One of my pet peeves in fantasy are those bloggers that are unwilling to officially set out their predictions. Usually this is so that they can claim only to be right after the season ends without owning up to their mistakes. So in the first week of the season I wrote my offical “longshot” predictions down so that they were on record. How did I do? Not too well I am afraid. Here is the rundown.

-Jarrod Saltalamacchia, even if he comes up, will not hit. This is a hit. Salty’s career is in big trouble.
-Brian Wilson and Brandon Lyon are out as closers by the end of May (looking good so far on that one!)–Ugh. My the sarcasm in my comment that I was looking good on that one was justified. Lyon did eventually lose the job but Wilson had a nice year despite struggling at times.
-Coco Crisp sticks around as they fail to deal him, and Ellsbury gets 300 ABs off the bench. Crisp did stick around but Ellsbury won the job outright.
-Mark Buehrle has an ERA close to 5.00–I was looking good on this one for a while but an excellent September ruined it for me. Buehrle is on of those players that consistently outperforms his expected ERA and 2008 was no exception.
-Sabathia and Carmona both wilt under tough 2007 workloads and the Tribe struggles. Partial credit on this one, 2 for 3
-Felix Hernandez finishes in the top three in Cy Young voting. Miss.
-Evan Longoria flops and Matt Garza wins 15 games. Wow couldn’t have been more wrong on Longoria. Garza though gets partial credit, he won 11 but pitched well enough that he could have won 15. Though the wins were off my faith in him was justified. Next year perhaps I will have to predict 17 wins!
-Ian Kinsler: 30 HR, 25 SB .290/.370/.530-Hit. Kinsler blossomed as his power last year said he should. Though he only had 18 homerunes the rest of this prediction was spot on.
-Dustin McGowan emerges as a close second to Halladay. 15-8 3.40. Injuries ruined this one.
-Geovany Soto will flop. Oops. I have been wrong on him all year so I have to admit defeat.
-Brad Lidge holds the job all year and pitches fairly well. Hit, though even I underestimated how good he would be.
-Daric Barton will not hit enough and will lose the job. Hit.
-Rickie Weeks disappoints and hits under .260. Hit
-Manny Parra is the best of the rookie pitchers and wins the ROY. Miss though the voting hasn’t occurred yet he obviously won’t win the award.
-Miguel Cabrera and David Wright are the most valuable fantasy players.Miss though one can make a good argument for Cabrera in the AL.
-Stephen Drew flops again and his career goes the Russ Adams route. Big miss here as Drew surprised me and got his career back on track.
-Rafael Soriano becomes a top five closer. Miss though he was bedeviled by injuries.
-Ryan Theriot loses his job, yielding to Ronny Cedeno by the end of the year. Nope.
-Jeff Keppinger challenges for a batting title, a la Freddy Sanchez. Nope again.
-Chris Iannetta rebounds and becomes a top 10-15 catcher. Definite hit. Iannetta had an excellent year and flew under the radar. He might be a top five catcher next year and could even challenge to get into Brian McCann territory.
-Jeremy Hermida makes the All-Star team.Nope.
-Michael Bourn steals 50-60 bases. Missed but came close. Bourn had terrible trouble getting on base and still had 41 steals. He took a huge step back in 2008.
-Joe Torre buries Matt Kemp who gets 300 ABs- I am glad I missed on this one. This was not a condemnation of Kemp but one of Torre. If Andruw Jones wasn’t so awful I am sure this one would have come true.
-Corey Hart: 30-30-.300-Hart was a big disappointment, stepping back across the board in 2008.
-Paul Maholm emerges as their second best pitcher and an above average starter.A miss only if you penalize me for not predicting Maholm would be the Pirates best pitcher. He truly blossomed this year and still has room to grow.
-Trevor Hoffman loses the closer job. Miss.
-Lastings Milledge emerges as a top ten OF. Miss though he did quietly have a nice season.
-Miguel Tejada does not hit 25 HR. Hit. I would have bet any amount of money on this one, I was as sure of this as any of the predictions here. Apologies to my pals Tony Cincotta and Paul Greco.
-Billy Butler hits .320. Ugh. Strike one.
-Dontrelle Willis rebounds to be a league average pitcher. An even bigger ugh. His story is one of the most perplexing and compelling in baseball this year. Strike two.
-Jeff Francis posts an ERA under 4.00 Strike three.
-Grady Sizemore has a disappointing season. Strike Four.
-Joe Borowski has an ERA under 4.00 and holds the job all year. Strike Five, though injuries played a part.
-Chris Young has an ERA over 4.00. Miss but not by much as he had a 3.96 ERA and a 5.03 xERA.
-Ryan J. Braun hits under .290 and fall to the third round next year. Partial hit. He did hit under .290 but probably won’t drop from the second round to the third round in 2009. Though a former colleague whose name rhymes with Marino accused me of saying Braun would flop this year, he is obviously wrong and here it is in writing. A third rounder is hardly a flop and the BABIP did, in fact, tell the tale for Braun’s BA.

Overall this is probably about par for the course when you make some longshot out of the mainstream predictions. You will be wrong more often than you are right. What I really find amusing about these predictons is that when you make them you are so confident that you are right, and now you think “what the hell was I thinking saying Evan Longoria would flop and Joe Borowski would hold the job.” Hey if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at.