I know it seems hypocritical to say stop making predictions when I’ve made them myself. Last year, I struck out when it came to MLB postseason predictions. I had the Tigers and the Dodgers playing in the Fall Classic, both of which were eliminated in the LDS. I have come to the conclusion that MLB predictions are useless, and ESPN.com has proven my point.
Out of the 35 ESPN MLB experts, only 10 correctly picked the winner of last year’s World Series. Five of the 35 actually got the matchup of St. Louis and Boston correct, with one of them picking the Cardinals. Preseason was even worse. All 43 ESPN writers were not even close. None of them even picked the Red Sox to make it to the World Series.
You would think ESPN would have learned. This postseason, it displayed a vote count from the experts. The two dominant vote getters were the Los Angeles Dodgers (19) and Washington Nationals (37) with 56 of the 70 votes. The Dodgers were eliminated, and the Nationals were down 2-1 in the series Tuesday. The Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals both swept their opponents in the ALDS and only carried two votes each.
To my point, baseball is a sport that is more unpredictable than most. Sure, the better teams usually make the post-season, but they decide that over 162 games for a reason. It takes all of those games to single out who is better. That is changed when you take the success from a full season and put it all on the line for a one-game wildcard playoff or a best of five LDS series. Anyone can win. The Los Angeles Angels won an MLB-high 98 games and were swept in the ALDS. It is just too small of a sample size to predict.
