old predictions to laugh at oops i came across this file from last year thought you might enjoy some of these thoughts the predictions were made on the date indicated they are largely out of order june tedward cs cornell edu me what have i done i computed the expected winning percentage for each team from their obp total bases and runs allowed i use the basic rc formula and the pythagorean projection i then compare this with their actual winning percentage all stats through june team obp tb ra w l xwp diff baltimore boston toronto new york milwaukee detroit cleveland minnesota oakland texas chicago california kansas city seattle you all know how things turned out the orioles red sox and yankees all disappeared the jays and tigers continued at essentially the expected pace the brewers and indians cranked in the second half the rangers predictably took a dive that shouldn t have surprised anybody meanwhile as predicted the mariners dropped behind the angels and royals they clearly didn t deserve the record in june the white sox and a s upped their game a bit while the twins dropped off a little but for the most part things were as expected okay so there were a few blatant errors but for a predictive calculation i thought this did pretty well from cavgeoe yalevm ycc yale edu tue mar the braves insert kent mercker into the starting rotation sometime this year bielecki is traded or released lei brandt becomes the fifth starter and the best bullpen in baseball has pena berenguer stanton wohlers freeman and pete smith who spot starts as well hm pete smith made the rotation instead of mercker and bielecki wasn t released until the end of the year i won t comment on the bullpen jeff reardon blauser wins the starting shortstop job outright by the end of may bream goes on the dl and klesko goes on a nice hitting honeymoon a la gregg jefferies in platooning with hunter mitchell wins the center field job a bit later all star break and nixon stays on as a valuable pinch runner lonnie is released unless the braves find a taker in a trade right on blauser wrong on bream and mitchell a bit early on lonnie as with bielecki didn t pick sanders did anybody managers to be fired this year in chronological order fregosi showalter valentine riddoch three of them went right showalter is still around and likely to stick it seems from mattel auto trol com mattel auto trol com tue mar bonds gets traded from bucs for some young talent nope they won the division and so kept him for a shot at the playoffs mets win division well they didn t finish last atlanta repeats in the west got that one right yankees surprise everyone but finish second behind toronto nope dwight gooden wins but is surpassed by saberhagen who wins i guess this is why you picked the mets to win huh roger clemens is injured early in the season tsk tsk not nice to predict something like this strawberry fails to hit even home runs and is often injured due to dodgers drop out of race you got that right and my response from tedward tue mar hmph can tell you are a mets fan do you mind if i make some counter predictions against yours they follow mets come in third behind pittsburgh and montreal okay so the mets finished fifth but i got the pirates and expos right the yankees offense and pitching flounders dropping them to fourth place in the al east boston wins games the division the pennant and the world series first half dead on second half ummm i m a sox fan go easy on me dwight gooden rushes his comeback gets blown out and goes on the dl from may through mid july saberhagen runs a record wfan criticizes the mets for giving away that great talent jefferies who has a solid year in kc so i got my predictions for gooden and saberhagen reversed i was at least close and was right about jefferies though i don t know has wfan criticized the jefferies trade roger clemens wins another cy as well as games close no cigar in article udqceao vpeii li andrew cmu edu al x andrew cmu edu amit likhyani writes excerpts from netnews rec sport baseball apr re nl east smiley trade s cavgeoe yalevm ycc yale ops projected for hojo i will streak naked down forbes avenue if hojo does not muster more than a ops something is wrong with that projection some predictions need no introduction from navarra casbah acns nwu edu mon apr from tedward cs cornell edu do you care to put your prediction down for posterity you predict mark grace will get rbis i say you are out of your mind that is almost impossible for a hr type guy batting behind dawson who kills most of the rallies he doesn t finish why do you say that mark has driven in and last year mark was batting second primarily and it was his worse year average wise since he is batting either rd or th this year i predict he will be back up to his previous standards i think he will be better rbi s is not that much of a stretch sometimes us statheads get lucky grace didn t hit behind dawson the entire season but he also finished with only rbis from nss midway uchicago edu tue may the most ballsy prediction ever mark mcgwire will hit or more hrs this year nope he slowed down and the injury finished him off didn t even reach but a ballsy prediction nonetheless from ecaxron mars lerc nasa gov thu may baltimore will not fade they will not win the division this year but they will finish within five games i find the prospect of two orioles winning each easier to comprehend than that of two sox no offense i think their pitching is about as good as the division has to offer the orioles finished seven games out none of them won though mussina might have had a chance with better relief and more starts nobody else in the division is worth a darn they all finish a minimum of fifteen games out the tribe that s another reason to watch baltimore this year and next they won t waste many of those games against the rest of the division except for the brewers who you probably forgot you were right the rest of the division was thoroughly mediocre