Raining David Crosby: Reviewing Our Preseason Predictions

The subject line of an e-mail we got from a Yahoo Group one of us belongs to made our blood freeze. “It’s been raining David Crosby,” it said. Oh no, we thought; again? Closer inspection revealed merely a Youtube clip of pre-Byrds solo-folksinger Crosby performing “It’s Been Raining.” It’s completely harmless, especially if you don’t watch it or listen to it. It occurred to us, though, even as we heaved sighs of relief, that “Raining David Crosby” might be a good metonym for our disappointing-to-catastrophic 2016 Fantasy Baseball season.

Nonetheless, in the spirit of fearless scientific accountability, we must now review our 2016 predictions, “Bold” and otherwise. We’ll look at preseason predictions this week and in-season ones next week. We’ll concentrate, as always, on the outré and the cut-rate; we can’t really take credit for predicting, say, that the Cubs would win the NL Central, though they undoubtedly will, or that Trea Turner would be NL Rookie of the Year, though he arguably is.

Atrocious Predictions

–The Minnesota Twins will have good starting pitching. This view infected many of our forecasts, as well as many of our teams. Thus, we predicted that the Twins would win the AL Central; that Phil Hughes, one of our Bold Predictions, would “have an ERA of no more than 3.50 and a WHIP of no more than 1.20;” and that Kyle Gibson and Tyler Duffey would be well worth the dollar or two they’d cost. We’re not sure what went wrong with Gibson and Duffey, who’ve both had moments of brilliance, but go wrong it surely did.

—Keone Kela will supplant Shawn Tolleson as closer and “lead the Rangers in saves.” We were–see below—right about Tolleson, but wrong about Kela. True, there was no reason to think he’d blow out his elbow in April. But we still get a failing grade on this one, because his ERA since returning two months ago is 6.97.

—Chris Bassitt “will have about the same season, statistically, as we envision Phil Hughes having.” This was another of our Bold Predictions, and Bassitt another of the catastrophic Five-Inning Pitchers for whom we’ve already excoriated ourselves sufficiently. Wish we could take some solace in having foreseen with tolerable accuracy the Hughes/Bassitt equivalency (Hughes, 5.95 ERA and 1.51 WHIP; Bassitt, 6.11 ERA, 1.75 WHIP). But we can’t.

–“Sleepers” Identified for Rotographs Preseason Staff Picks: Delino DeShields, Domingo Santana, John Jaso, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Fiers, Nathan Eovaldi. Odorizzi, the only one of these guys who might have earned you more than he cost, is also the only one we didn’t draft.

—Emilio Bonifacio would steal a lot of bases. He did so—37 of them—except it was in Triple-A. We are in the same position as were the many people, including some of our acquaintance, who abandoned perfectly good jobs to join the administration of Eliot Spitzer, on the reasonable twin assumptions that the then-newly-elected Governor of New York was not in the habit of (a) retaining $4300-a-night prostitutes, and (b) paying them by credit card. Similarly, our prediction for Bonifacio was premised, in part, on the continued employment of Fredi Gonzalez, a Bonifacio fan, as manager of the Atlanta Braves. When Gonzalez lost his job in mid-May, that was that for Bonifacio.

Merely Bad Predictions

—Marcus Stroman, 2016 AL Cy Young Winner. It doesn’t help you or us, but we’ll note—as, in the past month or so, beloved Fangraphs editor Eno Sarris and cognoscente Mike Podhorzer have noted—that Stroman has had a vastly better season than appears on the face of his stats. So, as is our wont, we’re doubling down: Marcus Stroman, 2017 AL Cy Young winner, and you read it here first.

–“The 2016 Chris Heston will be the first half of 2015 Chris Heston,” i.e. the starting pitcher who threw a no-hitter. In fact, the 2016 Chris Heston made four dismal relief appearances before going down with a strained oblique. His attempted comeback as a starter in Triple-A was almost as bad.

