FanPost

Five Bold Predictions: A 2018 Review

Daniel Clark-USA TODAY Sports

Boy, there were a lot of predictions last year! Apologies for the length of this post, but I tried to include commentary on at least one prediction from everyone who participated. This year, I've split the predictions into three categories: (1) my favorites, (2) correct or mostly correct, and (3) wrong. Because of some overlap in the predictions and to cut down on the size of this post, I didn't include every correct or incorrect prediction, just those that stood out to me for some reason.

I'm declaring AllAboutATL the unofficial winner because he had two eerily on-the-nose predictions and I suspect he may be a practitioner of the dark arts, so I want to stay on his good side. If I happened to overlook a prognostication that merits discussion or if I made a mistake (which I probably did), feel free to point it out in the comments. Thanks to everyone who took part in this exercise. I'll be putting up a post asking for 2019 predictions once we get a bit closer to Opening Day.

My Favorites

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These were the predictions that I enjoyed the most. Some of them were very right. Others were mostly right in a notable way. Some were especially creative and funny. Still others sent me down interesting paths of inquiry.

At least one of Dansby Swanson, Johan Camargo, Lane Adams, or Ryan Schimpf ends up putting together a season that beats expectations (call it by like 1 win or so), as a result of a drastic reversal in either plate discipline or launch angle relative to what they've done so far. Ivan the Great

Goat clearly qualifies here, surpassing all expectations with 3.3 fWAR and a 115 wRC+. He raised his average launch angle from 9 degrees in 2017 to 12.4 degrees in 2019 while nearly doubling his BB rate.

Braves outfield finishes with more HR's than Marlins wins. 907BS

The Marlins won 63 games. Thanks to Acuña's 26 HRs and Neck's first half power surge, the Braves OF wound up with a total of 58 HRs. That total rises to 68 if you also count homers hit while playing other positions (infield, pinch hitting) by players who spent time in the Atlanta outfield.

Four players have above 4 WAR (Freeman, Albies, Acuna, and Swanson) while another four have above 3 WAR. Bravesfan101

The Braves ended up with three players over or very nearly over 4 fWAR -- Freddie (5.2), Ozzie (3.8), and Ronnie (3.7) -- and three more above or near 3 fWAR -- Camargo (3.3), Ender (2.9), and Kakes (2.6). Using bWAR, there were four players above or about 4 WAR -- Freddie (6.1), Ronnie (4.1), Ozzie (3.8), and Goat (3.7) -- and two above or around 3 WAR -- Ender (3.4) and Markakis (2.6). With the incorporation of framing, BWARP has Flowers at 2.9 WAR. So, one could make the case that the Braves had four 4 WAR players -- Freddie, Ozzie, Ronnie, and Goat -- and three 3 WAR players -- Ender, Markakis, and Flowers. It's a bit of a stretch, though. Still, some points are deserved for predicting just how good the Braves position players turned out to be in 2018.

Acuna finishes top 5 in MVP voting. Mudvayne

Ronnie finished 12th in the NL MVP voting, accruing 19 points. That's remarkable when you think about it. He was easily one of the five most valuable players in the NL after the All-Star break.

Folty finally has the breakout year we've all been waiting for since we traded for him. Homer

Bingo. Folty led the Braves starters with at least 50 IPs in just about every meaningful statistical category -- ERA- (70), FIP- (84), IPs (183), fWAR (3.9), K-BB rate (18%), and wOBA allowed (.265).

Acuña goes on a hit streak long enough to get everyone on the team wearing their hats sideways. Chip and Joe have a love/hate relationship about it. SundayAfternoons

Ronnie's longest hitting streak of the year -- 11 games -- was nothing exceptional, but his homer streak in mid-August was one for the ages. He hit homers in five consecutive games, seven of eight overall, and hit a leadoff homer in three straight, including both games of a doubleheader. Then the coward Jose Urena (who does not deserve a tilde or accent mark) hit him and brought an abrupt end to some of the most exciting and fun baseball Braves fans had witnessed in years. Nobody wore their hat sideways, though the team certainly did rally around him.

