My favorite thing to do on the blog is make a bold prediction for really no reason. We include a good many Bold Predictions in our 30 
Teams in 30 Days leading up to every season, at the risk of being boldly wrong on some of them. With the year about halfway done, let’s look back at some of our Bad Bold Predictions.
Daivd Wright is an Angel by August 1st: Well… that couldn’t be more wrong. Wright has been spectacular for the Mets, as has Mark Trumbo for the Angels. I don’t think we really expected Trumbo to wield the bat (epically) or man third base position (passably) like he has. Wright would have been a logical piece for the Angels. Moving on.
Rickie Weeks starts for the National League in the All-Star game; his brother Jemile attends for the A’s: This turned out to be one of our worst predictions ever. Rickie Weeks has tried to single handedly destroy my fantasy baseball team; he;s leading the NL in strikeouts, and he’ll have to go 5 for his next 8 to bring his average above .200 before the break. His little brother is the family stud this year. Jemile is hitting a whopping 18 points better than Rickie (but also leads the AL in triples with 5).
Ike Davis hits .289 with 28 homers: Oy. Davis is currently hitting .204 with a .275 OBP (but is on pace for 22 homers).
Jonny Venters gets the save in the 11th inning of the All-Star game: Venters has a 1.79 WHIP.
Casey Mcgehee hits .288 with 29 homers and 109 RBIs: McGehee is hitting .247 with 6 homers and 27 RBI.
Carlos Beltran hits .274 with 19 homers: …in the first half!
Carlos Santana finishes 7th in the MVP voting after hitting .312 with 29 homers: Santana has hit .219 with 6 homers in the season’s first half.
Jonathan Sanchez sports a 0.00 ERA after his first start and a 2.90 ERA at the All-Star Break: Oh boy. Sanchez’s hasn’t had a start in which he’s allowed fewer than two runs, and has a 6.75 ERA to prove it. He’s got some work to do as the All-Star Game heads his way. (Because it’s at his home park, not because it has anything to do with him.)
Carlos Pena has a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad, Adam-Dunn-esque year slashing .165/.289/.368 with 8 homers: Pena has .200/.340/.369 slash line with 13 bombs. I don’t know if this qualifies as a Bad Bold Prediction, we nailed SLG%. Maybe we’re not that dumb after all.
Daniel Bard works out as a starter: Then again, maybe we are.
Drew Stubbs is an All-Star: Not quite.
Tim Lincecum wins the Cy Young: OK, time to stop.
To be fair, we were right on some of these, too. We called Kevin Youkilis departing Boston, Torrii Hunter’s career resurgence, Aroldis Chapman receiving Cy Young votes, and Andrew McCutchen winning the batting title. Statistically we’re hitting at .250, just about the major league average.
It’s easy enough to make predictions with your buddies, but it’s alot harder when you publish them: you can look back at just how wrong you were. Earlier I saw Eric Karabell had predicted the final home run tallies of all this year’s Derby contestants and realized what a useless exercise it would be to read that. It’s all foundation-less conjecture.
Want more proof? The Mets are 6 games above .500 and the Pirates sit in first place while the Red Sox struggle to crawl out of the basement. We very simply cannot predict baseball; it’s dumb to think we can.
Expect our Bold Predictions for the second half to come out later this week.
-Sean Morash
