Looking back: A review of some pre-2010 milestone predictions

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From time to time I like to go back into the archives and read some of the older posts I have written. Most of the time I wind up criticizing myself, realizing two years after the fact that I could have written this better, or been more succinct with that, or totally left an irrelevant morsel of worthless information out altogether.

Sometimes, I find myself reading an article wherein I make various predictions—who’ll win the World Series, who’ll make the Hall of Fame, that sort of thing. Well, today I was reading an article from January 2010 where I attempted as best I could to predict which players would reach various baseball milestones like 500 home runs, 3,000 hits and so forth. Let me just say this: never ask me to pick your lottery numbers for you.

Now, the beginning of the article was something of a tease—I actually (surprisingly?) started off pretty well. For example, I said before the 2010 season that no really momentous milestones were going to be met that year—and I got that pretty much right. I said that Derek Jeter would finish the season within 100 hits of 3,000, and I got that right too! Oh man, two in a row!

Ah, oh, uh-oh. This is where it gets bad. Just a tiny bit further down the article I predicted the chances of guys like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ivan Rodriguez reaching the big 3K, 3,000 hits—Griffey had a 28% chance according to my random-number-but-it-sounds-good odds generator and Pudge had a 53% chance. Well, uh, Griffey has retired and Rodriguez is a 39-year-old catcher who still needs nearly 200 hits to reach the magical marker. (All hope is not lost for Pudge, however. I have revised my previous prediction and now give Rodriguez, rather than Griffey, a 28% chance of reaching 3,000 hits).

But hey, add another one to the “you got it right” column for me! I said of Garret Anderson, “I don’t think he’ll stick around long enough to get to [3,000 hits],” and since he retired prior to the 2011 season, I was correct! But, temper the joy, temper the joy—I also hinted that Manny Ramirez might play until 2014 and reach 3,000 knocks—well, since he just retired, I don’t think that will happen any time soon. So, again, I was wrong.

Onto the home run predictions—this is where it gets good. The following is a list of players I said might have a shot at reaching 500 home runs by 2014:

Carlos Delgado
Chipper Jones
Vladimir Guerrero
Andruw Jones

Now, here is a list of players who I presently don’t think will reach 500 home runs by 2014:

Carlos Delgado
Chipper Jones
Vladimir Guerrero
Andruw Jones

Oh, how haughty I was about Delgado in my pseudo-prescience! How sure, how unequivocally sure I was that he would reach 500 dingers! In fact, I did not say he might reach the mark—nay, I almost guaranteed it! Excuse me while I release this hearty chuckle, while I admonish my foolishness, my downright credulity.

And, sure, I wasn’t as completely certain about Jones and Guerrero reaching the mark, however I insisted that both would stick around to blast the big five-zero-zero, an event sure to take place sometime in 2014. Jones, at 39, is still over 60 home runs away, as is Vlad, who is 36.

And don’t get me started on Andruw Jones. About him I said, “It’s not likely, but the possibility [of reaching 500 home runs] is still there.” Ahem, I’ll just go out the back door if you don’t mind.

Now, perhaps I’m treating myself too harshly. I mean, sure, I didn’t completely rule out Andy Pettitte reaching 300 wins and yes, I did say that Javier Vazquez, in all his greatness, would reach 3,000 strikeouts and become a “potential Hall of Famer.” And, yeah, I did say that Chipper Jones was going to reach 2,500 hits last year (it took him until April 2011 to actually do it) and that Luis Castillo and Brian Giles were going to reach 2,000 hits themselves and that Joe Nathan would reach 250 saves in 2010. However, I did accurately predict that Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon would reach 2,500 hits last year, that Magglio Ordonez would reach 2,000 hits that season and that Francisco Rodriguez would reach 250 saves in 2010 as well. So, I saved some of my credibility. I guess.

Okay, okay, so it’s clear that I wasn’t the best at predicting which milestones would be reached within the next few years and by whom. But, that’s the predictions game—there’s definitely no guarantee they’ll be right (and a helluva good chance they’ll be wrong).