Acuna and Albies combine for the most combined WAR of any two players on the same team. Kab.butler

No, this distinction belongs to Mookie Betts and JD Martinez who combined for a staggering 16.3 fWAR for the Red Sox. Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez finished a close second with 15.6 fWAR. The other teams with at least two players to accrue more than 5 fWAR were the Nats (Rendon and Scherzer), Brewers (Yelich and Cain), Astros (Bregman and Verlander), Angels (Trout and Simba), D-Backs (Goldschmidt and Corbin), Yankees (Severino and Judge), and Rockies (Arenado and Story). The Indians had five players with at least 5 fWAR (Ramirez, Lindor, Bauer, Kluber, and Carrasco). The Astros had three (Verlander, Bregman, and Cole).

Ronnie and Ozzie combined for 7.5 fWAR. Freeman and Folty were the two Braves players with the greatest fWAR, combining for 9.1.

Braves' INF (3-6) Combine for 15 fWAR. peachtreestreet

All Braves infielders (not counting catchers) combined for exactly 15 fWAR! First base yielded 5.4 fWAR, second base accrued 4.0, SS picked up 1.3, and 3B produced 4.3.

Kyle Mueller outperforms Joey Wentz, Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint, and Bryse Wilson, (by FIP) but is himself outperformed by Tucker Davidson. OmarReborn

I'm guessing there was a bet on Driveline and similar training methods with this prediction, as both Muller and Davidson have made it known on social media that they favor this sort of offseason preparation. Omar's prediction was very wrong, at least with respect to Davidson, but figuring out which of these pitchers was the FIP champ reveals just how good most of them were last year. Muller had a 3.45 FIP across A+ and AA last year. Wright logged a 3.57 FIP across AA, AAA, and the majors. Wentz's FIP was 3.64 in limited action with the Fire Frogs. Touki had an impressive FIP of 3.11 across AA, AAA, and the majors. That wasn't quite good enough to beat out Wilson, though. He put up a 3.08 FIP across four levels -- A+, AA, AAA, and the majors -- making him the 2018 FIP champ among these six pitchers. Davidson was by far the worst, though he still managed a respectable 3.98 FIP in A+. Hey, at least he wasn't converted to a reliever, right Omar?

Julio Tehran hits Bryce Harper with a wild pitch. hiphopapotamus

Julio didn't bean Harper in 2018, though I wish he had. That would have saved Braves fans from watching Julio tiptoe around Harper during seven excruciating plate appearances. I guess when you're deathly afraid to throw a pitch on the inner half to a hitter, it makes it tough to hit him. Here is a zone breakdown of the 26 pitches Julio threw Harper last year.

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That's basically two hittable pitches in seven plate appearances. Teheran walked him four times and surrendered a homer on that center-center meatball. Ouch!

Tim Tebow debuts at some point after Ubaldo Jimenez is the 11th Mets starter to hit the DL and their roster looks like the Flint Tropics, hits less than .100 with more K's than hits and foul balls combined. BrandonWS

While the Gator great did not grace Citi Field in 2018, the Mets did once again see a ton of players hit the DL. The most hilarious highlight was Noah Syndergaard hitting the 10-day DL for hand, foot, and mouth disease (LOLMets). Thor also missed over a month earlier in the year with a strained ligament in his finger. The host of other Mutts misfortunes included Juan Lagares breaking his foot and spending 264 days on the DL, Cespedes being sidelined for the season in late July with "twin heel calcifications", and Travis D'Arnaud tearing his UCL in April. According to Roster Resource, only the Angels lost more projected pre-season value to injury in 2018 than the Mets.

Tebow enjoyed possibly his best minor-league season, putting up roughly league-average offensive numbers for the Mets AA club, though he had nearly a 35% K rate and was aided by a .417 BABIP.

Charlie Culberson is kidnapped by a cartel after they mistake him for Dansby. His ransom goes unpaid. But through grit and cunning, he earns the trust of his captors, works his way up through the ranks, and eventually succeeds El Mencho as the most ruthless cartel leader in the world. His troops never discover that he is not Dansby. BrockSamson

Anyone else hearing the Narcos theme as Bulbasaur surveys a vast estate surrounded by armed henchmen?

