MUST HAVE LOST MY HEAD THAT DAY
That's what somebody should have asked when I made my 2009 baseball predictions.
OMG they were terrible.
http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2009/04/baseball-predictions-for-2009.html
Let's review:
I had the METS!!@@@##$ winning the East. That's just terrible.
The Cubs winning the Central. The definition of insanity.
The Dodgers winning the West. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
The Phillies were my Wild Card. So 2 out of four is pretty awful.
But it gets worse.
Cubs over Phillies - Dodgers over Mets in the Divisional Series.
Cubs over Dodgers in the League Championships Series.
THAT'S JUST PATHETIC.
How about the AL side, Any vindication there?
Rays-Sox-Yanks, 1-2-3 in the East. Actual results - opposite. Nice call, slick.
Indians winning the Central with the Tigers fourth. Oh, just missed on that one.
Angels winning the West.
Red Sox as the Wild Card.
Again a brutal two for four.
Sox over Angels - Rays over Indians in Divisional Series. Could go oh-fer there.
Rays over Sox in LCS. A definitive whiff.
And finally, Rays over Cubs in the World Series!!! Keep dreaming!!!
I guess this demonstrates two things. If you make your picks with your heart (Mets, Cubs and Rays) instead of your head, you lose. And just when you think you know this game of baseball--it shows you how little you actually know.
Who knew that the loss of Cliff Floyd, Jonny Gomes, and Eric Hinske, all borderline players, would make such a difference to an otherwise solid team. They were great clubhouse guys, I guess, and obviously made a hell of a difference on that team.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Grant Balfour's fastball dropping from 97 to 92 mph didn't help, just like BJ Upton's season-long slump.
True. Every successful team needs those type of guys to produce and some guys to have career years. The younger guys are tougher to judge since you don't know what their ceiling (career year) is or their mean (average year).
ReplyDeleteRays have a lo of good hitters with <1000 AB's. They seem to strike out quite a bit and chase pitches a little too much.
With relief pitchers, especially middle innings guys, there are a lot of "odd-year, even-year" guys. They contribute one year and then next year they hurt you.
The one thing I observed the few times I saw the rays was they have too many wrong-direction "Oh No" guys in the bullpen. When a Paps or Mariano comes in the OPPONENT is supposed to say "Oh No". With Wheeler, Balfour it Rays fans that say "Oh No".
They need a young pitcher like Brian Wilson with SF to come up and grab the closer role. He'll be an inexpensive option for a couple more years.
At least Longoria still looked pretty good.
Maybe a veteran catcher like Benji Molina heps the pitching staff. Madden should be familiar with him and he may be out of SF as soon as Posey gets his feet wet.