Yesterday Sean wrote about some of our Bold Predictions from before the season that have come true, or at least close to true. The list was pretty impressive, if I may say so. Today, however, I have the unhappy task of listing a few preseason predictions that didn’t go so well:
Mark Reynolds hits 31 HR but improves on his .198 avg from a year ago.- Well, Reynolds has 5 HRs but he’s hitting only .196 which is actually .02 lower than his absurdly low average from a year ago.
Jose Bautista hits .233 with 23 HRs and 85 RBI- Bautista is hitting .353 and has 18 homers already, the fourth highest amount through 40 games in history.
Manny Ramirez has a good year: .298/.402/.487 with 24 HR and 93 RBI- Um, nope.
Johnny Damon struggles: Hits 9 HR, .259 BA, and 11 SB-He’s already got 7 jacks, 6 steals and a .265 AVG so… no
Ian Desmond goes 20 HR 20 SB. His defense continues to struggle and has 30 errors.- He’s hitting .231 with only 3 HRs so probably not on this one. He’s got 8 errors by the way.
From a source inside the National’s office of Baseball Operations: Roger Bernadina hits .290 with 22 HRs and 33 SBs while playing a “dirty” Center Field in place of Nyjer Morgan. Also, the source didn’t want to go on record with this but thanks to my dirty reporting…Michael Morse will hit 40 HR this year.- Let’s see, Roger is hitting only .254 in only 16 games. He’s got 1 HR and 4 steals. We did get the Nyger Morgan thing right, he’s now a member of the Brewers but Morse has only 2 HRs in 37 games.
From a reliable source not really in the know: Hanley Ramirez’s line for 2011: .310, 35 HR, 100 RBI, 20 Sb, 80 runs, MVP caliber year.- Han-Ram is batting a robust .219 with 4 homers and 16 runs batted in. A very far cry from this prediction.
Lorenzo Cain wins the starting CF job early in the season and never looks back, hitting .300 and stealing 40 bases- Lorenzo has yet to make his season debut. Oops.
Danny Valencia will have a big year. I expect 24 HR and a .305 BA this year. He will move up the lineup and have a major impact (similar to Delmon Young last year).- Nope. Danny’s hitting .227 with 5 homers.
Pedro Alvarez hits 25 bombs and pushes for a .300 AVG- .208 AVG, 2 homers.
Jaime Garcia will get hit around a bit. Losing record (10-12) with a 4.19 ERA and a 1.43 WHIP- 5-0, 2 complete game shutouts, 1.93 ERA.
Corey Hart will hit 50 HRs- He better get going, he still needs 50 to make this prediction true.
Ichiro and Fellix will consider defecting TO Cuba just to get away from this team- The Mariners are playing good baseball and all reports are that Felix is having a blast pitching with Michael Pineda.
Brandon Webb is healthy again and throws 212 innings with a sub-3.00 ERA.- Nope, He hasn’t pitched a single inning in the pros yet so this ones out.
Tim Stauffer figures out what his best pitch is. He settles on the gyroball. Throwing exclusively gyroballs, Stauffer shuts down the Rockies in the now smaller PetCo Park for a 53 pitch no hitter.- Stauffer should try winning a game first. He’s 0-3 in 10 starts.
Brandon Belt replaces Aubrey Huff at first base by early June, contending for rookie of the year with 20+ home runs.- Kinda, sorta, maybe. Belt started the year at first base for San Fran, moving Huff to right, but since then he’s spent a lot more time in Fresno that Frisco.
Overall, I think we did ok with these Bold Predictions. Some were way way way off but those are almost as interesting as the correct ones. Its cool to see who came out of nowhere, who disappointed, and who retired rather than face a 100 game steroid suspension.
-Max Frankel
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