Chip Caray is fired in June after getting into a twitter feud with Dua Lipa, who of course will be dating Ozzie Albies by then. BrockSamson

Wrong cranky broadcaster.

Braves throw a no-hitter led by Sean Newcomb. AllAboutATL

Holy hell, this was almost right. In one of the few Sunday games that I didn't watch live this year, Newk kept the Dodgers hitless for 8 2/3 innings before finally surrendering a hit to Chris Taylor with two strikes in the ninth on his 134th pitch of the outing.

Braves win the division as turmoil takes over the Nats locker room. AllAboutATL

Not only did the Braves win the division handily, but the Nats locker room descended into very public dysfunction. Just before the trade deadline, Jeff Passan quoted an anonymous Nats player who said the "clubhouse is a mess" and that it had "festered" throughout the season under first-year skipper Davey Martinez. Shortly thereafter the Nats dealt Brandon Kintzler in a surprising trade with the Cubs, leading to speculation that he was the anonymous source in Passan's article. A day or two later they DFA'd Shawn Kelley after he threw a tantrum on the mound when Martinez called on him to pitch in a blowout.

The Braves as a team will collectively collect 7 mlb regular season awards (I.e SS, GG, ROY, CY, MVP, etc). SWMO Braves fan

Very close! Braves players took home 6 MLB regular season awards in 2018 -- three Gold Glove Awards (Freddie Freeman, Ender Inciarte, and Nick Markakis), one Silver Slugger (Nick Markakis), the NL ROY (Acuña), and the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award (Johnny Venters).

Bryce Harper hurts himself, stupidly. SquishATL

Harpo played it very safe in the outfield in 2018, no doubt to avoid major injury in a contract year. As a result, he put up the worst defensive numbers of his career and didn't dive for a single ball all year (hat tip to Effectively Wild's Ben Lindbergh for pointing this out during a podcast).

Joe Simpson, upset by the new changes to the game and the slight angle to Acuna's hat, announces his retirement. The Braves seize this opportunity to reshuffle their broadcast booth and hire John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. (I use this one every year, and damnit, it will come true!) papaball

Joe didn't retire, but his curmudgeonly personality led to some regrettable and controversial on-air comments that likely prompted the Braves to drastically cut the number of appearances he'll make on the TV broadcast next year (reportedly only 20 or 30). He'll still be griping about something stupid on the radio, though. Frenchy will take over the primary color duties on the TV broadcast, with Tommy Glavine expected to see an increase in appearances as well.

Coppy spends the year working on elaborate oil painting of Hector Olivera and working on his erotic novel. Wrh2k6872015

Did Chip co-author the erotica?

Albies HRs > any individual Braves pitcher's saves total. Loganutk

Albies' 23 homers outpaced Viz's 16 saves.

AJ Minter works his way into the closer's role by the end of July and earns 15 saves by the end of the year. CurtisPotts

Minter finished with exactly 15 saves.

Chipper fathers another child. (He is making his own ball team and has his infield pretty much all set). Elosoblanco24

Baby Cooper Jones was born on Aug 9, 2018. It may have been public knowledge that his wife was expecting at the time these predictions were made, but I'm giving elosoblanco the benefit of the doubt, here. That's child number seven for Chipper and number two for him and his wife, Taylor. This came just a few weeks after Chipper's HOF induction ceremony, so not a bad month for the Braves icon.

Correct or Mostly Correct

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The Braves are among the seven best NL teams in wins. BravesRays

The Braves finished 5th in the NL in wins, behind the Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, and Rockies. They tied with the Brewers for the second-best Pythagorean projected win total in the NL (92), trailing only the Dodgers. They also tied the Brewers for the second-best Base Runs projected win total in the NL (92). Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Nick Markakis manages to completely and utterly ignore the fact that he's getting older; his 2018 ends up looking more like something like his 2016 rather than a continued downward trend. This doesn't really matter when he can't get more than like a $2M deal in the offseason, though. Ivan the Great

Right in direction, but wrong in magnitude. Markakis had his best offensive season since 2010, putting up a 114 wRC+ and 2.6 fWAR.

