It's time to go over my predictions for the 2008 season and see just how I did. Let's start with the miserable.The Miserable or 15 Games Off or Worse(6)
6 teams I was outside of 15 games wrong. None worse than the Mariners who I stupidly joined the band wagon and picked to win the division on the basis of A) The Angels having pitching injuries and B) The front line combo of Bedard and King Felix. Well Bedard never pitched and instead they lost 100 games. Next I was 22 games off on both the Tigers and Padres. I had the Padres at a modest 85 wins which I didn't think was bad but they turned out to be completely awful. I had the Tigers with the best record in the AL and they well couldn't pitch. Verlander stunk and the D-Train was derailed early. I had Tampa near .500 and come on no one had them at 97 wins. I didn't think all of the young arms for the Twins would step up and they did and that's why I was 15 off there and as for the Braves it's tough to predict their top 3 pitchers to get injured midseason.
The Poor or 10-14 Games Off (5)
The Rockies sustained way too many injuries to come close to the 88 wins I predicted. San Francisco's offense wasn't quite as miserable as I thought they were going to be. Who knew V-Mart & Hafner were going to get injured and Sabathia was going to be jettisoned. St. Louis outperformed their talent all year. The Angels got surprisingly huge seasons from both Saunders and Ervin Santana.
The Mediocre 6-9 Games Off (9)
Oakland was not completely miserable so I was 7 games off. The Cubbies were way more dominant than I thought even though I had them winning the Central. Washington was even more terrible than I thought which is hard to do. The Haren Webb combo couldn't carry the Dbacks to the division as I had thought. The ChiSox got great pitching from Floyd and Danks which was unexpected. Texas mashed even more than expected. The Orioles weren't completely miserable thanks to Aubrey Huff's huge year. Houston got massively hot to win more games than expected and finally Florida continued to surprise with better than expected pitching especially from Ricky Nolasco.
The Solid 1-5 Games Off (8)
One off on the Red Sox was an easy prediction as was the Brewers. I had the Phillies in the playoffs and they finished just 3 games off the pace I predicted. The Yankees fell short of 93 mostly due to starting pitching woes. KC was bad, not surprising. The Dodgers won the division, not really surprising. And the Mets choked again and couldn't get to 94 wins, not that surprising.
On the Button or 100% Right(2)
I nailed the Pirates and Reds which just means I knew they would be bad and got lucky grabbing the exact number.
Smarter than ESPN At Least
Vegas Watch takes the predictions of many ESPN analysts as well as computer predictions and runs a RMSE formula to deciphered which is the best predictor. My RMSE is 11.55 which puts me in the lower middle of the bunch, but ahead of Kurkjian, Phillips, Stark and Olney. Anywho the Mariners 30 games off blew up my number enormously.
| | Team | Proj Wins | Ac Win | Win Diff |
| 1 | Cincinnati | 74 | 74 | 0 |
| 2 | Pittsburgh | 67 | 67 | 0 |
| 3 | Boston | 94 | 95 | -1 |
| 4 | Milwaukee | 89 | 90 | -1 |
| 5 | Philadelphia | 89 | 92 | -3 |
| 6 | Toronto | 82 | 86 | -4 |
| 7 | Kansas City | 71 | 75 | -4 |
| 8 | N.Y. Yankees | 93 | 89 | 4 |
| 9 | L.A. Dodgers | 88 | 84 | 4 |
| 10 | N.Y. Mets | 94 | 89 | 5 |
| 11 | Oakland | 68 | 75 | -7 |
| 12 | Chi. Cubs | 90 | 97 | -7 |
| 13 | Washington | 66 | 59 | 7 |
| 14 | Arizona | 89 | 82 | 7 |
| 15 | Chi. White Sox | 80 | 89 | -9 |
| 16 | Texas | 70 | 79 | -9 |
| 17 | Baltimore | 59 | 68 | -9 |
| 18 | Houston | 77 | 86 | -9 |
| 19 | Florida | 75 | 84 | -9 |
| 20 | L.A. Angels | 90 | 100 | -10 |
| 21 | St. Louis | 76 | 86 | -10 |
| 22 | Cleveland | 91 | 81 | 10 |
| 23 | San Francisco | 59 | 72 | -13 |
| 24 | Colorado | 88 | 74 | 14 |
| 25 | Minnesota | 73 | 88 | -15 |
| 26 | Atlanta | 87 | 72 | 15 |
| 27 | Tampa Bay | 79 | 97 | -18 |
| 28 | Detroit | 96 | 74 | 22 |
| 29 | San Diego | 85 | 63 | 22 |
| 30 | Seattle | 91 | 61 | 30 |
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