Sunday Notes: Preseason Predictions, a Royals Rooter, Chen’s Last Call, Selig, Ryan on Jeter

With the regular season coming to a close – man, did that go fast — it’s time to take stock of what I predicted prior to opening day. As one might expect, there were both hits and misses. Such was the case for all FanGraphs writers, who shared their prognostications here and here. This week’s Sunday Notes column begins with a look at what my often-cloudy crystal ball told me in late March.

AL East: Tampa Bay Rays: I whiffed on this one. The perennial overachievers underachieved despite their pitchers’ striking out a big-league-record 1,430 batters [through last night]. The Indians, with 1,442, also broke the mark set last year by the Tigers [1,428]. Rays batters fanned 1,116 times, third least of the 30 teams.

AL Central: Detroit Tigers: This was supposed to be easy. Instead, the team Brad Ausmus inherited from Jim Leyland has a tenuous grasp on first place on the season’s final day. Those abandoned lots dotting Detroit? There’s a bullpen analogy there if things fall apart in October – assuming the Tigers actually make it to October.

AL West: Oakland A’s: For a long time, this looked like a smart pick. Fortunately for Bob Melvin’s team, the collapse was short of calamitous – assuming they win today [or Seattle loses] and again on Tuesday to advance to the ALDS. I have no plausible explanation for not picking the Angels to make the postseason.

AL Wild Card: Kansas City Royals: I remember thinking about this prediction in the series following the All-Star break. I was in the visiting dugout at Fenway Park and had just heard Ned Yost say he expected his team to make a second-half run. To be honest, I thought they’d continue to tread water and Yost would be canned.

AL Wild Card: Baltimore Orioles: In some ways, this is similar to last year’s prediction that the Indians would make the playoffs. An outstanding manager and better-than-you-think talent shaped each pick, with pleasant surprises making up for injuries and/or disappointing performances by players I expected more from.

NL East: Washington Nationals: I didn’t exactly go against the grain on this one, as the Nats were consensus favorites. The Mike Rizzo constructed squad – hello Doug Fister – was first in WAR, first in the NL East, and last in home runs allowed per fly ball. Expectations aside, Matt Williams merits Manager of the Year consideration.

NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals: Another consensus favorite will play a meaningful Game 162. It should come as no surprise that baseball’s best-run organization is reaping the benefits of an off-season move. Skeptics scoffed when Jhonny Peralta came on board, but the Kozma upgrade leads the team with 5.2 WAR.

NL West: San Francisco Giants: Thirty FanGraphs writers picked the Dodgers to win this division, and 30 FanGraphs writers were right. I saw LA as talented but susceptible to implosion, and viewed the Giants as more closely-resembling the 2012 World Champs than last year’s squad. I got the second part right.

NL Wild Card: Cincinnati Reds: Had Joey Votto and Mat Latos stayed healthy. and Jay Bruce been Jay Bruce, the Reds would have been serious contenders. This pick wasn’t about disrespecting the Pirates, it was about expecting a team to do what they were capable of doing. Things didn’t go as planned in Cincinnati.

NL Wild Card: Los Angeles Dodgers: Derek Jeter’s retirement is a reminder that icons are to be cherished. The farther the Dodgers go in the postseason, the more opportunities there will be to enjoy Clayton Kershaw and Vin Scully before – as Bart Giamatti so poignantly put it – “The chill rains come, [baseball] stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

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The Kansas City Royals are heading to the postseason for the first time in 29 years, and David DeJesus will be rooting for his old team. The Tampa Bay Rays outfielder was drafted by Kansas City and played for them from 2003-2010. I asked DeJesus for his thoughts on the Royals’ World Series aspirations.

“I’m happy to see them doing well,” said DeJesus. “I hope they have a good run in the playoffs. I played with some of those guys, so it’s pretty cool to see. It’s also nice for the fan base. They’re out there cheering for you, and you want them to be sharing in that feeling of excitement you have as a player. Even though I’m not [from Kansas City], I lived there as a player and my son was born there. I totally still feel a part of that.”

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Bruce Chen will also be watching his old team from afar. Chen was released by the Royals in early September and it’s possible he’s thrown his last pitch. If he has, he deserves a round of applause. As a matter of fact, he deserves a standing ovation. The 37-year-old Panamanian lefty survived 16 seasons with a fastball that hiccuped more than it zipped. You didn’t need a radar gun to measure his velocity so much as you needed a breathalyser.

