Thoughts on 25 Random Predictions for 2010

So in effort to prove my baseball genius, I'm going to try and make 40 non-obvious predictions that the rest of you will think me a fool for. Hopefully I get enough right not to lose all credibility as a very-little read blogger.

1.) Brandon Wood hits 18 home runs before the All-Star break, and make the world's best manager look foolish for never playing him regularly.
2.) Pedro Alvarez will make it to the majors by the All-Star break, and will remind everyone how bad Andy LaRoche is.
3.) Phillip Hughes will pitch very well through July, but will start to tire out because he's used to relieving and all the long outings will wear on his arm.
4.) Tommy Hanson's ERA will be over 4.
5.) A.J. Burnett pitches fewer innings than Ben Sheets.
6.) Ben Sheets will not be traded, but the A's will take the draft pick compensation instead.
7.) Ryan Ludwick hits lower than .250
8.) Of all those "top prospects" the Phillies traded, less than half will give a respectable performance at the MLB level this year. I think Michael Taylor and Lou Marson will do well, Drabek, Donald, Knapp, D'Arnoud, and Carrasco will struggle.
9.) Jorge Cantu is traded to an NL West team.
10.) Zero no-hitters will be thrown this year.
11.) One one-hitter will be thrown. It will be by a Met, he will give up the no-no in the bottom of the 9th, with a homerun, to lose the game 1-0. The pitcher will be Oliver Perez. The hitter will be some light hitting second baseman or a backup catcher. This is the reality of being a Mets fan right now, that this scenario seems entirely possible.
12.) The Nationals don't take Bryce Harper with the number one overall pick in the draft.
13.) The Cubs' starting OF of Byrd, Soriano, Fukodome hit less than 50 HR's combined.
14.) The Diamondbacks' OF of Jackson, Young, Upton hit over 75 HR's combined.
15.) Jason Heyward will be sent back to the minors by the end of May.
16.) Scott Feldman wins 13 or more games
17.) Jorge De La Rosa regresses to his normal "great stuff but is too inconsistent to be good all year long."
18.) The current idea of floating divisions will be killed by the owners eventually, but a new idea with more free flow between divisions that in no way has geographical bearing will become popular and gain steam.
19.) The NL will win the All-Star game.
20.) The Rockies win 105 games, win the pennant, but lose the World Series to the Rays.
21.) The Dodgers will be the NL's biggest bust, winning fewer than 85 games.
22.) Tigers' power arm Daniel Schlereth will say something to prove that his father's obnoxious talking runs in the family.
23.) Curt Schilling will once again be the most common member of the Red Sox in the media, even in retirement.
24.) Bert Blyleven, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar will be elected to the Hall of Fame, but no first-timers will be eligible (look out for Jeff Bagwell in a few years, but otherwise it's a weak group).
25.) The Texas Rangers will take the title of "surprisingly good pitching" from the Rockies this year.

Thoughts on What We Learned This Year

Now that the Yankees have won the World Series, let's take a look back at what we've learned looking back at the entire year.

1.) Money is a huge advantage in the game right now. In a year where dozens of teams expressed concern over the economy, the Yankees spent, spent, spent. They acquired the best starting pitcher, the best hitter, and the 2nd best starting pitcher in last year's free agent market (although A.J. Burnett isn't exactly a stellar pitcher. He's good, but he was closer to the rest of the pack of free agent hurlers then he was to CC Sabathia).

2.) Logic and reason have very little place in predicting how the baseball season plays out. Logic said the Rockies were the best team entering the NL playoffs. Huston Street turns into Luis Ayala, and all of a sudden the Rockies lose to the Phillies. Logic said the Cubs were virtually the same team as last year, and then everyone except Derrek Lee essentially forgot how to hit. The Mets fix the one reason they fell short the year before, by adding not one, but two closers, and then end up with almost the entire payroll on the disabled list. The Tampa Bay Rays change almost nothing from the year before, where they were clearly the most talented team in the league, but their pitching is surprisingly inconsistent all year and they fail to get back to the playoffs.

3.) Jeffrey Loria's an idiot. Joe Girardi is a terriffic manager, and Loria should be kicking himself for firing him. All of his teams overachieve. This Yankees team did not have the best starting pitchers, it didn't have the best bullpen (Rivera's only one guy), and their offensive dominance was clearly a result of the field they played on. He got the Yankees to play loose (Nick Swisher might be team MVP there, and A.J. Burnett also helped in that department). Hell he even got A-Rod playing like Alex Rodriguez in the postseason.

4.) Cliff Lee might be the best pitcher in baseball. Or at least top 5.

5.) Mark Teixeira is an incredible player. Bobby Cox didn't like him. Mike Scioscia didn't like him. Thought he was more a stat machine than an impact player. Good thing the Steinbrenners didn't listen.

6.) The Phillies aren't built to beat AL teams. They wouldn't win any of AL divisions. They don't play NL ball, evident from everything from their inability to steal beyond two guys, their lack of depth, their poor bullpen, their starting pitchers not having great raw stuff (Cliff Lee being the exception, and Hamels is ordinary with out the curve), and their necessity to play on raw emotion. They play AL ball in a league which they can easily beat up on weaker clubs. But in the end, they don't match up well with the great NL teams. The should have lost to the Rockies, and they would have lost to the Cardinals, they luckily got to face a Dodgers team that wasn't that good, and when they ran out of luck against the Yankees, well we all saw what happened.

7.) The Pirates have no idea how to win. They just don't know what they're doing. They've successfully gathered many of the best prospects from 2006, ones that haven't exactly made a big splash in the bigs thus far.

8.) Mets fans are destined to suffer.

9.) Say what you want about Jeter's fielding, but he doesn't let that carry over to his hitting.