A Look Back At My Predictions for the Lost Baseball Season

Well, the Indians suck. I mean, they are in the midst of a 7 game win streak and Grady Sizemore became just the 14th American League player and first Indians' player since Joe Carter to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a single season. Furthermore, Cliff Lee is on his way to returning the Cy Young for a second straight season to Cleveland. Alright, enough looking at the bright spots of the Indians season, lets look at how my predictions panned out. The bold passages indicate the predictions I made on this blog last February.

The Cleveland Indians are the team to beat this season in all of baseball.

Well, that was obviously wrong. The White Sox have had a great pitching staff this year and their offense has come alive after dying last season. The Twins have managed admirably without their perennial all stars Johan Santana and Torii Hunter. In fact, they are at the top of the division and have done it for the most part without Liriano. He's returned to the rotation and looks to be in good form.

However I was right about one thing: The Tigers are afflicted with Mets syndrome. The more money they spend and big name players they get, the worse they perform. Its a sad thing but the Tigers will probably end up losing 110 games this year due to the "star power" they attained in the offseason.

Now, the Tiggies aren't going to lose 110 games (they were on pace, in May) but they are easily the most disappointing team in baseball right now. At the beginning of the season I just didn't think that they could mesh all that offense and at the same time make up for their lack of a bullpen. The result is that they were getting blown out late in games early in the season. The injury to Curtis Granderson didn't help either.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays will rise to the top of the East with 94 wins this season due to an influx of excellent young pitching and position players.

Wow. Probably the prediction of the year. The Devil Rays were becoming that team that just had too much all around talent to be bad forever. Their offense had Carl Crawford, Justin Upton, and Evan Longoria. The amazing thing is that they just came off their best roadtrip after losing Crawford and Longoria to injuries. Also, the trade for Matt Garza has paid off because he's been a solid piece of that rotation in the second half.

I also predicted that the Red Sox would get the Wild Card berth because the rest of the division was weak. Well, looks like thats well on the way to happening. The Yankees don't have the arms to compete this late in the season. Mussina is their only consistent starter and they lost Wang to injury. Hughes and Kennedy have been busts this season just as I had predicted and their offense is woefully mediocre due to age and complacency.

The Angels will win the West.

Yeah, whatever. Someone who hasn't watched baseball in about 7 years could have made that call.

Anyway the Mets Syndrome will strike again. They'll overpay for another superstar and somehow manage to get worse. Santana will get the Mets to be within minutes of reaching the playoffs instead of hours. But in the end the Phillies with superman Jimmy Rollins will prevail because thats what they do. Entice their fans with an exciting late run and flop in the playoffs.

Well this wasn't that bad of a call. As of now, the Phillies are about 0.5 games back of the Mets at the top of the divison. However, the Mets didn't really get any better by adding Santana. They managed to only maintain the status quo. All while firing their manager mid-season and getting a mediocre year from Jose Reyes. I guess this prediction is the most TBD of the bunch.

On to the NL Central....

Oh yeah, the Brewers. They are my pick. They just have too much pedigree in Prince Fielder and Tony Gwynn Jr. to be bad. Throw in some Rickie Weeks and decent starting pitching and welcome to October!

Obviously this pick was bolstered by the unpredictable additions of C.C. Sabathia in a trade with the Indians. However, my reasoning for picking the Brewers to make the playoffs, is still intact. They have great young offensive talent and true ace in Ben Sheets. The rest of their rotation was sold throughout and they had a legitimate closer. I really thought this division was going to be weak, but the Cardinals and the Cubs really proved me wrong. The Cubs will probably go on to win the division because of their 5 game lead going into September. But of the Brewers hang on and take the wild card from the Phillies/Mets, then watch out in October.

What did I say about the NL West?

Picking a team to win this division is like trying to pick the prettiest chick from a group of beat up uglies. So I guess I'll go with the Diamondbacks. They had a negative run differential last year but still managed to put up 90 wins.

Well, at least the ugliness prediction turned out to be right here. This division is full of 80 win teams and its relatively close this late in the season. The Diamondbacks are on top right now as predicted, but lead the Dodgers by only 3 games. I knew the Rockies were a fluke because no team can logically win 30 games in a row, or whatever they did. And it looks like the Padres fly ball graveyard of a ballpark really killed them this season. No offense means no wins. And the Padres have very few of both (49 wins as of the end of August).

