Earlier today I wrote a post looking back at my preseason picks to see how right I was (to the extent that anybody can be right about something 2/5 of the way through the season). And brother, when I’m right, I’m right. Except when it comes to predicting the AL West. Then I’m (probably) very wrong.

Speaking of very wrong, Paul had the temerity to suggest that I wouldn’t have written about my picks if I had done a crappier job picking. Of course, that’s not true. I have no trouble talking about crappy predictions. To prove it, let’s look at some of Paul’s preseason choices.

NL East: Mets — They’re two games behind the Phillies, which isn’t too bad. But if the Mets make the postseason, their’s will be the crappiest starting rotation to ever pitch in October.
NL West: Diamondbacks — You could make a case that the Diamondbacks have been unlucky this season. And, hey, when your first baseman gets valley fever, that’s pretty unlucky. But you could make an even stronger case that, aside from a very lucky season two years ago, the D-backs haven’t been good since Curt Schilling left. Arizona is 17 games back, and they’re in last place, behind even San Diego and San Francisco. That is woeful.
AL Central: Indians — The Indians are 10 games back with a -17 run differential, but hey, they’ve got Carl Pavano!
AL West: A’s — Paul and I were both blinded by our love of all things Beane, apparently.
NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin — How’s triple-A treating you, Cameron? You enjoying the Big Easy?
AL Rookie of the Year: Travis Snider — That sub-.300 OBP isn’t going to impress the voters, I fear.
AL CY Young: C.C. Sabathia — The big fella has been good, but not Cy Young good. Then again, he’s a slow starter. This is far from Paul’s worst pick. Then again, this pick had a lot of competition.

Overall, Paul made some predictions that look like they may pan out, picking the Red Sox to win the AL East and the Yankees to win the AL wild card. But man, he tanked it when it came to the NL West. I can smell that pick from here.

Blogger’s note: I was feeling saucy this afternoon. Paul, I tease because I love.

Here we are, about 2/5 of the way through the season, and I thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of the predictions I made in March and see how they’re holding up.

NL East: Phillies — Obviously, Philadelphia’s pitching has been a disaster of late. But it’s not like the Met’s, with Tim Redding and Livan Hernadez featured prominently in their rotation, are lighting the world on fire. The Phils have lost 6 straight and still lead the NL East by 2 games. I’m actually more worried about the Braves, who are much improved with the addition of Tommy Hanson and Nate McLouth.
NL Central: Cubs — Chicago was the no-brainer choice to win the NL Central before the season started, and now that they’ve won 4 in a row and are only 2.5 games back, they’re looking like they’re finally ready to live up to expectations. Rich Harden’s inconsistency is a worry, but the team should get a boost when Aramis Ramirez returns from the DL, and they’ve got the pieces to make a dealine move.
NL West: Dodgers — Easy pick.
NL Wild Card: Cardinals — If the playoffs started today, St. Louis would win the Central. So I’m looking pretty good here. By no means are the Cards a lock, but they’re as good a bet as any. And it’s hard to bet against Albert Pujols.

AL East: Rays — The Rays are in fourth place and are 6 games behind the Red Sox. But their run differential is the best in the AL, at +76. They’ll be a real threat in the second half, and could yet make me look smart.
AL Central: Twins — I honestly didn’t know who to pick in this division, so I picked Minnesota because they’re always in contention, even if nobody can figure out exactly how they do it. And here we are 71 games into the season and the Twins are 4 games behind the Tigers and you just know that come September they’ll be hanging around, ready to sneak into first place. And nobody will be able to explain how a team that gives quality minutes to Nick Punto and Delmon Young made the playoffs.
AL West: A’s — So far this looks like my worst pick. But you know what? The A’s are a second-half team. Anybody who’s read “Moneyball” knows that. And the AL West is ripe for the taking. So I’m not giving up on them yet. But I’m really, really close.
AL Wild Card: Red Sox — If Boston misses the playoffs, despite having seven above average starting pitchers, a resurgent Papi, a dominant bullpen and a limitless budget, it’ll be a major upset. Then again, the AL East is a ridicously tough division.

NL Rookie of the Year: Colby Rasmus — Looking like a good pick. Rasmus is heating up after a slow start and, more importantly, he doesn’t have any real competition.
AL Rookie of the Year: Matt Wieters — Too soon to say, but Wieters has the hype and has been heating up lately. He’s raised his average 100 points in the last week.

