Revisiting some of the predictions I made last winter....
Matt Cain:
IP: 187
ERA: 4.38
K: 159
BB: 78
Actual -
IP: 190.7
ERA: 4.15
K: 179
BB: 87
This is why I get the big Blogads dollars from companies you've never heard of. I underestimated his strikeouts by a hair, but for the most part this was a jacket-cover prediction. Without getting too arrogant, I think this kind of puts those fancy shmancy projection systems like ZIPS and PECOTA in their place. I mean, sure, I know more about baseball than anyone else on the internet, but it's pretty impressive that I can beat the big computer brains behind....
Matt Morris:
IP: 197
ERA: 3.91
K: 130
BB: 40
IP: 207.7
ERA: 4.98
K: 117
BB: 63
Oh. Right. I remember the Morris signing as if it were just a year ago; I was excited for the first year of the deal, but not so much the following year. I thought the first-half Morris from '05 was the real Morris, but that his shoulder, elbow, and beard ligaments would not be able to withstand a heavy '06 workload. Now I'm hoping for a rebound from Morris for no real reason. His walks total almost doubled, which could have been a fluke. It could have been a Rueter-like nibbling from someone who didn't trust his stuff, though. If he gets that precision back, his contract will look a lot better.
When I see that some people are optimistic about Morris in '07, often times they use his peripherals has their supporting argument. Am I missing something? Those are pretty blah strikeout and walk numbers, if I'm not mistaken.
Jason Schmidt:
ERA: 4.30
IP: 180
K: 174
BB: 80
Actual -
ERA: 3.59
IP: 213.3
K: 180
BB: 80
I wasn't sold on Schmidt ever finding his fastball again, but then he did twice in the games before he lost the velocity before he regained it after the three games where his velocity wasn't where it sat for the two games at the end of the season. He did much better than I thought.
Noah Lowry:
ERA: 3.30
IP: 214
K: 185
BB: 60
Actual -
ERA: 4.74
IP: 159.3
K: 84
BB: 56
Young, left-handed, above-average strikeout rate...he was supposed to have an year of Augusts. But he did the ol' freak tweak of the oblique in the first home game, and wasn't really the same. Except for August, but that goes without saying.... I'm still a fan, and I'm glad he wasn't traded for Corey Koskie or something. The prediction for '07 will be a little more reasonable, but I'm still optimistic.
Brad Hennessey:
IP: 180
ERA: 4.88
K: 102
BB: 78
Actual -
IP: 99.3
ERA: 4.26
K: 42
BB: 42
That'll learn me to never do predictions before the rotation is set. I just didn't see any way that Jamey Wright was going to make the rotation, but I can see how teams can get sucked in by Wright's sinker. Regardless, this was pretty much just a wasted prediction, though the totals predicted for Hennessey come close to the totals the Giants were able to get from their fifth starters.
I'll work on the bullpen and position players next. In the meantime, dig through those old threads. Praise your prognosticating powers. Laugh at the retroactively ignorant.