What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong This Season

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Before the first 2023 postseason pitch is thrown off the mound at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, let’s briefly look back at the regular season and see how well I did in analyzing players and teams.

Angels’ futility

Before the season started, I wrote about the Angels’ futility in getting Mike Trout to the postseason and put it in this context: Mike Trout may very well end his career as with 100+ fWAR and never play in the World Series. That’s true for only one other player in MLB history. Analysts were somewhat optimistic on the Angels for the 2023 season, but as I wrote: “So there’s postseason hope for Trout and the Angels this season, but hope doesn’t put trophies in the display case.”

Hope did nothing for Trout and the Angels this season.

Would a team steal 200 bases?

Not quite a prediction, but I did note that with all the rule changes this season, it was possible we’d see a team with 200 stolen bases. I was close, but off by 10. The Reds ended the season with 190 stolen bases. The Royals stole 163 bases, most in the American League.

Would the Padres score 1,000 runs?

Oh boy, I was way off on this one. But I wasn’t alone. A lot of very smart analysts predicted big, big things for the Padres in 2023. We were wrong. The Padres ended the season with 763 runs.

The Braves got pretty close to 1,000. Atlanta scored 947 runs this season.

Oh yes, the Giants were bad and boring

Three weeks into the season, the Giants were 5-11. I wrote about all the things they were doing wrong and lamented that—even putting losses aside—the team’s biggest error was that they were just so damned boring.

The Giants turned things around for a bit in May and June. At the high point of the season on July 18, San Francisco was 13 games over .500. But it was never fun, flashy, or emotional. They didn’t make the highlight shows. Mostly folks scratched their heads and wondered how the Giants could be only 1.5 games out of first.

The head scratching was justified. The Giants collapsed in August and September and ended the season at 78-84 and in 4th place in the NL West.

Manager Gabe Kapler is out. On Friday, after firing Kapler, President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi told assembled media: “It’s ultimately my job to put a product on the field that our organization is proud of and our fans are proud of. Frankly it hasn’t happened the last couple of years.”

Fans want fun, Farhan. Yes, that want wins, but they want fun.

I was right to be skeptical of the Pirates’ early season success

The Pirates started off the season with a bang and led the NL Central with a record of 19-8 as late as April 29. When looked at the Pirates in April, I saw that they’d played a soft schedule and wasn’t convinced they had all the pieces to make a run.

I was particularly worried about the Pirates’ defense. And I was right about that. The Pirates ended the season with -15.2 dWAR on FanGraphs—ranking them the sixth-worst team defense in the majors this season.

I whiffed on the Orioles

Even as the Orioles nipped at the Rays’ heels in May, I was skeptical that Baltimore would sustain their early-season success. I was worried about their defense, which was justified. The O’s ended the season with -11.6 dWAR.

But I missed the boat completely by not talking about rookie third baseman Gunnar Hendersen or second-year starter Kyle Bradish. Hendersen ended the season with the best oWAR on the team. Bradish notched the highest WAR among all Orioles’ pitchers.

I was right about the Blue Jays, but wrong about Brandon Belt

In May, I wrote that the Blue Jays ran hot, then cold, then hot, then cold. That’s the part I got right. Until the very end of the season, when the Blue Jays grabbed the last American League Wild Card spot, the team played inconsistently. Their longest winning streak was 6 games; the longest losing streak was 5 games.

When I looked at the Blue Jays’ offense, I noted: “Newcomers Brandon Belt and Daulton Varsho have been underwhelming. (Sorry Jays fans; Belt’s performance was entirely predictable).”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Despite playing only 103 games, Belt ended the season with the highest oWAR on the team with a slash line of .254/.369/.490 and 19 home runs.

The Marlins continued to be very lucky and now they’re in the postseason

In June, I wrote about the Marlins’ insanely good record in one-run games and attributed it to luck and clutch hitting. That trend continued. Miami snuck into the Wild Card on the strength of their record in one-run games: 33-13. They are only the sixth team in MLB history to make the postseason with a negative run differential. Miami allowed 55 more runs than they scored.

The Cubs crashed just after I predicted a postseason berth

To be fair, Chicago’s collapse surprised a lot of baseball analysts. I was not alone in thinking the Cubs were primed for postseason play, which I wrote about at the end of August. I didn’t foresee all the bullpen injuries they suffered the last month of the season or the defense falling apart at the worst possible moments. Like the Giants, the Cubs played their worst baseball at the most critical time of the season. And now they’re home instead of heading to a Wild Card Series.

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