Eating Humble Pie Part 1

So the season has ended, and before we look to the future, I want to glance back at some of my earlier predictions. I really don't remember what my predictions looked like, so there's a very big chance I'm going to eat a big slice of humble pie; I guess that's why I'm paid the big bucks.

I made predictions about each players output for the season, but I just want to look at the big picture stuff tonight. I figure it would be too big of a post to do all at once, plus, I can draw this out into multiple posts, so all you readers have something to look forward to looking at.

First off, I owe a huge apology to Rob Neyer. Who is Rob Neyer, you may ask. I'll tell you; he's clearly the second coming of Nostradamus over at ESPN.com. In his preseason predictions, he correctly called the Sox finishing third in the division.
So naturally, I called him out on it on my modest little blog; thank goodness no one read it at that point, but I questioned his sanity nonetheless in a post I eloquently titled, "Rob Neyer is on Crack" I wish I had linked the article, because I don't recall his full prediction for the division, but he undoubtedly picked the Indians and Twins ahead of the Sox. Still he called the demise of the Sox this year, and I must credit him for that. So Rob, I will never insinuate that you're hitting the crack pipe, well not until next season at least.
Consider that one helping of pie for me. Let's see if I go back for seconds.

I also wrote a post titled "Some of My Expectations" which I'll rewrite here in red, so I can interject and defend myself.

AL central
1. White Sox
2. Indians
3. Tigers
4. Twins
5. Royals

Ok, so you can't blame me for going with the Sox in first. On paper they were the best team. Everyone fell in love with the Indians, but they, for one reason or another, didn't put it together. I pretty much sucked at predicting the division. I did get the Royals correct, and I gave the Tigers some due, but clearly not enough. Maybe it's my built in bias against the Twins, but I didn't think they had enough offense to contend. Oops! so much for the not contending. I guess I'm no Peter Gammons, who selected them for the World Series; he is a god amongst men.

I figure the Sox will have a win total in the mid 90’s; somewhere around 93-94 wins, which should be good to take the division. I was close, 96 took the division. The Sox are clearly one of the best teams in the majors, but the AL looks uber competitive this year, so it would be difficult to reach a triple digit win total. Nailed that one! 8 teams with 86+ wins in the AL vs. only 3 teams in the NL. With Spring Training’s optimism still around, the A’s, the Angels, the Sox, the Indians, the Tigers, the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Blue Jays all have to think that they have a legit shot at the playoffs. Notice the credit to the Tigers and to the Jays, who finished second in the East. I think joining the ChiSox not so much in the playoffs will be the A’s Score one for Jeeves. I’m unsure about the rest. I think the Yanks may edge the Red Sox for the Eastern Division title, to borrow a line from Ali G, boo-ya-ka-shah, but I’m totally baffled by the Wild Card; it could really go to any division or just the Central I’ll temporarily say that the Red Sox will win it, but only if they stay healthy, which they didn't. If Schilling or Beckett miss a large chunk of time, they may fall out of contention. They stayed healthy but others missed a lot of time, robbing them of their season.

That's interesting, I did pretty well predicting the AL except for the Central, the division I should know the most about.

So coming up tomorrow and the days following, we'll look at my group by group projections. If you want to take an early look, my previews for the starters, infield, outfield, etc are on the sidebar.