NL CY Young: Tim Lincecum — He’s as good a bet as anyone. Rob Neyer says, “Meanwhile, in the National League, Tim Lincecum’s making a serious bid to win his second straight award, though he too will have to cope with lousy run support from his mates. If that doesn’t work out, Chad Billingsley’s a solid candidate. And then there’s Dan Haren and Javier Vazquez, both enjoying brilliant seasons but with only nine wins between them.”
AL CY Young: Josh Beckett — Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay and Justin Verlander are the leaders, and Eric Bedard and Jered Weaver are good candidates, too. But Beckett, who was very unlucky in the first two months of the season, is on a roll now and can’t be counted out. He’s got the benefit of playing for a first place team that scores a lot of runs. Still a good pick.

NL MVP: Albert Pujols — I’m rooting for Chase Utley, but Pujols is the strong favorite. He’s such a beast.
AL MVP: Mark Teixeira — He’s second in the AL in HR, fourth in RBI, fifth in OPS, and he’s a notorious second-half player playing in the most home-run-friendly park in history. Again, not a lock. But still looking like a real strong pick.

All in all, I’d say my picks are holding up pretty well, with the exception of the A’s.

Yesterday, Umpbump posted our predictions for the 2009 season. Some of these picks were easier than others – for instance, all five of us chose the Cubs as NL Central champs, and four of us picked the A’s and Dodgers to win their respective divisions. A slim three-person majority also favored the Mets to win the NL East and the Indians to take the AL Central.

But some of these picks were downright tricky. The AL East appears to be a total toss-up between the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees, and our picks reflect that (2 chose Boston, 2 Tampa Bay, and 1 New York).

Similarly, it was hard to choose an AL Rookie of the Year because at least three candidates – David Price, Matt Wieters, and Travis Snider – all have a legitimate shot at vying for it. Should these three fail to live up to expectations, Elvis Andrus and Austin Jackson are waiting in the wings to claim their hardware. Then there’s always the chance that one of the AL’s younger, high-ceiling prospects – Neftali Feliz? – could force himself onto the big-league club sooner than expected and surprise us all.

But it was hard to pick the NL Rookie for the opposite reason: none of the NL’s most exciting talents are big-league ready. Atlanta’s Jayson Heyward is only 19, and topped out at high-A last year. The Giants’ Madison Bumgardner isn’t slated to make it to the bigs until 2010 at the soonest. And the Mets’ Fernando Martinez has already been rushed, and New York won’t want to hurry him further. So who will it be? In the end, four of us settled for Cameron Maybin, who seemed to figure things out a bit last September, while the fifth chose Colby Rasmus, another valid choice. Beyond that, Jordan Schafer’s torrid spring won him Atlanta’s starting CF gig, while Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen has been returned to Triple A – but probably not for long. But by far the most fun rumor is that the Nats would draft Stephen Strasburg and immediately bring the college pitcher to the majors. According to BP’s Kevin Goldstein, “every scout thinks he’d be fine.”

So, while our AL ROY picks came down to politicking – who’ll get more votes for being on a contender, who’ll get penalized for being a pitcher, who’ll get more support for starting the season with the big-league club – the NL picks all come down to who steps up and does the best job. And when it comes to preseason predictions, there’s nothing more boring than “well, it depends…”

Who did we miss, Umpbumpers? What rookies and prospects are you most excited about? What are your picks? Let us know in the comments!

The Umpbump writers have looked into their crystal balls and are predicting who will win big in 2009. This will save you the trouble of actually having to watch the games.

See any picks that you consider ballsy, or boring? Wanna make your own predictions? As usual, we’ll hear from you in the comments.

Coley’s Picks:

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Cardinals

AL East: Rays
AL Central: Twins
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL Rookie of the Year: Colby Rasmus
AL Rookie of the Year: Matt Wieters

NL CY Young: Tim Lincecum
AL CY Young: Josh Beckett

NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL MVP: Mark Teixeira

Paul’s Picks:

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Dodgers

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Indians
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin
AL Rookie of the Year: Travis Snider

NL CY Young: Tim Lincecum (IF Rich Harden doesn’t make 30 starts, which at this point should be a given)
AL CY Young: C.C. Sabathia

NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera

Sarah’s Picks

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Phillies

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Indians
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin
AL Rookie of the Year: David Price

NL CY Young: Johan Santana
AL CY Young: CC Sabathia

NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL MVP: Kevin Youkilis

Nick’s Picks

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Phillies

AL East: Rays
AL Central: Indians
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin
AL Rookie of the Year: Matt Wieters

NL CY Young: Johan Santana
AL CY Young: Daisuke Matsuzaka

NL MVP: Manny Ramirez
AL MVP: Matt Holliday

Alejandro’s Picks:

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: White Sox
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL East: Braves
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Mets

NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin
AL Rookie of the Year: David Price

NL Cy Young: Tim Lincecum
AL Cy Young: CC Sabathia

NL MVP: Manny Ramirez
AL MVP: Mark Teixeira

Continuing an annual tradition we began last year in this space, we here at UmpBump cast our ballots this year for who we think should be in the Hall of Fame who is not yet in.

