown through his rookie-eligibility in 2017, so this was a little bit of a typo.

 

Anyway…halfway through the year, Ozzie Albies had this prediction locked up. Coming into the All-Star break, Albies was sitting on 20 homers, 74 runs scored, and the league lead in total bases. But he cratered in the second-half, hitting just four homers in the last two months.

 

Thankfully, Albies’ decline almost perfectly paralleled the moment that Ronald Acuna decided that he wanted to put to rest all of this talk about Mike Trout being the best player in baseball. After a decent start, Acuna went bonkers over the second-half, posting a .323/.402/.625 triple-slash line while carrying Atlanta to the playoffs, where he hit the first-ever grand slam in an 0-4 count. In addition to the NL ROY, Acuna wound up received some back-of-the-ballot support in the MVP vote, netting 19 points in the vote, and finishing 12^th. 1-for-2.

 

 

Adam Eaton’s 2018 season, by game:

 

Game 1: 1 run scored

Game 2: 4 runs scored

Game 3: 2 runs scored

Game 4: 1 run scored

Game 5: 0 runs scored

Game 6: 2 runs scored

 

In the season’s first six games, Adam Eaton scored 10 runs, which had him on a pace to score a robust 270 runs on the season. Unfortunately, the last of those ten runs resulted in a leg injury that would take Eaton out for most of April and May, and limit him throughout the season. But for a week I had this one nailed. Ugh. 1-for-3.

 

My annual pessimistic take on a Yankee didn’t pan out. Aaron Judge is legit. I am an idiot. 1-for-4.  

 

Ding.

 

This seems a lot less surprising in retrospect than it was at the start of the year, when the bulk of the prognostications had the Mets as the second-best team in the NL East, and a Wild Card contender. Those prognosticators looked a lot smarter than me when the Mets opened the year 11-1. Mercifully, they fell utterly and completely apart after that, spiraling to fourth place and wasting a generational season from Jacob deGrom in the process. God, they were awful. 2-for-5.

 

 

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaahahaahahaa…no.  

 

That did not happen, obviously. Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez played like MVP’s. Jason Kipnis played like a thirty-one-year old middle infielder who was once a very underrated player, but is now rated exactly as he should be. 2-for-6.   

 

Not only was I right on this one, but I correctly predicted the two players who would outpace Sanchez: Salvador Perez and Mike Zunino. 3-for-7.  

 

 

Scott Schebler hit seventeen homeruns, which wasn’t quite enough to pace the Senior Circuit. That said, if I had to take a failed prediction to re-run next year, I’d be tempted to go with this one. The dude ropes dingers, and his park helps. 3-for-8.

 

 

Tyler Chatwood had a 5.30 ERA for the Cubs, which pretty much guarantees he wasn’t the second-best starter on the team. There was no silver lining in this one: he was awful all year. 3-for-9.  

 

 

Counting four postseason doubles, Mookie came surprisingly close to this prediction, collecting an impressive 51 doubles in the 2018 baseball season. He’ll have to settle for the AL MVP and a World Series ring. Good consolation prizes, I suppose. 3-for-10.  

 

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I finished .300, which is a tolerable batting line, all things considered. And my VoPB (Value over Projected Boldness) was 173.9, which is almost certainly a record.

 

So how’d the rest of you do? 

 

Reader hotstatrad predicted that the Tigers would lose 105 games. The Denizens of Detroit only managed to lose 98 games, and actually finished third in an AL Central that was a giant dumpster fire in 2018.

 

Markdiane34 correctly predicted an MVP-type season for Brewers OF Christian Yelich. Not only did Yelich have an MVP-type season, but he had an MVP-actual season. 

 

Klamb819 guessed that George Springer would pace the majors in catcher interference calls. I spent more time than I wanted to spend trying to look up catcher interference numbers for 2018, but I couldn’t find anyone. Does anyone know who led the majors in catcher’s interference calls in 2018?

 

Finally, Ventboys posted his ten predictions, which are worth going through:

 

1. Trevor Bauer will win the AL Cy Young award. This one came very close, with Bauer having a breakout season. I’d give it half-credit.
2. The Minnesota Twins will play Cleveland in the ALCS. This one was less close than the last one. 
3. Byron Buxton will become the new BJ Upton, hitting 20 homers, stealing 40 bases and striking out more than Frasier Crane at an NBA groupie party. Buxton hit zero homers, and stole five bases. He did strike out a lot, but this is a no.  
4. At least one of you yahoos will mention that BJ’s name is Melvin now. I predict that it will happen, even though I predicted that it will happen. Astonishingly, none of the readers did this.
5. The Chicago Cubs will return to the World Series and win, 4-2 over the Indians, who will then set Lake Michigan on fire. Nope.  
6. Most of you won’t get that joke. I got the joke. You don’t have enough faith in us.
7. Mike Trout will win the slash triple crown. Jose Altuve will finish second in all three categories. Nope, and nope.  
8. David Price will win 17 games and strike out 230 batters. 16 wins, 187 K’s. Half credit.  
9. The Cleveland Indians 5-man opening day rotation will combine for 1,000 strikeouts. Four of the five held up their end, but not enough to carry the 5^th starter over the line.
10. The Phillies will make the playoffs. For a while they were contending for it. Slipped at the end.

 

VB finished 1-for-10 on the year. Maybe next year, Terry. 

 

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Another projection I do every year is try and figure out which teams will surprise in a given baseball season.

 

This year I picked the Phillies and Braves to be the National League’s surprise teams, with the Phillies a little ahead of the Braves. Both teams did surprise for a while, but it was the Braves whose surprise status endured.

 

I’m bringing that article up not to clap myself on the back, but to make an observation that surprised me. In March, I wrote:

 

My thesis was that the presence of Super Teams in every division in baseball made it less likely for surprise teams to come to the fore. I wonder, in retrospect, if that’s correct. The Nationals didn’t win. The Cubs didn’t win. The Dodgers needed a Game 163 to win. The Indians were in a division of losers… and they won a paltry 91 games.

 

I thought that the slanted distribution of talent would make it harder for teams to surprise, but it’s possible that that slanted distribution actually makes it easier for a surprise team to happen. A lot of divisions had one good team…and if they faltered someone would have to fill the gap. There were seven Super Teams coming into 2018….it shouldn’t surprise us when a couple of them don’t live up to expectations.

 

Anyway…I picked the Oakland A’s as the surprise team in the American League, which turned out to be correct. It was a pretty good year for that article. I’m hoping to make a more official formula before next year, but I’ve been promising that for a long time, and it hasn’t happened yet. We’ll see what happens.