2014 Pre-Season Predictions Revisited

Every year the crew at Burning River Baseball makes a few predictions about the things that will occur during the season and every year, we own up to our terrible mistakes. This year, in addition to the three regular writers of Burning River Baseball, we added in Cody Slaybaugh, host of the Sports Report on ESPN 970 WFUN in Ashtabula. Since previous attempts at picking play-off teams and national award winners have went so poorly, we just made Indians based predictions, including the final division standings, the team’s triple crown stat winners and the Burning River Award winners that were given out earlier this week.

To start, the division finished out exactly how many national writers picked it with the Tigers continuing their claim on the division that they have held since 2011. Add in some homerism and everyone was fairly correct in their picks with me and Cody being the most accurate, just off by one.

If the triple crown predictions show anything, it is that Justin Masterson really was the most disappointing player on the Indians this season. Rather than leading the team in wins, strike outs and ERA, he was among the worst among all three before he was traded. As far as ERA goes, Kluber was impressive, but he was also the only pitcher to qualify. While I did predict him to win in that category, no one thought he would be anywhere near as dominant as he ended up being, leading the AL in strike outs and wins while coming in third in ERA.

Offensively, the choices were much more accurate outside of Jen’s love of Jason Kipnis (although she was the only one to pick Michael Brantley as the team RBI leader correctly). Mike and myself correctly chose Carlos Santana as the team’s best power hitter and Brantley as the top hitter for average. While Cody’s selection of Gomes for the top hitter on the team looked odd at the beginning of the year, he ended up coming in third on the team with a .278 average.

The final group of predictions was for the Burning River Awards given out to the best players on the Cleveland Indians. The awards are for Most Improved, Rookie of the Year, top reliever, defender, batter, pitcher and overall MVP. As no one predicted the amazing years from Kluber and Brantley, the top hitter, pitcher and MVP categories were a wash. Another thing no one predicted was how terrible the overall defense would be and how Jose Ramirez would be the only player with a significant positive impact in the field.

The Indians had two players worthy of Most Improved and the player picked by three of the four of us, Lonnie Chisenhall, was the second greatest. While he made massive improvements since 2013, no one could have made the transition that Carlos Carrasco did between April and August.

Ten different rookies played for the Tribe this year and somehow, I was the only one to pick a winner for the award that actually played with the Indians at some point this year. Cody Anderson, Mike’s pick, didn’t even break into AAA this year, but Mike has a history of early picks here. Last season, he chose C.C. Lee for rookie of the year and Lee made played his rookie season this year as one of the ten rookies. Obviously, Aguilar was not among the top rookies as T.J. House and Jose Ramirez were the top two, followed by Tyler Holt, Roberto Perez and Kyle Crockett as the top producing first year players.

The bullpen was one thing that did work out as expected. Both Mike and myself picked Cody Allen as the top reliever and he was, saving 24 games with a 2.07 ERA. Rzepczynski, who was picked by Cody and Jen, wasn’t a bad choice as the left handed specialist got into 73 games and held an ERA of 2.74. Only Bryan Shaw and Allen were obviously better than Rzepczynski.

Just like the Indians this year, our picks were very mediocre yet again. It just goes to show how difficult predicting the future really can be. Since April, the Indians have switched aces, closers, short stops, third basemen and DH’s. No one could have expected Holt and Crockett to make the jump from AA or even that Francisco Lindor and Cody Anderson would be left behind. Here’s to hoping that next year will be just as unpredictable, but either way, we will be back next March with a brand new set of predictions.