Tuesday, November 25, 2008

2008 Prediction Results

It's been a slow offseason up this point as far as the Twins are concerned. There's been little of substance to write about, and that continues to be the case. Hopefully things will start to heat up over the next month or so as Winter Meetings roll around and teams begin to engage in more serious pursuit of free agents and trade targets.

For today, I'm going to go back and review the 2008 season predictions that Mr. Mosvick and I made back in March. It's possible that no one cares about this other than me (and I'm not even sure I do), but at the very least it's something to post, and perhaps we can all have a collective chuckle over how utterly awful some of these predictions now look. Moreover, I'm personally a believer that people should be held accountable for some of the outrageous predictions they make, so I feel I have something of a moral obligation to post these. Or something.

For the heck of it, we'll tally points to see whose predictions were more accurate. I don't think we ever tallied our 2007 predictions (though I'll note that, by a quick count, I think I'd have lost by a pathetic 2-1 score), but in 2006 Mossy got the best of me by a score of 5-3. Time for some sweet revenge.

AL EAST CHAMP
Nelson: Boston
Mosvick: Boston
Comments: Zero points awarded. Come on -- Rays? Who'd have thunk it. I figured I was going on a limb by picking them to finish third.

AL CENTRAL CHAMP
Nelson: Cleveland
Mosvick: Detroit
Comments: These were the two popular picks. Both were wrong. No points.

AL WEST CHAMP
Nelson: Los Angeles
Mosvick: Seattle
Comments: I wasn't falling into the "improved Mariners" trap. Mosvick did. 1-0 lead.

AL WILD CARD
Nelson: Detroit
Mosvick: Cleveland
Comments: We both thought the AL Central would produce two playoff teams. Ultimately, it didn't really deserve to produce one.

NL EAST CHAMP
Nelson: New York
Mosvick: New York
Comments: Damn Mets.

NL CENTRAL CHAMP
Nelson: Milwaukee
Mosvick: Milwaukee
Comments: They made the playoffs, at least. Still 1-0.

NL WEST CHAMP
Nelson: Arizona
Mosvick: Arizona
Comments: Obviously we were very independent with our NL picks. And very wise.

NL WILD CARD
Nelson: Colorado
Mosvick: Colorado
Comments: Yeah... no.

WORLD SERIES
Nelson: Boston over NY Mets
Mosvick: Detroit over Arizona
Comments: OK, I was wrong, but not nearly as wrong as Mossy...

AL MVP
Nelson: Grady Sizemore
Mosvick: Alex Rodriguez
Comments: Not bad picks, really. Both guys should have gotten more consideration than they did. Still, no points here. Man are we doing bad.

NL MVP
Nelson: David Wright
Mosvick: Chase Utley
Comments: They both had very good years. Alas, still 1-0.

AL Cy Young
Nelson: Felix Hernandez
Mosvick: Justin Verlander
Comments: Neither received a single vote. Ouch.

NL Cy Young
Nelson: Johan Santana
Mosvick: Johan Santana
Comments: You can make a case that Santana deserved it, but Tim Lincecum was a fine choice.

AL Rookie of the Year
Nelson: Evan Longoria
Mosvick: Clay Buchholz
Comments: Here I pick up another point. 2-0... this is turning into a landslide.

NL Rookie of the Year
Nelson: Franklin Morales
Mosvick: Jay Bruce
Comments: Goodness... what was I thinking? Bruce was a decent pick.

And so, I claim a decisive victory, managing a whopping two correct predictions. As for Mossy, he ended up with zero points. Not one correct prediction. How very embarrassing. I doubt he'll be showing his face around here anytime soon after a performance like that.

For next year, we'll probably try to do a more broad prediction contest where readers can submit their predictions and the winner will receive some sort of cool prize at the end of the season. As it's currently constructed, this format doesn't really give us much other than the knowledge that Mosvick and I are both very, very bad at this.

2 comments:

Nick M. said...

I'd love to defend all my terrible choices, but looking back, many of them do baffle me. For instance, I have no idea how I bought into the Mariners as a improved team. They were arguably the worst in baseball. They lacked a great offense, had an overrated pitching staff from the beginning, and their best player is getting old. Verlander looks pretty bad too now, but he was up and coming going into this year, but wow did he regress. But, that was also a pick in tandem with the assumption that Detroit was playoff-bound. They did have a good offense, as predicted, but their pitching was a lot worse than I thought it would be.

Colorado? Terrible choice, but Nelson bought into that one too. They looked like they could compete in a weak NL West. As for ROTY, its a lesson that picking position players is usually better, though Bruce wasn't a bad pick.

All in all, I'm a little embarrassed, but not overly so. I always remember that with these picks, we are not only trying to be serious, but also have some fun and try to pick against the consensus. That can at least explain Colorado and Seattle. I'll comfort myself by reminding everyone that the overall score remains 7-6. So, here's to next year's picks.

Unknown said...

It's worth noting that this year stumped pretty much everybody.