Interestingly I made some good predictions with the Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Devil Rays. However, the one division I really messed up was my own. I'm not sure anyone saw the Indians crashing as badly as they did. But I will admit that adamant homerism really played a role in botching that one up. Regardless, I probably would have never picked the Twins or White Sox to win that division. Plus, my inkling about the Tigers proved to be correct.

Well, lets see how the rest of the season plays out. Hopefully my picks can provide some vindication for me in an otherwise lost baseball season.

My Love For the Olympics is Tapered by My Hate for Bob Costas

I love the Olympics. For more reasons than I can articulate, really. I like the international competition that takes me back to the old days as a child rooting for the "good" United States and against the "evil" USSR. Elementary indoctrination will do that to a kid. Anyway, I still love the Games even though the USSR isn't around anymore and it has become apparent that everyone used steroids in the past. However, NBC really did a shitty job in one department - the broadcast team. And when I say broadcast team, I overwhelmingly mean Bob Costas.

Now, I'm not sure if this is some sort of cultural divide between the eastern United States and the rest, but a majority of my midwest friends can't seem to stand Costas. While the east coasters actually like the diminutive fellow. I can't stand him.

Is it his know it all attitude? Possibly. But I really don't mind Alex Trebek. And he even answers the questions like everyone should know the answers. What a dick.

Is it his voice? Not really. I mean he has a great voice for broadcast television. It is soothing on the ears and he speaks pretty well.

Then what the hell is wrong with Costas, you ask? He fucking loves to hear himself talk. And he loves to use rhetorical questions to con the viewing public into believing that he has some sort of magical insight.

I can name a few situations where my hatred for Costas stems from.

During the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Games, there was a "Moment of Silence" as the flag for the World Trade Center site was marched into the stadium. Now, I am self admittedly not the most patriotic person in the world, but this was an emotional moment for the United States and should have garnered the respect of all. However, Costas, who apparently is above respecting the fallen, talked incessantly through the moment of silence. He couldn't go 60 seconds without hearing himself talk on national television? Did he really think we all forgot what happened on September 11, 2001 a year on?

That right there really epitomized Costas to me. He can't let the moment sink in as an announcer. He has to speak every time he gets the chance in order to tell all the drones in TV land how to think and react. How about leaving the moment as is so that we can take it in? That's probably a more effective method of broadcasting than continuously talking over the images on the screen.

During the Opening Ceremonies of this years Summer Games, you couldn't hear shit from the proceedings because Costas wouldn't shut up. The Ceremonies were beautifully produced but the only thing that came through the NBC feed was Costas and his cohorts talking throughout the entire presentation. How about letting the art speak for itself? No, it can't. Obviously the American public is too dumb to know what to think or how to feel and need Bob Costas as an interpreter for our collective conscious.

He offers nothing but facts that anyone can get by doing some online research. And the sad part about it is that some bright kid from an Ivy League school has to waste his summer and mind doing Costas' bullshit work for him. He doesn't offer anything in the way of useful insight because 1.) he talks for the sake of talking and 2.) he doesn't elicit anything from his fellow commentators. Jon Miller knows how to work Joe Morgan (who I also despise) to get some useful insight into baseball history and in game strategy. Marv Albert can use Hubie Brown (who loves to talk because he loves the game) or whoever else to make the game more accessible to the viewer.

Costas does nothing. He's a drone that repeatedly uses the same sports cliches and recites things as they happen on screen as if the viewer were blind. On top of that, he makes terrible jokes that are borderline condescending during his awful "Football Night in America." If Collinsworth weren't on that show, it would be the worst football program ever.

So thanks NBC, for putting a glamorized human interest story reporter at the forefront of the world's greatest sporting event. Hopefully we'll get to hear some more of his personal sagas such as his love for Mickey Mantle, or his hatred for the wild card in baseball. Because what Bob Costas thinks is important and should matter to the rest of the world. He's does us such a favor by allowing us to watch sports without thinking or articulating a single thought on our own.