Soroka comes up in August and makes 5 starts with a 3.10 ERA. BraveorDie

Mike Soroka made 5 starts with a 3.51 ERA, so this was right on the nose, except for the fact that he came up May, pitched into June, and didn't see the field at all in August or September.

Folty n Nuke have really good/great years—200 innings—both get over 200 strikeouts. Braves83

In this era, predicting 200 plus innings for Folty and Nuke was certainly bold. Neither of them made it there, but Folty did eclipse 200 strikeouts (202), the only pitcher on the Braves to do it. Nuke put up nearly a K per IP, but he only threw 164 innings (160 Ks). Though I wouldn't call his season "really good", it was solid, and Folty was borderline great. I'll count this one as mostly right.

Acunator hits 20 + dongs 30 doubles 10 triples and 30 steals. Braves83

Juña led the team with 26 homers. He had a mere 26 doubles, 4 triples, and 16 stolen bases, though. Still, this was close enough. El Abusador more than lived up to the nickname bestowed on him by Starling Marte.

Albies drives in 75+ RBIs and establishes himself as the 2 hole hitter, 25+ stolen bases, and plenty of flashy plays. Ozzie quickly becomes a fan favorite. ATLBFH

Ozzie wound up with 72 RBIs, 14 SBs, and plenty of flashy defensive plays. How could anyone not like him? He batted first, second, sixth, and seventh, though it looks as if he spent more time in the two-hole than all the other batting spots combined. I'm counting this as mostly right.

Ozzie Albies is an All-Star/Fan Favorite/top 2 in NL second baseman by WAR. BigSmoltzFan

Points for predicting Ozzie's All Star election, though that pesky Javy Baez made a late charge to push him out of a starting spot. He finished third in the NL in fWAR, behind Baez and Scooter Gennett.

AA and the Braves become a modest buyer at the trade deadline to shore up the bench/bullpen. LEastCoastBears

They shored up the bench with Duvall, even though he played poorly down the stretch, and the pen with Venters and Brach. They also added Gausman to bolster the rotation. All in all, a far more acquisitive deadline than almost anyone expected headed into the season.

3a. Acuña is NOT called up in mid-April.

3b. Regardless of when he is called up, non-TC outlets publish articles using Kris Bryant's call-up articles as a template. Said articles tell me how upset I should be at the Braves/MLB/the Universe for such an embarrassing display of ownership greed.

3c. Acuña rips 20+ yikketies and wins the NL ROY. Homer

El Abusador didn't make his MLB debut until April 25th against the Reds, and the TC commentariat never stopped talking about it, despite Preston Tucker playing well before Ronnie was summoned. It took the eventual NL ROY awhile to get going in AAA, and his poor performance in the early weeks of April kept some of the national media wolves at bay.

Albies is a 4+ WAR player this season. Slash line of .292/.364/.450 -- 30 doubles, 10 triples and 15 HRs (22-SBs). Sparhawk

Yep, but the distribution was .261/.305/.452, so less OBP and more power than predicted.

Ozzie hits 18+ HR's. Get_Smart

He hit 24, far more than anyone anticipated, even though most of them came before the break.

We have 3 gold glovers: Inciarte/Acuna/Albies. Swansby Danson

The Braves did wind up with three GG winners to lead the NL, just not those three. Freddie, Ender, and much more dubiously, Neck, took home the hardware.

The Rotation pitches to a top 5 NL ERA (I picked this one last year and was way wrong). Fast at last

The Braves finished 5th in the NL in ERA (3.75) as well as ERA- (92).

Mike Soroka throws more MLB innings than Luiz Gohara. Jehremy

This ended up being true for all the wrong reasons. Soroka finished with 25.2 IPs. Gohara finished with 19.2

Folty finishes the year with CY votes. Longtimebravesfan43

Folty finished 8th in the Cy Young voting with three points.

Acuna -- 280/340/25HR/30sb. Tbones3141

Pretty close -- .293/.366/26 HRs/16 SBs.

And Pache hits 10 HRs, begins his Acunaian climb up prospect lists. Of which Kolby Allard is no longer found on. BrandonWS

Pache hit 9 homers.