The rules were simple: elect anyone you want, with no restrictions. Just like the real Hall, players who appear on at least 75 percent of all ballots cast are considered elected to the UmpBump version of the Hall of Fame. The voters consist of the main UmpBump contributors Alejandro, Coley, Sarah, Nick, and Paul in addition to three guest voters.

This year’s guest voters were our good friend, occasional guest poster, and loyal UmpBump commenter Melissa, the inimitable Kensai, who authors one of the very best Dodgers blogs on the web, Fire Ned Colletti Now, and the illustrious Dan Rosenheck, who writes for the New York Times and The Economist.

Here are the results of the balloting (names with number of votes received):

Rickey Henderson – 8
Tim Raines – 6
Bert Blyleven – 5
Andre Dawson – 5
Ron Santo – 5
Dwight Evans – 3
Mark McGwire – 3
Dick Allen – 2
Ross Barnes – 2
Bill Dahlen – 2
Joe Gordon – 2
Gil Hodges – 2
Joe Jackson – 2
Grant Johnson – 2
Sherry Magee – 2
Don Newcombe – 2
Jim Rice – 2
Pete Rose – 2
Ted Simmons – 2
Dave Stieb – 2
Alan Trammell – 2
Deacon White – 2
Harold Baines – 1
John Beckwith – 1
Charlie Bennett – 1
Pete Browning – 1
Bert Campaneris – 1
David Concepción – 1
Will Clark – 1
David Cone – 1
Bob Caruthers – 1
Darrell Evans – 1
Wes Ferrell – 1
Bill Freehan – 1
Jack Glasscock – 1
George Gore – 1
Bobby Grich – 1
Heinie Groh – 1
Stan Hack – 1
Paul Hines – 1
Keith Hernandez – 1
Charley Jones – 1
Jim Kaat – 1
Charlie Keller – 1
Cal McVey – 1
Dick Lundy – 1
Minnie Miñoso – 1
Dobie Moore – 1
Graig Nettles – 1
Alejandro Oms – 1
Buck O’Neil – 1
Johnny Pesky – 1
Billy Pierce – 1
Lip Pike – 1
Rick Reuschel – 1
Hardy Richardson – 1
Bret Saberhagen – 1
Reggie Smith – 1
Jimmy Sheckard – 1
Joe Start – 1
Harry Stovey – 1
Ezra Sutton – 1
Quincey Trouppe – 1
Lou Whitaker – 1
Maury Wills – 1
Jimmy Wynn – 1

As we can see from these results, this year UmpBump unanimously elected Rickey Henderson, who appeared on 100 percent of the 8 ballots cast. This is not surprising, as Rickey looks likely to challenge Tom Seaver’s record for percentage of votes received on the real Hall ballot this year. Tim Raines also edged into our verson of the Hall this year, appearing on exactly 75% of ballots cast (6 out of 8).

Also giving strong showings were Andre Dawson, Ron Santo, and Bert Blyleven. Dawson held steady from last year at 5 votes, while Santo and Blyleven made progress, both jumping up from 3 votes to 5. Mark McGwire and Dwight Evans also made up ground, moving up to 3 votes from 2 and 1 last year, respectively.

Several players who received significant support from UmpBumpers last year did not even get one vote this year. Players who got at least two votes last year but none this year included Jack Morris (4 votes last year), Tommy John (3), Roger Maris (3), Rod Beck (2), Albert Belle (2), Don Mattingly (2), Dale Murphy (2), Luis Tiant (2), and Joe Torre (2).

Nick and Coley have already given you their MVP picks. Here are mine:

First, the American League. The runners-up:

Grady Sizemore. Smart stats love this guy, despite his crappy average this year: he was second in the AL in VORP and first in Runs Created. He also tied for fifth in homers. But it was all wasted because the Indians were so bad. Oh well.

