Looking Back: Baseball Prospectus-Cubs Will Finish Ahead of Pirates

One of the nice things about the Pittsburgh Pirates becoming a winner is to look back at the pre-season predictions. We’ve had a good time doing this so far this offseason, stepping into the batter’s box today is Baseball Prospectus.

The article today looks at 15 things they were wrong about, and from what I can see BP is the only bigger publication doing such a thing. It’s refreshing.

Maybe the Trib and PG are still editing their version?

Baseball Prospectus had a prediction that said the Cubs would finish ahead of the Bucs.  Of course that didn’t happen, here is the explanation.  Let’s trust that in 2014, Rizzo and Castro aren’t the Pirates version of [fill in first baseman here] and Starling Marte.

"The reasoning for this was two-fold. I thought that the Cubs could get star-level performances out of Anthony Rizzo (wrong) and Starlin Castro (super wrong), while receiving strong contributions from an improved rotation (wrong). On the other hand, I thought the Pirates would finish around .500, but lack the offense needed to contend (wrong) with their likely middle-of-the-road rotation (wrong). I thought Edwin Jackson would turn out to be a great signing and co-rotation anchor for the Cubs (wrong) with the already strong presence of Jeff Samardzija (wrong). This will undoubtedly be the last time I make a prediction that looks this dumb at the end of the season (super wrong). —Bret Sayre"