At the start of the year I ran a few polls, asking for over/under predictions on several key topics for the 2012 Pirates season. Now that the season is over, I thought it would be a good time to look back and see the results of some of those key story lines.
Pedro Alvarez Home Runs
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Remember back at the start of the season when people wanted to send Pedro Alvarez to Triple-A? Almost two thirds of voters had Alvarez hitting 20 or fewer homers this year. He surpassed that total, although he was a bit streaky throughout the year.
Erik Bedard Starts
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This is what I said in the original article:
It’s not really a question of how good Erik Bedard will be. It’s more a question of how long he will stay healthy. He made 24 starts last year, but hasn’t made more than 15 from 2008-2010. How many will he make for the Pirates?
Turns out, it was a question of how good Bedard would be. He made 24 starts, which was exactly matching his 2011 total. But he also posted a 5.01 ERA. Bedard was great to start the year, but fell off after the first month. The drop in production coincided with him being hit with a line drive and removed from the game, although that wouldn’t seem to answer why his struggles continued several months later.
Alex Presley OPS
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Presley had an .804 OPS in 215 at-bats in 2011. Almost two thirds of voters predicted he would be under the .800 OPS mark this year. They were right, as he finished with a .691 OPS.
Jeff Karstens ERA
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Vegas oddsmakers like to set lines so that the public is fairly split on either side, which guarantees them money no matter what the outcome. This line would be my best attempt at setting odds, as it was close to even at 55/45. Karstens ended up pretty close to that line, with a 3.97 ERA. So the “over” crowd won, although it wasn’t a horrible drop. The bigger issue was that Karstens dealt with injuries and only threw 90.2 innings.
Joel Hanrahan Last Pirates Appearance of the Season
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Hanrahan wasn’t traded at the deadline, so the roughly one-third of the people who predicted he would still be a Pirate in August were correct.
Wins
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A large majority felt that the team would top their 2011 win total. A better line might have been .500.
I think the most interesting one was Alvarez. There was so much debate at the start of the season over whether he should have started in Triple-A. His overall numbers were in the Carlos Pena/Mark Reynolds range, but I think that people were expecting much worse than that at the start of the year, especially since so many wanted him to start in Triple-A.
Two of the most important questions for the season from this list ended up being the Bedard and Karstens questions. The team faded down the stretch for several reasons, but largely it was due to the drop off in pitching. The look of the pitching staff would have been much better with a productive Erik Bedard and a healthy Jeff Karstens in the final month. That might not have solved all of their problems, but it definitely would have helped.
Links and Notes
**The Pirates lost to the Braves 4-0. They finished with a 79-83 record.
**Pirates Notebook: Burnett and McCutchen Finish With Ovations.
**Polanco and Hanson Make the South Atlantic League Top 20.
**Pirates Hitting Coach Gregg Ritchie Will Not Return in 2013.
