Our MLB predictions have the 2020 season-opening with alarming occurrences, many related to the animosity towards a certain club in Texas.
The business of MLB predictions is a curious one. As major league baseball’s Spring Training exercise in desperation for half the guys in uniform begins, it’s time to look back on this writer’s predictions for last season and to make some new prognostications for the coming spring and summer.
Last year’s MLB predictions were the first in this particular cyberspace, and the results were predictably mixed. (But no more so than anybody else’s.)
However, here at CttP we endeavor to be precise, even if it means admitting something like failure. Last season, my “predicted headlines” went a dismal 2-8-3 for 13 predictions, with the tie column indicating predictions that were wrong but at least right in concept. The sole right but mostly wrong prediction went into the win column because I’m writing this, OK?
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Honestly, though, only one prediction was totally on the money. This cheater’s win was headlined, “(Apr. 10) Bosox Manager Alex Cora refuses to predict perfect season after 12-0 start.”
Yeah, yeah, we all know about Boston’s season (they were 3-9 after 12 games), but Cora didn’t predict a perfect season, did he?
However, my other “win” was so right it was only half right: “(Feb. 13) 2019 MLB camps set to open with 45 free agents still unsigned.” On Feb. 12 last year, the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan estimated there were “100 or so” unsigned MLB free agents, which affords me an additional moment of gloating because this article’s headline, “Is this the new normal?”
We know from this off-season, the answer to that is no.
Other examples from my disgraceful predictions, however, in full disclosure:
- Wrong but at least right in concept: “(May 5) Orioles trying to hold heads high after historically dismal, 4-31 start”: Dreadful Baltimore was, in fact, 13-22 on May 5, but the following day, young John Means pitched his third straight game in which he lasted at least five innings. He went seven and beat the reigning World Series champion Red Sox, 4-1, in an exciting “career outing.” The Orioles, however, improved their 47-win total from 2018 by only seven games in ’19.
- Totally wrong and not as funny as it seemed on New Year’s Day last year: “(Jan. 23) Unsigned Bryce Harper falls down basement stairs, fractures ribs and left shoulder”: Harper, a wonderful human being and baseball player, was perfectly healthy on Feb. 28, 2019, when he signed with the Phillies, and he proceeded to play very well for them if not at historic heights.