Praise us a little bit and mock us a lot regarding our preseason predictions

Back in April, Purple Row’s staff joined in on the mass exercise of predicting division winners and losers for the 2015 season. We also offered predictions about all of the major season awards. The aim was to save everyone the trouble of paying attention until now. Alas, we got some things wrong, so it turns out there was reason to watch baseball over the late spring, summer, and early fall, after all. But we also got some things right! But we got more wrong than we got right. Now, we invite praise and mockery from the community for our pre-season predictions.

Let’s start on a high note and cover what we got right.

Praise Us

National League West

Fourteen out of 16 staff members who responded chose the Dodgers to win the NL West. That has come to pass. The other two first place votes—cast by dreamy souls who may or may not want to self-identify—were for the Rockies. That has not come to pass, as the Rockies finished in the NL West cellar. As a whole, we were too down on the Diamondbacks and too high on the Padres. For those of you skeptical of the Padres’ offseason, congratulate yourself.

National League Central

Nailed it. It makes sense that this was the only division in the NL to have three teams get first place votes, as the Cardinals, Pirates, and Cubs have the three best records in the league. As a whole, we didn’t get the cellar dweller right, but the consensus that they would be the two last place teams is enough reason to call this an unconditional win for our seers.

National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young; American League MVP

We can’t call either of these victories yet because the awards won’t be announced for a while, but it’s enough that the composite predictions identified contenders for the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards. Twelve of 15 RoY votes went to Kris Bryant, who has a very good chance of taking the award. One vote went to Joc Pederson, who looked like he might run away with it in May before he stopped getting hits (though he didn’t stop getting on base). Two other votes were for Jon Gray. We can save those for next year, as he will still have rookie eligibility.

Four NL pitchers received one vote for the NL Cy Young, while the remaining votes went to Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw has won the award three times, and his 2015 is probably better than each of his previous Cy Young seasons. However, the award will probably go to Jake Arrieta, who deserves it. Having an ERA that starts with a 1 and more than 20 wins will persuade a bunch of voters.

We predicted Mike Trout would win it in the AL. It’s a toss-up between him and Josh Donaldson right now. They have had remarkably similar seasons. This is a case where I would use context-dependent stats such as WPA, RBI, and Clutch to determine a winner. Doing so would mean a vote cast for Tulo’s partner Donaldson.

So that’s what we got right. We got a lot more wrong.

Mock Us

National League East

Not a single staff member voted for a team other than the Nationals to with the division. We were wrong; everyone was wrong. We were unsure about who was going to finish in second place, but the Marlins ended up with a few more second places votes. Not only that, but the consensus among us was that the Nationals would win the World Series. This was a common prediction, and it is now common shame.

Everything in the American League

The Angels, Mariners, A’s, Tigers, Indians, White Sox, Red Sox, Orioles, and Yankees each received votes to win the teams' respective division. The Blue Jays, Royals, and Rangers won the three AL divisions, and not one staff member cast a single first place vote for any of those teams. The collective pick to win the AL pennant was the Mariners—the Mariners did not win the pennant. One voter picked the Blue Jays to take a Wild Card and win the AL. When that vote was cast, the Jays were just the Canadian team looking to make it back to the playoffs. They are something else altogether to us now.

The AL Rookie of the Year will probably go to Carlos Correa. If not him, it will then probably go to Francisco Lindor. Neither received a vote from the Purple Row staff. I don’t think anyone expected either to get enough playing time. The Year of the Rookie was a surprise. We chose Felix Hernandez to win the AL Cy Young, which he is unlikely to do.

MVPs

We missed the NL—it won’t be the consensus pick, Giancarlo Stanton. Bryce Harper, however, received just one fewer vote than Stanton. Harper's historically good season will likely land him the NL MVP.

World Series

The Mariners will not square off against the Nationals for the World Series, so it looks like the postseason will be worth paying attention to, after all.

About the postseason—it begins tonight, and it will be a lot of fun. Surely due to all of the mockery we so deserve, nobody at all is interested at all in making postseason predictions.

Right?