Season O' Reckoning

Dave Paisley

As with any predictive enterprise, there comes a time when you have to look back to see just how well you did. Based on this year's performance, it doesn't look like I'm going to qualify for staffing one of Dionne Warwick's "Psychic Friends"hotlines any time soon. Well, not based on the National league anyway.

Here's what I predicted back in March, compared to what actually happened during the season. First, let's take the NL East, mostly because I didn't do too badly there.

Team	Predicted Wins	Actual Wins
Atl	98	103
NY	88	97
Mon	79	68
Phi	74	77
Fla	62	64

Not too shabby, really. It isn't exactly rocket science to predict the Braves will win, but apart from an overconfidence in the Expos, nothing here is too much out of whack. The Phillies did look better for a while during the season, but ended up close to where I expected. The Marlins, of course, were a disaster, just as everyone expected. Overall, not too bad, but there weren't any big surprises anyway.

On to the NL Central.

Team	Predicted Wins	Actual Wins
StL	94	75
Hou	92	97
Chi	81	67
Cin	78	96
Pit	75	78
Mil	72	74

The obvious question from my point of view is, "What on earth happened to the Cardinals?" For one, the offense was pretty minimal outside of McGwire, Tatis and Lankford. Second, the pitching just didn't hold up. Only Bottenfield, Oliver and Jimenez pitched what could remotely be called complete seasons, and none of those was outstanding. So the Cardinals just weren't it this year. Maybe we'll have to ask Tony LaRussa for his Genius award back.

The other big shocks here were the demise of the Cubs and the resurgence of the Reds. The former was somewhat understandable with the son-appearance of Kerry Wood for this season. A team like the Braves could lose someone of that quality and not miss a beat. Not so the Cubs, whose hold even on mediocrity last year was pretty tenuous anyway.

The Reds were a team waiting to break out, and it's just surprising they did it this year, fueled by the full emergence of Sean Casey with decent offensive support from the team up and down the lineup. They also proved you can piece together an almost no-name staff and be pretty competitive.

The rest of the division lived up to (Astros), or down to (Pirates and Brewers), my expectations.

Finally, the NL West -- another fine mess I got myself into.

Team	Predicted Wins	Actual Wins
LA	95	77
Col	83	72
SF	81	86
SD	76	74
Ari	68	100

Here we have two of the all-time great conundrums of modern-day baseball. How did a mediocre expansion team get so good so quickly, and how did one of the great franchises of baseball get flushed down the crapper so quickly?

In the former case, the Arizona Diamondbacks outscored the rest of the league, while almost matching the best for fewest runs allowed. Their offense is tough to figure out. A career year for journeyman Luis Gonzalez, a resurgent, but hardly brilliant year for Matt Williams, a shockingly good year from Steve Finley and a fabulous but unheralded year from Jay Bell (.931 OPS from a second baseman!) -- perhaps it's no surprise they scored runs.

On the debit side, Travis Lee was a bust, Tony Womack was his usual self, and they lost David Dellucci. They also traded away young SS Tony Batista for aging lefty reliever Dan Plesac. Go figure. I'll be surprised if they can keep up their 1999 scoring pace next year.

The pitching figured to get a lot better, and so it did. I even predicted Randy Johnson wouldn't win 20 games because of lousy run support and a bad bullpen. Bingo on both counts, but the team seemed to save its worst moments for Johnson's games.

Omar Daal, Armando Reynoso and Andy Benes were all beneficiaries of the runs the team scored in all the other games. And the team did get noticeably steadier when they traded for Matt Mantei to close games, instead of the erratic Gregg Olson. I still don't get it, but we'll see if they can come close again next year.

As for the Dodgers, they seem to be the poster kids for bad family chemistry. It almost seems like their entire pitching staff hit the wall at exactly the same moment, or that bad pitching became suddenly contagious. If that's the case, then Carlos Perez was obviously the prime vector. If the Dodgers can figure out how to cut Park and Dreifort's walk totals back to normal, there's no reason that Brown, Valdes, and those two couldn't be a pretty good rotation next year. But lose Perez, hmmm?

On the hitting side, stat-fan whipping boys Eric Karros and Mark Grudzielanek both had pretty decent seasons, along with a ho-hum year for Gary Sheffield, but the rest of the offense stunk worse than a bargeload of New York City garbage.

A thorough house cleaning is what's called for, and it's already under way. Shawn Green should be a marked improvement on Mondesi, although who knows what they can do about the Hundley situation. Oh yeah, maybe they could can his sorry butt.

Nothing much in the rest of the division was a big shock. Perhaps the Rockies could have done better, and would surely have if Darryl Kile could have held his ERA under 6.00. Well, that'll be easier for him next year in St. Louis.

So there's the sad story of my NL prognostications. But not to worry. As you'll see next week, the AL looks quite a bit better.

about the author

Dave Paisley is better known as the man who invented wood. College pitchers are welcome to tell him "thanks for nothing" at drdjp@strikethree.com.