Carlos Quentin. Let this be a lesson to him next time he wants to break his wrist to spite his bat (or whatever).

Aubrey Huff. If David Ortiz can’t win it as a DH, then Huff won’t. But you know, he finished 4th in the league in VORP, 5th in OPS and RC, and 3rd in SLG. I just thought I’d mention it, because unless you live in the 21201area code, you might have missed it.

Kevin Youkilis. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think he was the only guy to finish in the top ten in VORP, RC, AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS. That’s pretty badass. Plus, he plays gold-glove worthy first base and can easily slide across the diamond to play third. Heck, you can even stick him in the outfield. Terrible facial hair, though.

But there can be only one winner, and that person is…..

Dustin Pedroia. No, he’s not the trendy pick–at least, not among the baseball eggheads who are sick of hearing about the Red Sox and their annoyingly good players and just plain annoying (but devoted!) fans. (Screw you too, jerkface!) But Pedroia had 73 extra-base hits this year (including 17 HR) this year to Joe Mauer’s* 44 (including 9 HR). Mauer, the catcher, has 1 stolen base and 1 caught-stealing. Pedroia, no real speedster, has 20 stolen bases and was also caught once. (How did he do that if he doesn’t have real wheels? The old-fashioned way: using his brain.) Pedroia led the league in runs, tied for first in hits (213), came in second by just .004 .002 [edit: after game 163] in batting average, finished third in runs created (while Mauer finished 18th there), and was fourth in total bases (with Mauer tied for 33rd). Pedroia also finished third in the AL in VORP (to Mauer’s 7th-place finish) behind Alex Rodriguez and Grady Sizemore, whose teams failed to make the playoffs this year. He played in 157 games and quietly drove in 140** runs while playing an acrobatic second base and energizing a team that suffered demoralizing injuries to their ace pitcher, cleanup hitter, and 2007 World Series MVP—while also coping with the tantrum and subsequent ouster of their most productive hitter. Without Dustin Pedroia, does anyone seriously think the Red Sox would have even made the playoffs? He’s been just as important to their playoff drive as Mauer*** was to the Twins’–and what’s more, he had a better year than Mauer. Case closed.

* I feel obligated to bring up Mauer here because so many people seems to be picking him over Pedroia, not least my colleagues at UmpBump. And look, I’m not one to undervalue a catcher’s contribution to the team, ever. But I honestly don’t know why we’re seriously talking about Mauer for MVP this year at all. (Yes, nice OBP. Very pretty. Well done. Now run along, and try to reach double digits in homers next time.)

**Now, anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I tend to pooh-pooh RBI as a stat, but keep in mind the context here: Mauer ranked 21st in MLB in RBI opportunities. Pedroia ranked 40th. But Mauer somehow finished with just 85 RBI to Pedroia’s 140. And those who would tout Mauer’s admittedly admirable ability to take a walk, I’d like to point out that despite this ability, Mauer grounded into 21 double plays–four more than the contact-prone Pedroia. And it’s not like Pedroia just swings at anything; he’s even a bit tougher to strike out than Mauer.

***To me, it’s a wash whether it’s more “valuable” to keep your team from failing when everyone expects them to succeed or to help your team succeed when everyone expects them to fail.

On to the NL. First, the doomed-to-fail runners-up:

Ryan Howard. As Coley pointed out, he led the NL in both homers and RBI, and his team did make the playoffs. But I include him only out of a feeling of obligation.

Hanley Ramirez. As Nick pointed out, he’s the young player every GM and fantasy owner would love to have. He carried the Marlins through a surprisingly good year. His time will come.

Lance Berkman. He had a great year–114 runs scored, second in RC, third in OPS and OBP, fourth in VORP. He also had 29 homers and, somewhat surprisingly, 18 steals. But the funny thing is, there are so many guys ahead of him on the home run list–Howard, Adam Dunn, Carlos Delgado, etc and etc–that his great year just isn’t good enough.

Chipper Jones. Now here‘s an AVG and OBP worth writing home about: .364 and .470, respectively, plus he was one of only two players in the NL to OPS over 1.000.

And yet there is only one clear winner here. And that is the other guy to OPS over 1.000. Who is…

Albert Pujols, despite his crappy team (hey, they would’ve won the NL West!), he clearly deserves the NL MVP and it’s not even close. He’s first in VORP, first in RC, first in OPS, second in OBP, and [yawn] first in SLG. Really, the guy is sick. There’s just nothing more to say.