Five Things I Was Dead Wrong About in Major League Baseball

I know that I haven't gotten to blog a lot lately (and I apologize for that), but I'm back here with a mea culpa--one some really bad calls I made so far this baseball season:

I doubled ouched on my Jose Bautista prediction (NYT)

1. Jose Bautista was a one-hit wonder. Ouch. Double ouch when you consider that I had him in a keeper league and DROPPED him in order to keep Nick Swisher. I thought Bautista was the second coming of Brady Anderson and not the second coming of Barry Bonds. Bautista actually reminds me a lot of another Blue Jay, Carlos Delgado, who looked like he was just going to be an okay Major Leaguer--and probably someone who would have to platoon--until something kicked in and you just couldn't throw anything over the plate to him. Bautista has to be eating Popeye's spinach at this point as these results really have no explanation. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to fall, but until then, I'll just watch in wonder for a guy who is much more than a one-hit wonder.

2. John Danks was a Cy Young candidate. Well he's 0-8 with a 5.25 ERA. Holy crapola. I have four fantasy baseball teams and drafted him on all four. And I still have him. I think this is a fluke. I wasn't the only one sending praise Danks way. Now, it's really just trying to figure out what the heck happened here. Some of this is bad luck, but Danks hasn't been an ace this season by any measure. At this point, he's become the Nintendo cartridge that you would blow on for like 20 minutes knowing that it probably still wasn't going to return to normal. You wonder if this guy may just need a change of scenery from Chicago to reboot his career, but right now he's been more Cy Yuck than Cy Young.

3. The Yankees weren't going to be able to rely on Freddy Garcia or Bartolo Colon. And I continue to hope I was wrong here, but these reclamation projects rarely end as well as these have been going so far. What will be really interesting here is to see what happens if Phil Hughes comes back and is ready to start. Do they send Ivan Nova down? Move Hughes to the bullpen? It doesn't seem like either of these two have earned a trip out of the rotation at this point. And while Garcia and his 3 K/9 feels like it could implode at any second, I actually feel good with Colon out there throwing on his "repaired arm" and rearing back and throwing the ball much like fellow Dominican Pedro Martinez looked at the end of his career for the Mets--just throw whatever gas is left in that arm with movement. He's keeping the ball low and it's allowed him to be one of the most effective pitchers in the American League with a fWAR better than any Yankees pitcher other than CC Sabathia and higher than Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, Ricky Romero, or Jeremy Hellickson (or John Danks for that matter). As I said before: enjoy this while it lasts.

4. Saying the Twins were still going to win the AL Central. I think this is the year the Twinkies really don't make that comeback. They are the worst team in baseball right now and don't seem like they are going to be breaking out of it anytime soon. Their pitching stinks from the starters to the bullpen and they don't have enough hitting right now. Sure, anything can change there but I think it's much more likely you see the Twins unloading pieces than making one of their patented marches to the playoffs (even though they have won four in a row). It's not a great division, but it's not that bad.

5. Picking Adam Dunn for the AL MVP. The White Sox kill me again. .179/.320/.315 and one of the more remarkable declines in recent memory for a slugger. Just seems to have nothing left in the tank.

So there are my five mistakes so far this season. What predictions did you make that didn't come true? Let us know in the comments below.