Minor League Predictions - How did I do?

Here is what I predicted at the beginning of the year:

Overall I said this would be a down year in the organization.   Except for Columbus, which would have strong starting pitching and really good AAAA position players and Mahoning Valley, which would have a confluence of 2017 draftees who would make the pitching staff and position players from last year's draft and this year's lower rounds, the other teams in the system would experience down years although both Lake County and Lynchburg would benefit from veteran pitching, LC in the first half and Lynchburg in the second half, to make the playoffs. 

Columbus - 89-55 - International League Championship
Akron 74-70 - No playoffs
Lynchburg 68-76 - second half champion, playoffs, first round loss
Lake County 70-74 - First half champions, playoffs, first round loss
Mahoning Valley 45-31 - best team in club history at this level, league championship
Arizona Indians - 21-36 - worst team in club history at this level

Here is what actually happened

Columbus -  71-71 - The pitching never materialized as Plutko and Morimando did not have great years and Cooney was hurt all year.   The veteran hitting kept us in the race most of the year but, without dominant pitching, they just scuffled along.

Akron - 69-71 - As predicted, they struggled.  Francisco Mejia was able to carry the team in the first half but he and the team couldn't keep it going in the second half.

Lynchburg - 87-52 - A perfect example of where the whole is MUCH greater than the sum of the parts, this team may not have many future big leaguers but they played well together.   I had predicted that Civale and Bieber would dominate the second half to get this team to the playoffs.  I was half right as Bieber did his part when he passed through but it was really Civale, after his promotion from LC, who dominated for an extended time.   So I was right on with their second half success but off by a lot in the first half.  We will see what the playoffs bring but a number of the hitters have moved from organizational players to marginal prospects. 

Lake County - 54-85 - I correctly predicted a second half collapse but I thought that Bieber and Civale would stick around long enough to help them win in the first half.   Turns out that the lack of quality hitters and the early promotions of Bieber and Civale really did in this team giving it one of the worst records in Lake County history.

Mahoning Valley -  44-29 with one game to play - This team did not have the best record in team history as I predicted as, in 18 years of operation there were 3 teams with better records.  A couple of the top prospects, Nolan Jones and Will Benson took a while to get going and a couple of other guys, Ulysses Cantu and Oscar Gonzalez, couldn't maintain their hot starts, leading to more losses than I predicted.   I correctly predicted that the pitching the Indians got in the 2017 draft would help them dominate.   All that together means that they will fall just short of the club record of 49 wins but still are in good shape for the upcoming playoffs after winning their division with late season spurts from Jones and Benson.

Arizona Indians - 15-41 - As predicted, this team turned out to be the worst in Indians' history in rookie ball, finishing with a worse record, by one game, than a previous GCL team.   As the highest draft pick was a low second round tools guy in Holmes and the DSL guys who came up were very unpolished, this team really never had a chance to be successful.   Still, when you meet a prediction this dismal, something probably could have been done better.

There you have it.   Predicting minor league success is difficult but I nailed a few of these predictions and I was even right about the second half performances of Lynchburg and Lake County. The only one I truly whiffed on was my prediction of extreme success for Columbus.  The injuries in Cleveland sapped some of their position player strength but it was the pitching that really did them in.

As far as the Indians, remember I predicted them at 94-68 and winning the WS.   Right now the final regular season record is easily projectable from where they are and who knows about the playoffs although they will have to have some great play and luck to beat Houston now that the Astros have Verlander.  Plus, even if they do win the AL, they still have to get by the NL champion.  A big hope there is that the NL playoffs will be so tough that the NL winner will be exhausted by the time they get to the WS.