Some folks just never learn. The girl who keeps falling for bad boys, only to have her heart broken time and again. The guy who spends every dollar of his paycheck on lottery tickets. Me when I let my eyes drift down below the article to the comments section.
And baseball writers who underestimate Buck Showalter’s Orioles each and every year.
They’ve won more games than any team in the AL since 2012, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose.
Here are a list of scribes and publications who are picking the O’s to finish in the AL East basement this year, something they’ve never come close to doing since 2011, Buck’s first full season at the helm.
Five Thirty Eight – Neil Paine & Dan Szymborski. A slight tip of the cap to Emma Span, who thinks the O’s could “maybe” climb as high as third place.
Baseball Prospectus – They also have the Rays (the RAYS!) finishing in second place. Go home, BP, you’re drunk.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Nick Selbe. St. Louis is a baseball-mad city, but apparently they don’t pay much attention to what goes on outside of the NL Central.
Sports Illustrated
FanGraphs – They have the O’s and Yankees tied for last at 81-81. AL Beast!
I mean MAYBE this is finally the year that the computers and naysayers are right, and the Birds will completely fall apart. But I just don’t understand putting your name to a prediction that that’ll be the way things go. Sure, it might happen. Just like the Red Sox MIGHT crash and burn and finish in last place, but you don’t see anybody predicting that, do ya?
Some sites are still rolling out their MLB predictions for 2017 this week, so I’m sure I’ll be adding to this list. If you see any other goofs picking the Birds last that I missed, tweet at me @EutawStReport. We’ll keep this list updated, so we can point and laugh at how wrong everybody was in September.
I hope.