Chen got around. He pitched for 10 teams and he reinvented himself nearly as often as he changed addresses. When he got to the big leagues he threw a fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. The latter wasn’t very good, so he shelved it and added a slider. Once hitters began figuring out his slider, he dropped it and brought back an improved changeup. Then he added a cutter. Needing any edge he could get, he also began to change arm angles.

The cerebral southpaw made another important self-preservation decision: He became a data hound. Crafty chameleon that he is, Chen then proceeded to begin playing chess matches with the scouting reports.

“When a hitter comes up, I know all of his percentages,” Chen told me this summer. “But sometimes I have to go away from those percentages. Two or three years ago, I used to be strictly by the numbers – if I was going to get beat, I wanted to get beat by what the numbers said. But a guy who struggles with curveballs may look offspeed against me, because I don’t throw very hard. He might be sitting on my percentages as much as I’m sitting on his percentages.

“I have to pitch backwards more than other guys. I’m not Yordano Ventura. He can throw a fastball in a fastball count, because good luck trying to hit 98-100. I can’t throw fastballs all the time at 85-86. I have to throw something the hitter isn’t looking for, because that’s kind of who I am.”

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Bud Selig is at Fenway Park this weekend, and he took questions from reporters prior to yesterday’s game. The outgoing Commissioner of Baseball was both measured and thoughtful with his responses. Regardless of your opinion of the job he’s done over the past 20-plus years, one thing is certain: He has a deep love and appreciation for the game. Here are brief excerpts from Saturday’s press conference:

On his tenure as Commissioner: “I can’t honestly tell you there isn’t anything I wish I had done [differently]. My goal now is to turn over a sport to Rob Manfred with as few problems as possible. You always have problems. Bart [Giamatti] was right: [Baseball] is a metaphor for life. You’ll always have ups and downs.”

On Ted Williams “He called me a lot. In the last two years of his life, I heard from him a lot. He had a great line in every conversation: ‘You have the worst f-ing job in America.’ That’s the way every conversation started. And there were days I wholeheartedly agreed with him.”

On Derek Jeter: “In an era where few heroes exist, over a 20-year span he represented the sport, and himself, in an absolutely magnificent way.”

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Brendan Ryan didn’t mind playing second fiddle to Derek Jeter this season. Ryan is arguably the best defensive shortstop in the American League – his bat is another matter – but he understood the circumstances. An icon is an icon.

Jeter isn’t the only iconic player Ryan has shared a clubhouse with. As a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, he played alongside Albert Pujols. With the Seattle Mariners – and again now with the Yankees – he played with Ichiro Suzuki. Between them, Jeter, Ichiro and Pujols have combined for 8,802 hits If you include Ichiro’s time in Japan, that number jumps to 10.100. Pujols has 520 home runs.

“[Pujols] may well have been governor in St. Louis,” Ryan told me yesterday. “He was The Man. He’s someone who takes his craft very seriously. He’s a cage rat who studies video. He’s a student of the game. It matters to him, and he’s earned where he’s at.

“Ich is kind of a puzzle. He’s like a magician with the bat. The things he does, you could never teach anyone to do. He has his own unique style. He’s another guy who’s done it for a long time and he’s done it on two continents. Geez, you put those hits together, here and Japan, and it’s quite a resume. Just a special, special, gifted hitter.”

In Ryan’s eyes, Jeter is more than an icon on his way to the Hall of Fame. He sees him as a paragon of excellence on and off a baseball diamond. Long before Ryan served as Jeter’s backup, the Yankees legend was his role model.

“It wasn’t hard to take a back seat to No. 2,” said Ryan. “He’s somebody I looked up to. In high school, when I was taking ground balls I was trying to look like Derek Jeter. The way he did it is what I felt a Major League shortstop should look like – the finesse, the grace, the athleticism. It was all there. He made things look very easy.

“Jete has more than just notoriety. He’s got respect from everybody. It’s not that everybody doesn’t respect Ichiro and Pujols, it’s just that it’s taken to a different level with Jete. It’s been an honor to play with him.”