2011 Review - My Predictions

I feel like if you are going to make predictions you need to go back and look at them otherwise they are pretty pointless.  So today I'm going to go over what I said on Opening Day and how they turned out.  I'm pretty terrible at these things and admit as much so be kind. I'm not picking on any of the crazy statements made by you commenters.

"79 wins"
 Hey not bad at all!  One of the key points to picking this many wins was knowing that 2010's team was a bit unlucky and should have won a few more games. I wasn't really thinking 10 game improvement as much as 7 game.   I was betting on improvement from the offense and the starting pitching, but I'm sure I was thinking Werth and LaRoche would help and we'd get average starts from #2-#5 (unlike 2010s terrible back-end) not that Morse and ZNN would be borderline All-Stars. 

"I'll go with Lannan being the best pitcher in the rotation. Livan worst"
Lannan was good but ZNN was clearly the best.  You could argue Livan was the worst (4.47 ERA), but really Gorzelanny couldn't even hold his spot.  That's gotta be worserer. And I'm sure I was thinking something far worse than a 4.50 ERA for Livan.

"I think I've convinced myself that Desmond won't be starting at short all year long."
Real close for a while (at least in the Should World), but a August/September pick-up and the fact that Lombardozzi was a complete dud in his first major league try meant that Ian never lost his spot.

"Ankiel will have most starts in center, but he won't get to 81 games there."
Yes and No.  Ankiel would start 84 games in center (and play in 105 games there).  Jesus, that's a lot of Ankiel.

"Storen will stick as closer. H-Rod won't pitch in the majors until September call-ups."

Yes and No.  (I got to stop bundling these).  Nailed the Storen bet. You could argue H-Rod still needed to work on his control in the minors but that's not the bet. He came up at the end of April 30th and hung around the whole year pitching in 59 games.

"Over/Under on Wang + Maya starts for the Nationals at 4. Who wants the over?"
Not even close.  Maya himself started 5 games (3 too many) and I feel I was right in spirit on him. But Wang finally got over his injury and started 11. Way off.

"Team Leader" Pudge, the super veteran / professional becomes an unhappy distraction as he loses playing time to Ramos."
I was even more wrong here.  Pudge showed nothing but class about being regulated to back-up duty.  I have to say that I feel I haven't appreciated Pudge enough.  Oh he shouldn't be playing regularly on a major league team, but his defense is still good enough to be a back-up at a position where back-ups regularly can't hit OR field. And it's not his fault the Nats gave him that silly contract and played him everyday. He loves the game so he should go out and play it.  It's the Nats that made him hateable.

"I'll go with the Marlins crashing below the Nationals and the Braves to take the division as the Phillies offense implodes with the combination of Utely's injury, Howard's aging, and Rollins being only sometimes good anyway. Take that Cliff Lee - you big jerk"
Another Yes and no.  The Marlins did crash below the Nats.  Well crash is probably too strong a word but they did go from 80 wins last year to 72 this year, good for tied for 12th in a fairly competitive NL.  The Braves though didn't pass the Phillies.  Utley was limited, but Howard didn't take another step back like he did in 2010, Rollins had a bounce back year, and somehow Shane Victorino had the year of his life. Cliff Lee is still a jerk though.