A Look Back into the Future: American League

Before the season, I attempted to predict the final standings for both leagues. As we near the halfway point of the season, I wonder, how have I done?

Here are the American League Actual Standings against their predictions, prorated to current games played:

East: (actual W, predicted W, +/-)

NYY: 41, 40, +1
BOS: 43, 40, +3
TOR: 40, 38, +2
BAL: 34, 33, +1
TBA: 32, 33, -1

Looks pretty good here.

Central:

DET: 49, 37, +12
CHW: 48, 38, +10
MIN: 37, 40, -3
CLE:  32, 38, -6
KCR:  22, 26, -4

Not so good, makes me look like a blind monkey. Minnesota is OK, and is playing much better lately as Joe Mauer has become a superstar, Santana gets on his late season roll, and Liriano gets in the rotation. They may well meet my prediction of 89 wins, but it won't be enough to meet my other prediction: Twins Central Champions. I knew the Royals would be bad, that doesn't take any fancy formuli to figure out. I didn't quite predict their actual level of crappiness. I missed Detroit and Chicago by huge margins, and Cleveland in the other direction. I'll look into these teams in more detail later.

West:

OAK: 40, 42, -2
TEX: 40, 34, +6
SEA: 36, 34, +2
LAA: 33, 40, -7

A's are playing ablout as well as expected, with the usual bad start and stupid win streak. Rangers are playing much better than predicted, and the improvement has been mostly on the defensive side, as Teixiera still has only 6 homers. Some games they play little guys like Mark DeRosa and Jerry Hairston in outfield corners over sluggers like Mench, it must mean they are trying to put a good defense out there. Still, the Rangers often fade in the heat of August. I don't think they'll pose a serious threat to the A's.

That leaves the Angels. They've had just a crappy season. They are best off giving some experience to the kids from here on out, and preparing to retake the division in 2007.