Look Back at the 2009 Projections

As the Yankees and Phillies get it on in the World Series, let’s take a look back at what happened in fantasy baseball.

As expected, my projections had some good and some bad results. I predicted that Shin-Soo Choo would break out with a .299/24/107/10 and he finished with .300/20/86/21. I was a little off on the power numbers but Choo rewarded his faithful owners with a nice steal total.

I came dangerously close to nailing Mark Buehrle’s numbers. Prediction: 14-12, 3.85 ERA, 1.29 WHIP; actual: 13-10, 3.84 ERA, 1.25 WHIP.

On the other side of the coin, I was way off on Zack Greinke’s meteoric rise to stardom. Prediction 13-11, 3.42, 1.26; actual 16-8, 2.16, 1.07.

I missed on Andre Ethier’s steal total thinking it would jump to new heights (I predicted 18, he stole 6) and I missed out on Mark Teixeira’s power supply (I predicted 23 and he launched 39 dingers).

I thought Fausto Carmona would re-emerge as a top flight pitcher and overestimated his win total by 10.

Regardless of how you slice it, the predictions are just that – predictions. They are based on a player’s history, current team situation, injuries past and present, and my gut feeling of how the player will progress or regress. Sometimes they pan out, sometimes they don’t. Injuries are tough to predict and trades into new situations can really throw a player’s actual performance for a loop.

I didn’t win my money league this year because I was out-maneuvered by a guy who found the bargains. The guy who won it all hit on several guys who posted a “career year”: Greinke, Pablo Sandoval, and Raul Ibanez. He also hit on a lot of players who had comeback seasons: Kevin Millwood, Robinson Cano, Javier Vazquez, Bobby Abreu, and Miguel Tejada.

All these players are examples of how to win a fantasy championship: find bargains in the draft and reap the rewards. Finding these guys is a tough task, but they are what make the difference between finishing first and finishing out of the money. Since picking a stud in the first round is easy, the real task is to find the bargains in later rounds as well as the players poised to break out.

So how do you get several on your team for next year? You have to do your homework and go out on a few limbs. Be willing to risk a mid-round pick on a guy who could regain his stud-level form as you can always dump him if he doesn’t pan out.

Enjoy the Series and we’ll see you back next year.