Where I went wrong

This post isn't about my life of crime, or how I ended up lost in the woods and being raised by wolverines.  I picked the Yankees for third place this year, and it now appears that I made errors in my calculations.  I'm sure that none of you did.   If I'm wrong about that as well, I would like to see whether we all made the same mistakes, or whether it was just my natural pessimism that caused me to miss the boat.  My take on this season was that age would take its toll on the position players over 30, and that the starting pitching was not competitive enough to make the playoffs.   I overrated Boston's starting pitching, health, and the contribution of Carl Crawford.  Tampa Bay has been what I expected- I just didn't think we would be good enough to beat their young horses in their starting rotation.

As Linda Richman used to say on SNL-  discuss.

 

Position players who ultimately did what I expected

Many players got off to terrible starts and returned to their normal numbers as the season dragged on, which helped immensely when the early great pitching began to slip. Prominent among this group are Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, Francisco Cervelli, and Nick Swisher. Jeter actually has been playing better defense than I expected, and though I thought he would hit about .290, I wouldn’t have surprised much by .250.

Players who played at my expectations all year

This small group consists of Russell Martin, Brett Gardner, Andruw Jones, and Mark Teixeira. Little else needs to be said.

Underperformers

ARod. We expected him to be recovered from his hip injuries and to have a big year. We would have taken a decent year. Instead we got Russell Martin numbers from the cleanup position. I thought his defense would deteriorate from previous seasons as he slowed down, and it did.

More than I expected

Curtis Freaking Granderson. I thought the last two months of last year were a good sign, but I never expected this.

Edwardo Nunez. I expected nothing. Everything was a bonus.

Eric Chavez. I thought he would end up like Feliciano. He hasn’t hit much, but he’s better defensively than ARod and he is the primary reason Arod hasn’t been missed much.

If the season results were based just on the position players, the Yankees would be struggling mightily with the Rays and Angels, because I expected a lot of offense and got it, even if not always from the expected source.

Pitchers who did what I expected

CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mariano Rivera, Boone Logan, Pedro Feliciano [nothing expected, head scratched at acquisition] and David Robertson. I have loved Robertson’s game since he was a rookie in 2009, so this breakout season didn’t come out of nowhere as far as I was concerned.

Letdowns

I thought we would get more from Phil Hughes, Rafael Soriano, and Joba Chamberlain.

The reason this season is a success- pitchers who went above and beyond

Take a bow, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Corey Wade, Ivan Nova (I thought he would be good, just not this soon), and Luis Ayala (I thought you were the same guy as Feliciano, covered in Met crap). I didn’t foresee any of these guys being anything like what they turned into. Nova looked like a #5 starter. Colon and Garcia looked like reasons to trade for a pitcher in late July. Cory Wade should have traded his Durham uniform for a Scranton- Wilkes Barre one. Ayala, I apologize. You don’t suck.