the yankees and indians led with wins the red sox trailed with wins none were horrible but four were five or more games below from djohnson cayley uwaterloo ca david johnson date thu aug gmt right that was me i never said the jays were a cinch to clinch it but i said that milwaukee will be more of a threat than baltimore i do think that toronto should win it but after i don t consider anything a cinch unless you have something like a game lead with games to go i do think that the jays have the best talented team in the al east and if we had a good or even average manager we might have a bigger lead right now i also think that the orioles will not play much better than baseball for the rest of the season you win from king cogsci ucsd edu thu nov in article nov cs cornell edu you write indians the first and only season ever prediction the cleveland indians will win or more games next year you were right from stvjas meteor wisc edu fri sep jose rijo will win the cy young award if he is healthy enough to go at least ip who would have thought he would try to steal a base why risk such an injury he had ip but didn t win the cy young maddux surprised all the orioles will win games in at least of the next years probably the last and their pitching staff will have a team era among the best in the al in at least of the next years but not necessarily all the same years as they win this one will take a long time to verify i don t think i want to wait that long but they won games last year and they were fifth in the league in era not a bad start ben mcdonald will not challenge for an era title in the next years nor will he have victories either year by challenge i mean finish among the leaders being among the leaders before the season is done doesn t count he will probably never be the pitcher he was hyped to be but is still a decent starter to have looks like it he wasn t bad last year just too consistent to be an ace so far this year looks like more of the same the phillies will give up many fewer walks if when they get rid of their bullpen coach ryan i am not predicting when or whether they will get rid of him and you will have to give the team a little bit of time to adjust before seeing the radical change they would have a fine pitching staff if they would just steal ray miller away from pittsburg the white sox seem to have the same problem but not as bad i honestly can t say did they get rid of him their bb totals were down last year ricky jordan will have rbi if he starts games hitting in the or or spot in any lineup or the spot in a lineup with very good obp in the hitters this applies for each of the next years i just don t think he s that good billy ripken will never again hit over with ab so far so good i m definitely not waiting to check this one from panix spira cmcl nyu edu fri sep no matter what lou gorman and his scouts say paul quantrill will never ever be an adequate major league starter never i have never seen a starting pitcher who can only strike out per innings at aaa be successful in the majors current plans seem to be to use quantrill in long relief he has a rubber arm and unusual delivery he might be decent in that role from lyle ecn purdue edu sat sep m v p a l frank thomas n l hal morris division winners a l east baltimore orioles a l west chicago white sox a l pennant chicago white sox n l east st louis cardinals n l west cincinatti reds n l pennant cincinatti reds w s champion cincinatti reds wrong on all of the above hal morris and my favorites from tedward sun oct belle will not walk as many as times in belle will hit more hr than he has walks in belle hit hr last year walking times but five of those were intentional okay so i exaggerate but i might have been right from trn strdev jhuapl edu tue mar are the o s going to sign cal of is eli s wallet welded shut outgoing money only wide open for incoming cash my prediction which you may make note of valentine is that eli jacobs will defer any serious negotiations on cal ripken s contract until the season is over eli will give cal every opportunity to have his stats tumble a bit from last year s pace before coming forth with an offer despite claims that op cy was designed to cal s strength my feeling is that the foot left center canyon will cut down on cal s power stats after all it s hard to credibly to offer million year to an all star game mvp al mvp gold glove shortstop baseball deity but it d be a lot easier to offer a similar salary to an obviously declining but above average shortstop who had a career year one full season ago of course if cal does match his numbers then eli is going to be faced with a rather huge and expensive problem how much did cal sign for when did he sign if i remember correctly he got a rather hefty contract despite a weak season and finally from jpalmer uwovax uwo ca thu sep generally because of expansion in there will be a lot of mediocre talent hanging around much of it will not make it as the expansion teams look for younger talent around which to build their teams my specific predictions as of april jim acker and cory snider will be selling aluminum siding snyder is still in sf acker is gone neither charlie kerfeld nor vance lovelace presently in tiger aa but formerly big leaguers will be playing professional ball they aren t in the majors nor will dave rozema who says he s keeping in shape with a hope for another shot with expansion never heard of him shawn hare and jody hurst will be in the major leagues they are outfielders in the tiger minor league system i don t think they are in the majors ron hassey will be a minor league manager with the yankees dunno what happened to him it will be bye bye for balboni if he s still around he s stuck in the minors bo jackson will not be a starter hm with raines out bo looks to get a lot of pt gary huckaby will have moved to alaska permanently they re on the net and dave kirsch will return to canada to live hm thanks for listening valentine
