Back in November I posted 5 predictions about the off-season between the 2009 and 2010 seasons.

I can sum up how I did in a single word: poorly.

1. I predicted that the Blue Jays would not trade Roy Halladay, based on the idea that most teams would not want to give up their top-tier prospects in exchange for an ace pitcher before the start of the season. I was wrong about that, although I take a little bit of comfort in the fact that most people were confused by the trade that did eventually happen. The Phillies did a one-for-one swap of ace pitchers (not counting the fact that they received some prospects from Seattle and sent some to Toronto) which was kind of baffling and the Blue Jays didn't get a ton for Halladay. Still, though, I find it tough to fault Toronto for making the trade. If they had waited they might have gotten more, or perhaps Halladay could have gotten injured and they would have received nothing.
2. I predicted that the Red Sox would dump either David Ortiz or Mike Lowell. They tried to dump Lowell by paying most of his salary to send him to Texas but the trade fell through. Many folks think the Red Sox will try to trade him again this spring but they may need to wait and see if Ortiz looks like he will be productive. They might end up keeping both guys. I also predicted that they would pick up 2 out of 3 of the trio of Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, and Adrian Gonzalez. Wrong again. Apparently they tried to retain Bay but he wasn't a big target. It appears they sniffed around Holliday but never made him a formal offer. And Gonzalez is still in San Diego, at least for the time being.
3. I predicted that the Yankees would not retain Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui, despite both playing extremely well in the post-season. I was right about this pick.
4. I predicted that the Phillies would make some major changes to their pitching staff. I was right about that but for the wrong reasons. Yes they said goodbye to free agents Brett Myers, Clay Condrey, Chan Ho Park, Scott Eyre, and Tyler Walker. And yes they said hello to free agents Danys Baez and Jose Contreras. And Pedro Martinez is unsigned. But I also said that the only thing I knew for sure is that Cliff Lee would be their opening day starter--oops. Lee's gone and Halladay is in and I missed the boat on this one too.
5. I predicted some strange free-agent signings, specifically some of the better players going to small-market teams. I was wrong on this one too. Of the 9 biggest off-season contracts (in terms of total dollars) the only really surprising ones were Aroldis Chapman going to the Reds instead of one of the richer teams and Mike Cameron getting $15.5 million from the Red Sox. Looking at the rest of the top signings, they were all with larger market teams or were reasonable deals for smaller market clubs. I guess maybe Randy Wolf to the Brewers and Jason Marquis to the Nationals might qualify but it's typical to see over-the-hill pitchers get overpaid to go to lesser teams. That's not the sort of unusual contract I expected to see.

Anyway, I did a lousy job but at least I'm being honest about it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 8:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.