Friday, April 1, 2011

Baltimore Sun O's Predictions

The main Orioles writers at the Baltimore Sun put down some predictions for the team today, and I thought they were... interesting*.

* Just a little good-natured ribbing.

HR leader: Jones (Jeff Zrebiec); Guerrero (Dan Connolly); Reynolds (Pete Schmuck)
RBI leader:
Markakis (Jeff); Lee (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)
Highest Avg.:
Markakis (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)
Wins:
Guthrie (Jeff); Britton (Dan); Arrieta (Pete)
Strikeout leader:
Arrieta (Jeff); Matusz (Dan); Matusz (Pete)
Team wins:
75 (Jeff); 77 (Dan); 79 (Pete)
Lone All-Star: Jones (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Matusz (Pete)
Markakis' average:
.313 (Jeff); .322 (Dan); .309 (Pete)
Gregg's saves:
27 (Jeff); 24 (Dan); 29 (Pete)
Reynolds' strikeouts:
207 (Jeff); 211 (Dan); 178 (Pete)
Guerrero's homers:
25 (Jeff); 32 (Dan); 23 (Pete)
Wieters' average:
.265 (Jeff); .278 (Dan); .290 (Pete)
Scott's homers:
24 (Jeff); 22 (Dan); 19 (Pete)
Guthrie's ERA:
4.23 (Jeff); 4.12 (Dan); 4.01 (Pete)
Fox's homers:
9 (Jeff); 12 (Dan); 5 (Pete)
Most Valuable Oriole:
Markakis (Jeff); Markakis (Dan); Guerrero (Pete)

  • Expecting Adam Jones to out-homer Mark Reynolds is unexpected (Jeff).
  • Expecting Vlad to hit 32 home runs (Dan) is... I don't want to say "crazy", but he hasn't done it since 2006.
  • Everyone thinks Nick will set new career high in batting average, despite being below .300 the lat two years.
  • Dan think Zach Britton will lead the team in wins, which implies either (1) he's going to be the team's best pitcher by a fair bit (since he'll need to make up for lost time when he gets called up), or (2) he sees some more serious injuries to the starting five coming.
  • And not votes for Matusz to lead the team in wins?
  • I'm not sure how Nick is going to lead the team in RBI (Jeff) batting from the two-spot, but OK.
  • Pete has Reynolds leading the team in home runs (a fair bet), but that implies he'll amass a lot of plate appearances. And yet, he's going to strike out less than he has in any full season in his career?
  • Also (Pete), if Vlad only hits 23 home runs and Matt Wieters bats .290, it's very, very unlikely that the former will be the more valuable player by virtue of the huge disparity in defensive value (guess he's going with BA/RBI?).
Everything else looks reasonable enough, including their win totals.

Mine, for the record, are:

"HR leader: Reynolds
RBI leader:
Guerrero
Highest Avg.:
Markakis
Wins:
Matusz
Strikeout leader:
Matusz
Team wins:
76
Lone All-Star: Matusz
Markakis' average:
.295
Gregg's saves:
26
Reynolds' strikeouts:
213
Guerrero's homers:
22
Wieters' average:
.263
Scott's homers:
24
Guthrie's ERA:
4.15
Fox's homers:
9
Most Valuable Oriole:
Matusz