I will preface this post by saying this – in the two years leading up to starting this blog, I didn’t look up a statistic. Not once. And I barely did at any point before that. My philosophy developed by watching sports. Watching the games. Watching talk shows about sports. Watching highlight shows. And from life experience.
How did I do? Every baseball writer in the world picked the Yankees, Dodgers, Nationals, Indians and Astros to make the playoffs this year. I picked all five to miss the playoffs this year.
The Dodgers look awful. They have been playing well – congratulations to them. They are five games under .500. And they are about to have a bad, bad weekend when AJ Ellis’s new team the San Diego Padres come to town.
The Nationals look ok. They started off the season 4-0. Then, they fell apart. They started to play better there for a minute, but, they Bubble Burst last Saturday. They are 2-4 in their last six games. They are a meager four games over .500.
The Indians are a mere one game over .500. Not So Super After All. Something just isn’t right with The Cleveland Baseball Team this year.
The Astros look good. But looks can be deceiving. Same goes for the Yankees. Both teams will miss the playoffs this year, as I predicted.
The Red Sox and Cubs both look good. I picked them to win their divisions this year. The Angels and Mets are both right there. I picked them to win their divisions this year too. The Giants look ok – they are right around .500 and Madison Bumgarner hasn’t played a single game.
I picked the Pirates to make the playoffs this year. Everyone else said they were rebuilding. They all missed that trading McCutchen and Cole would be a huge addition by subtraction for them. They are five games over .500 as of this writing. Don’t include me among the ranks of the “surprised.”
Some of my picks look awful. I picked the Marlins to win 85 games this year. If that were to happen, I would be stunned.
The Texas Rangers are 11 games under .500. I picked them to win 91 games and be the first AL Wild Card Team this year.
The San Diego Padres are 9 games under .500. The Kansas City Royals are 17 games (yikes) under .500. I picked both teams to win their divisions this year. They are both still well within striking distance. The Royals are just 9 games out and the Padres are just 5.5 games out as of this writing.
The Baltimore Orioles are 18 games (YIKES) under .500. I picked them to make the playoffs this year as the second AL Wild Card team and I picked them to win the World Series as well. That looks highly improbable. Thing is, it will happen. Buck Showalter’s good karma alone is enough to guarantee it.
The Orioles will win the World Series this year. The Royals and Padres will win their divisions this year. And the Rangers will make the playoffs this year.
How about my predictions for individual players?
Some look bad, but overall they look pretty good.
Which look good, more or less?
Zack Greinke, Robbie Ray, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Johnny Cueto, Matt Olson, Kendall Graveman, Juan Nicasio, Gerrit Cole, Cole Hamels, Garrett Richards, Scott Schebler, Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, Kyle Schwarber, Lucas Giolito, Trevor Bauer, Josh Tomlin, Byron Buxton, Jorge Soler, Salvador Perez, Rhys Hoskins, JP Crawford, Carlos Santana, Dellin Betances, Mookie Betts, Rick Porcello.
My predictions for those players aren’t too bad considering that I didn’t look up a statistic for two years before starting this blog. And there is still plenty of time left for the other players to make me look good too.
How about my in-season predictions?
I said this on Monday, April 30th. At the time, the Diamondbacks were 19-8. Since, they are 6-17.
I said this on Tuesday, May 1st. Soler had two home runs at the time. He hit a game winning home run that night at Fenway Park. He hit three home runs in his next seven games overall after I sent out that tweet. He still only has 5 on the season, but that will change, soon.
I said this on Wednesday, May 9th. Porcello struggled, badly that night. He gave up 5 runs in 5.1 innings pitched. He was 5-0 with a 2.14 ERA to that point in the season.
I said this on Wednesday, May 9th as well. The Reds were 9-27 at the time. They won their next five games. They scuffled a bit after that, losing five of their next seven. But they just took two out of three from the Pirates. That makes them 9-6 since I sent out that tweet and 10-6 since acquiring Harvey overall. They were 8-27 at the time of the trade.
All in all, not a bad record, especially when you consider that I didn’t look up a statistic for two years prior to starting this blog.
Statistics are way overrated. All of them.
Batting average, slugging percentage, OBP – I care about them as little as I care about OPS+, wRC+, UZR, DRS, WAR and the rest of the Super Stats.
Baseball is a team game. The statistics of the individual players always need to be understood in that context.
I know Adam Jones. What his batting average is at any given point in the season doesn’t mean much to me.
I know Jorge Soler. The Dude hits the ball 600 feet. And he has “The Look.” What more do you need to know?
OBP is so overrated. 8/10 of what makes a player great is slugging. 1/10 is hitting for average. The other 1/10 is everything else, including OBP.
So, why should I care about OPS or OPS+ or wRC+ or WAR when they all highly overvalue OBP, defense, baserunning and other silly things?
I don’t. I don’t care about statistics. At all. All statistics are totally useless.
The Intelligentsia pored over the numbers and they said “The Super Seven will rule the MLB.” I watched baseball games and highlights and talk shows and said “The Intelligentsia is Super Stupid.” Basic Math.
If the playoffs started today, both the Dodgers and Nationals would fail to qualify for the Postseason. The Indians barely would. And while the Astros and Yankees both look Super right now, they aren’t.
All five teams will miss the playoffs this year, as I predicted. What would that say about SABRmetrics? About analytics in general?
SABR Skeptic 