Dan Winkler establishes himself as THE premier arm in the Braves bullpen. He records the highest fWAR among Braves relievers and ends with the most saves. FONZY541

Winkler (1.2 fWAR) finished second to Minter (1.4) in fWAR among Braves relievers in 2018, though he recorded only two saves.

Folty and Newcomb are All Stars, both turning a corner towards top end pitchers. Mr. Sanchez

Half right! Folty was the sole representative among Braves pitchers in 2018's Midsummer Classic.

Johan Camargo outplays Dansby Swanson leading the Braves into a very interesting decision moving forward. Braves95

Camargo was clearly the better player in 2018, putting up 3.3 fWAR to Dansby's 1.9 fWAR in a similar number of games. It's expected that Goat will see some time at shortstop this year, but for now the Braves are content to have them both on the roster.

Acuna wins NL ROY with all the first place votes. Xkar25

Ronnie received 27 of the 30 first-place votes, with two going to Soto and one to Walker Buehler.

Camargo will hit 15+ home runs. Glove51

Goat hit 19 homers, good for fourth on the team.

Wrong (But Thanks for Playing)

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Ender Inciarte is the only Atlanta outfielder to finish with positive Def for the year. Ivan the Great

There were two Braves outfielders (three if you count Duvall and Lane Adams, who finished with barely positive Defs of 0.2 and 0.4 with the Braves) that wound up with positive Def for the year. One was Ender, of course. The other ... Danny Santana, who accumulated a Def of 1.4 in just 55 outfield innings thanks to a UZR/150 of 27.1! At least he wasn't Emilio Bonifacio.

Brandon McCarthy and Luiz Gohara are both really good when healthy, posting FIPs notably above league average. However, they combine for fewer than 160 innings. Ivan the Great

Well, Ivan was right about neither of them pitching much. They combined for less than 100 IPs between them. Their FIPs, however, were both well above league average. McCarthy had a FIP- of 119. Gohara's was 113.

Boston Red Sox do NOT make the playoffs. BigSmoltzFan

Whoops.

One of Wisler/Blair/Sims becomes a solid reliever. LEastCoastBears

Heh.

It turns out Acuna isn't God (this season, anyways), and he only hits .250 or less after his callup. JohnRocker4CyYoung

Acuña is, at the very least, an Achilles-level minor deity.

Bruce Hooper finally drives in 100 batters for the first time in his career and is the NL MVP. To make this one bold, I'll say his HR + SB total is 62+. Jackgray64

Harpo did reach 100 RBIs for the first time in his career with exactly 100 ribbies. He didn't receive a single vote for the NL MVP (meaning he had fewer votes than Nick Markakis!), so crash and burn sound effect on that one.

Danny Santana makes 20 starts for the Braves (barf). Jackgray64

Wrong. Thank God. Santana appears in 15 games for the Braves, but it looks as though only about one-third of those were starts.

The Marlins have a promising draft and J2 and are continued development of the prospects they traded for. By seasons end Jeter is hailed around baseball for his foresight. justinhaynes

J2 went well for the Fish, as they landed Vector, Victor and his younger brother. I'm pretty sure qualified observers still consider Jetes to be out of depth. The Realmuto sweepstakes dragging on while many of his suitors have moved on to Plan B hasn't helped. I'd say his reputation appears to match his actual talent as an executive, so the opposite of his defense.

Braves trade for Donaldson at the deadline. BackOnMyBullshit

Not quite!

Dansby doubles Camargo's WAR total. Get_Smart

Camargo (3.3 fWAR) was a lot closer to doubling Dansby's fWAR total (1.9 fWAR) than the other way around.

Ronald Acuna finishes the season as the 2nd highest scoring fantasy player on the Braves (behind Ozzie Albies). Sportsfan4life

Ummm ... this might be true, depending on the scoring system. Maybe someone who knows more about fantasy baseball than me could help me out on this one?

Folty blows his arm out in early June. Blair is called up and goes 9-3 3.65. Bobo Wilson

Turns out Blair blew his arm out in late March or early April, requiring surgery to repair his shoulder. Folty went 13-10 with a 2.85 ERA, 3.37 FIP, and 3.77 xFIP. If the names were swapped, this would be very close to correct.