–“Josh Phegley will hit 15 home runs.” Phegley hurt his knee in April, if not before, and managed exactly one home run in 81 plate appearances before exiting for the season in early July.

Whimsical Prediction

–The last of our Bold Predictions, recommended as a Reserve Round pick, was that Jaime Schultz—who, as of the start of the season, had never pitched at a level higher than Double-A–would end the season as the Tampa Bay closer. It didn’t happen, of course, but he had a fairly successful season as a starter at Triple-A, striking out people in wholesale lots as usual, showing much-improved control, and drawing the repeated attentions of Fangraphs demigod Carson Cistulli. We, like CC, figure that his future is as a reliever, and also think he’ll start the 2017 season in the majors–assuming, that is, that his placement on the minor league DL on August 31st doesn’t bode ill.

Pretty Good Predictions

–“Leonys Martin will return to his 2013-2014 level of play.” If you followed our recommendation, as we ourselves did not, and paid $2 for Martin, you got an enormous bargain. But what we meant by his 2013-2014 level of play was a .270 BA, 6 or 7 home runs, and 30 stolen bases, not the .240/15 HR/20 SBs he’s going to wind up with. Do you realize he’s outhomered every Mariner except Cruz, Seager, and Cano in road games?

–“Chris Owings will hit 10 home runs and steal 20 bases.” Well, we bet he would have if he hadn’t missed six weeks with plantar fasciitis. Still, if you got him for a buck or two, you’re in no position to complain.

–“Chris Young will hit between .260 and .270 with 12 to 15 home runs.” Same as Owings, only better, forecast-wise. He missed two months with a hamstring strain, and has hit .273 with 8 HRs in 184 PAs.

—Travis Shaw, though “probably a .250 hitter,” and supposedly buried behind a host of better hitters in the Red Sox depth chart, nonetheless “will get at least 400 at bats and hit at least 20 home runs.” The tally so far: 482 PAs, .251 BA, 16 HR. Bet he makes it to 20.

–Place-Holders. These were seven guys who were so little regarded, or even considered, that they’d been taken in fewer than five NFBC leagues at the time we mentioned them. They were, in descending order of subsequent achievement: Joey Rickard, Jeremy Hazelbaker, Matt Bush, Jose Urena, Rafael Ortega, Junior Lake, and Pedro Ciriaco. Not bad, if we do say so ourselves. Of course, how you’d have known to take Rickard, Hazelbaker, and/or Bush rather than the others is more than we can tell you.

Very Good Predictions

—Trayce Thompson. Average NFBC draft position when we wrote him up on March 2nd: 595th. Our prediction for him, same date: 250 PAs, “low” batting average, 10 HR, 10 SB. Actual performance to date: 262 PAs, .225 BA, 13 HR, 5 SB. If we could do this all the time, we’d be rich.

–AL Rookie of the Year, Fangraphs Staff Predictions: Tyler Naquin. We were the only ones among 55 experts—or, more accurately, 54 experts and us—to make this call. Is he in fact ROTY? Perhaps not, but the competition—Michael Fulmer, Gary Sanchez, maybe Chris Devenski—wasn’t selected by anyone.

–Fantasy “Busts” for Rotographs Staff Picks: Sonny Gray, Shawn Tolleson, Troy Tulowitzki. Right on the money. Our intimate acquaintance with disappointment and failure enable us unerringly to spot them when they’re about to befall others.

As usual, we did horribly with pitchers and okay with hitters. And our ability to identify, without meaning to, guys who’ll get injured borders on the oracular. Reviewing the foregoing, though, we realize that our predictions, on the whole, weren’t too bad. But that just makes our in-season shortfall the more dismaying. We could use some cheering up. How about you? If so, we recommend the oeuvre of the immortal Prince Buster, and particularly his masterpiece “Hard Man Fe Dead”—which, now that we think about it, is a good description of David Crosby.