Season Wrap: AL Style

Dave Paisley

With contraction being thrust upon us by Bud "Baseball Nazi" Selig ("No baseball for you - ten year!") and my good colleague Jason Barker having taken care of the free agent scene, I thought I'd take a look back at the season through the lens of my pre-season predictions, just to see what panned out and what didn't. While many pundits make predictions and then instantly forget them, we at strikethree.com come from a prouder tradition. We're not afraid to show you where we boldly predicted and went down in flames.

I'll take this division by division, with a summary of my pre-season comments, followed either by a smug "see how prescient I was", or a, "where did that truck come from?" observation. The tables show actual records (W, L, W-L, Games Behind), my prediction (Est W), and how far off I was (W-Est W). Basically, anything within 5 games for a given team is as close as it gets, within 10 games is OK, and beyond 15 games is way off. So here goes and, by the way, the division name headers are links to my original pre-season articles.

AL East

Team	W	L	W-L	GB	Est W	(W-Est W)
NY Yankees	95	65	30	0	91	4
Boston	82	79	3	13.5	89	7
Toronto	80	82	-2	16	86	6
Baltimore	63	98	-35	32.5	68	5
Tampa Bay	62	100	-38	34	67	5

Yankees - 4 games off. Powerful top 3 starters, but offense starting to fray around the edges a bit. Still expected to win the division.

Pretty good, really, and sums up the Yankees season. The aging process has now run its full course, and it's time for a little house cleaning. We'll see how well Roger Clemens wears next year, too, I guess.

Red Sox - 7 games off. Roster in upheaval - particularly starting rotation, but still decent.

Well, I would have been closer if the Sox had won a game in September. Given the level of upheaval this year, with the injuries, Carl Everett, Jimy Williams et al, it's amazing this team managed to get over .500. And it doesn't look like next year will be any less turbulent.

Blue Jays - 6 games off. Improved, but not as good as Sox or Yankees.

Not quite as good as I expected, but they never really quite gelled. The Mike Sirotka thing didn't help. Looks like the Jays will be waiting in the weeds next year. Surely they have to think that with the Yankees retooling and the Sox in a mess that they have a chance in 2002.

Orioles - 5 games off. Surprised if they finish ahead of the Rays.

Wow, how good am I? They managed to finish one (count it) one game ahead of the Rays. Why would anyone think it could get any better next year?

Devil Rays - 5 games off. Seventy wins an absolute maximum.

That statement may hold true for another couple of decades. If they don't get contracted, that is.

AL Central

Team	W	L	W-L	GB	Est W	(W-Est W)
Cleveland	91	71	20	0	88	3
Minnesota	85	77	8	6	70	15
White Sox	83	79	4	8	87	4
Detroit	66	96	-30	25	85	19
Kansas City	65	97	-32	26	70	5

Indians - 3 games off. Can Burks, Lofton and Gonzalez stay healthy? Thin pitching.

Well, the outfield stayed healthy, and they scored a lot of runs, but the thin pitching was the achilles elbow of the Indians once again, the emergence of C.C. Sabathia aside. Lofton and Gonzalez are probably gone, and Finley and Co. are only getting older. Looks like another retooling team to me.

Twins - 15 games off. Milton and Radke and precious little else.

Well, I never saw Joe Mays coming, hence the massive miss here. However, the Twins proved that even three stellar starters can't cut it with a powderpuff offense. On the other hand, maybe they knew what the evil Carl Pohlad was up to and tanked to deprive him of one last baseball thrill. As for a prognosis, the Twins future looks pretty bleak unless Jesse Ventura hires Ally McBeal to weave some of her stick insect lawyer magic. Sheesh - who to root for - Ally McBeal or Selig and Pohlad? Tough choice.

White Sox - 4 games off. Tough to call with injuries and odd signings.

The Frank Thomas deal didn't help, but the White Sox quietly put together a decent year, very anonymously. It will be interesting to see if the enigmatic Thomas ever gets his ass in gear again. If he does, the Sox could improve in 2002, otherwise, expect more of the same.

Tigers - off by 19 games. Shouldn't miss the whiny Juan Gonzalez much.

Gee, did I overestimate the Tigers or what? In 2000 they got off to an awful start and rallied late. This year they pretty much just sucked continuously. I guess I won't make the mistake of expecting them to bounce back next year.

Royals - off by 5 games. Run at .500 best that can be expected, but probably a lot less.

Well, at least the Royals are easy meat in the prediction stakes (stakes, geddit?) With clueless front office folks, don't expect this to change anytime soon.

AL West

Team	W	L	W-L	GB	Est W	(W-Est W)
Seattle	116	46	70	0	88	28
Oakland	102	60	42	14	92	10
Anaheim	75	87	-12	41	75	0
Texas	73	89	-16	43	82	9

Mariners - off by 28 games. Improved pen, weak offense at C and LF - modest drop back from 2000. Boone to provide more pop at 2B than McLemore.

Amazingly enough, my comments are right on the money, but somehow this team managed to outperform everyone's expectations. And yeah, Bret Boone did provide just a bit more pop at 2B... The coming year has the same questions - how to bolster an offense that disappeared in the post-season and shore up a couple of weak spots. Keeping Boone would be one step.

A's - off by 10 games. Class of the West, best record in AL if everything clicks. Damon looks like grown up Mazda zoom-zoom kid.

Not a bad prediction. Without the Mariners zooming ahead, this would have looked pretty much right on. The key for Oakland is not to lose too much offense. If Giambi walks, then the offense steps back a lot. And Johnny Damon does look like the zoom-zoom kid.

Angels - off by 0 (that's zero, boys and girls) games. Fall back to expected form, Vaughn and Canseco to the DL.

Wow, can I call them (sometimes - what's that you said about blind squirrels?) Ownership doesn't want them, expectations running high after a fluke good year. Tough time to be an Angel. A lot depends on how this whole ownership/contraction/union contract thing works out for the future of the Angels.

Rangers - off by 9 games. Stupid to not shore up pitching.

Not even I thought the pitching could get as bad as it did in the first couple of months, hence the nine miss on the high side. If anything, the Rangers are now worse off than they were a year ago. Last year they had Kenny Rogers and Rick Helling as aces, with some promising (and I use that word in the optimistic Texas GM sense, not the usual sense) youngsters coming up. Well, this season they tried all the promising youngsters and they got shelled just like everyone else.

All-Star MVP-caliber shortstop: $250M
Major league pitching staff: priceless.

Barring a miracle, there's nothing much on the horizon for Hicks this off-season, either. He may be praying for a season-long work stoppage so his farm system can catch up.

Next week: The NL rundown...

about the author

Worried about next season already? Contraction Blues got you down? Tell Dave Paisley all about it at drdjp@strikethree.com because, "He's listening."