Gohara, Newcomb, and Folty put up the second best three-pitcher WAR in MLB. Guess who's number one. BrockSamson

The Indians, by fWAR (17 among Bauer, Kluber, Carrasco) with the Astros a close second (16.7 among Verlander, Cole, and Keuchel).

Dylan Moore gets his swagger back. After a couple of lackluster months from Culberson/Schimpf/Santana, Dylan gets the call and all he does is RAKE! (>=120 wRC+ for numbers sake). FONZY541

Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, and Dylan! Unfortunately for the founding and sole member of the Dylan Moore Fanclub, the Braves released the versatile infielder/outfielder shortly after Fonzy made this prediction. Moore raked in AA and AAA with the Brewers, though, putting up a 132 wRC+ for the 2018 season. After the season, Moore signed a big-league contract with the Mariners as minor-league free agent. This means he was given a 40-man roster spot, making his ascent to the majors more likely than ever in 2019. It also doesn't hurt that the Mariners are going to be terrible.

Jose Bautista signs with the Braves, and when Acuna comes up, Snit manages to successfully platoon Nick and Bautista until one gets hurt. The guy who stays healthy hits well enough that he is traded. SquishATL

We did sign Bautista. He did not play RF, nor did he hit well enough to be traded, but he showed enough for the Mets to pick him up after we released him.

Freddie Freeman barely loses out on the NL MVP to Kris Bryant (but will win it next season). jhamez

Freeman finished fourth in the NL MVP voting, with 174 points. Yelich, Baez, and Arenado took the top three spots.

3 or more players with last names starting with A get traded in July. Adam Weaver

The Braves neither traded or acquired anyone at the deadline with a last name beginning with "A". They did acquire Adam Duvall, though. Additionally, they twice traded An international bonus pool slot.

Flowers and Suzuki repeat as the best catching duo by fWAR this season. Xkar25

Flow and Zuk weren't as good as last year, but the Braves' catchers still produced the 8th-most fWAR in baseball, with 2.8. Baseball Prospectus had the Braves catchers finishing with 5 framing runs above average in 2018. If you add framing runs to fWAR (which I don't it's technically correct to do), the Braves move up to 6th place.

Dansby Swanson will be known as Dansby "Mendoza" Swanson as he has difficulty keeping his BA above .200. And whereas Mario Mendoza was an above average fielder which enabled him to keep his starting job in spite of his BA, Dansby will be at or near the top of the NL for most errors. How long will the Braves tolerate it? Alfred2162

Dansby hit .238 and ranked 6th among MLB shortstops in UZR and DRS. He made only 10 errors. The only shortstops who played as many games as Dans and had fewer errors were Freddy Galvis and Nick Ahmed.

Even with an overall improved offence (full season of Freddie, improved Albies, and addition of Acuna), the Braves will lose at least 90 games again (mainly because of the pathetic pitching). Alfred2162

The Braves won 90 games! I bet Alfred is fun at parties.

All the stopgap 3B play terribly with Camargo on the DL, then he comes back and regression finds him, leading to a cumulative -2 WAR from Braves 3B this year. We all die next April when Austin Riley is held down for 2 weeks to gain an extra year of control. jdawghsizzle

Braves third basemen combined for 4.3 fWAR in 2018, which was 10th-best in baseball.

To break out of a slump, Dansby cuts off his hair. And it works. zgs1288

Didn't happen, but this did.

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Oh, Dans.

Freeman leads the league in RBIs. EnterUsernameHere

Freeman finished 9th in the NL in ribbies, just behind Harpo.

Freddie Freeman misses no games to injury and challenges for the mlb triple crown BUT still frinishes 2nd in mvp race.....IamAcuna7

Freddie finished fourth in the NL MVP race. He tied for 26th in homers, 3rd in batting average, and 9th in RBIs.

Braves close a 10 game hole for the last wildcard after July 31st. Cortyrone

Though the Braves wound up winning the division, they did have a strong August and September after a July swoon that put them 2.5 games behind the Phillies as late as July 28th. From that point on, they outplayed the Phils by 12.5 games, though that had a lot to do with Philadelphia falling apart down the stretch.

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