Revisiting Jayson Stark and Captain Underpants

Back on the Ides of February I paid homage to the special talent of writer Jayson Stark, admired for excavating baseball's obscure and confounding in a whimsical way.

One tradition of his is to identify players who have surpassed previous season or career norms just days into the season. In my post, I went Jayson one better, predicting which players that might be in 2016.

I thought it'd be fun to take a spin through the picks and see how they turned out. (Spoiler alert: about what you'd expect.)

First the mundane: i predicted Tanner Roark would surpass four pitching wins -- his total output in a sorry 2015 -- in quick order. Despite a winless April, Roark earned his fifth victory on Memorial Day en route to a 16-10, 2.83 season that placed him 10th in Cy voting and increased his WAR eightfold to 5.5.

Likewise for Nick Markakis and Anthony Rendon in homers and RBI. Markakis endured a quirky power outage for the Braves in '15, recording just three homers, all in the second half. He mashed 13 in '16. Rendon, stubbed by injuries last year, rebounded from a 5 HR, 25 RBI season to 20 and 85 in 2016.

No insight was necessary to observe that Jake Arrieta would allow more runs in a couple of bad outings in 2016 than the seven he held opponents to in the last two months of 2015. Sure enough, in three starts covering the end of June and beginning of July, the Reds, Mets and Pirates touched him up for 15 runs over 16 innings. For the season, Arrieta crashed to earth from his 22-6, 1.77 Cy Young campaign to 18-8, 3.10 -- still good enough for ninth in the Cy voting.

Shelby Miller endured a brutal 2015 with Atlanta where he won just once after May despite pitching well. So predicting he'd earn more W's in Arizona was like shooting fish in a barrel. Ha! Fish one, shooter nothing! Miller pitched like snake poop in 2016 and his W-L record reflected it. He won exactly zero games in April, one game in May and one in June. Injury curtailed the 3-12, 6.15 torture that cost the D-backs their #1 pick and two pitching prospects.

Likewise, I thought Captain Underpants, the reliable Hunter Pence, would crush the nine homers and 30 runs scored he produced in the injury-sacked 2015 season. Alas, Pence missed 50 games in June and July of 2016 and authored just 13 homers and 58 runs scored, many of them in a red hot September. Put him on the 2017 list!

To cover just this kind of contingency, I included Corey Seager on the list. The 2016 Rookie of the Year enjoyed a productive cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 2015, tallying 17 times after his September 1 call-up. They don't call us smart asses for being dumb asses: Seager crossed the plate for his 18th run in early May of 2016 and continued crossing it, to the tune of .308/.367/512 and MVP votes. I bet you've forgotten Shelby Miller already.

The Cardinals all but forgot Jon Jay in their outfield last year, so his trade to San Diego and the starting centerfield job offered him the opportunity to top the six doubles and one stolen base he achieved in all of 2015. He did rip 26 doubles, but swiped just two bags all season -- surpassing both previous marks by May.

Dee Gordon and A.J. Pierzynski delighted their employers in 2015 with anomalous seasons they couldn't possibly duplicate in 2016, so I threw them on the prediction wagon. And they didn't -- not even close! Pierzynski's .300/.339/.430 was the best age-38 season for anyone spending most of their time behind the plate and one of the best of his 18-year career. I said he wouldn't even duplicate his 2015's April, when he socked three homers and knocked in 14 runs. And in a desultory .219/.243/.304 campaign that is likely his last, Pierzynski never made it to three home runs and pushed across just 23 runs the entire season.

Gordon led the league in batting average and hits in 2015, legging out 78 of them in April alone. Thanks to a doping suspension, he didn't produce his 78th safety until September and lost 65 points of batting average and 135 points of OPS.

Saving the best for last, there's former South Carolina star Jackie Bradley Jr. JBJ found his mojo toiling in the Minors in 2015 waiting to showcase his transformation in August and September. Consequently, it wasn't until the eighth month that he produced his sixth hit, first double, second homer, first stolen base, fourth run scored and fourth RBI of the season.

And this year? Jackie got his seventh hit on April 20th, and completed the entire Bingo card by May 7th. On that date, his batting line included 28 hits, six doubles, three homers, two steals, 15 runs scored and 14 RBI.

That's a pretty good batting average on the predictions, though, of course, they were all a bunch of hanging curves. Then again, I could never hit a curve, hanging or otherwise.

John Hart Is A Big Fat Lying Poopyhead

If you had recently inherited the Atlanta Braves' GM job you might have noticed that your team skidded to a 21-35 second half record, tallied the second fewest runs in baseball and face increasing competition from the restocked Marlins, rejuvenated Mets and double-barreled Nationals.

You might be bucking against the limited budget, $46.5 million of which will drain into the bank account of B.J. Upton for three years of pre-game batting practice.

It probably does not escape your attention that while you've locked up four of your young studs, your two outfield stallions are knocking on free agency's door. Maybe most importantly, you're moving to a new suburban home in 2017 and would like the team's zenith to coincide with its early years in Marietta.

What do to? Wisely jettison half your home run output for future value. Flip the two outfielders a year from house shopping elsewhere, along with your slugging semi-catcher whose value has roughly a three-year expiration date.

All that, new GM John Hart has done. The result, of course is that the Braves will arm wrestle the Phillies for early 2016 draft picks. Beyond that, the franchise is already deep into divorce proceedings with downtown Atlanta even though they remain legally betrothed.

So Hart is attempting to smear some proverbial lipstick on the proverbial pig, promising the metro that their team will compete in 2015. Management is committed to winning this season, we're doing everything to field a competitive team, we're not sacrificing the present for the future, the check's in the mail and we'll respect you in the morning.

If he were made of wood we could watch his nose grow.

Hart is doing exactly what he should with the roster, focusing on exactly the right page of the calendar for the franchise. He was an innovator as GM in Cleveland and he hasn't forgotten how to ply his trade. He's spewing the cliches he feels are necessary to keep season ticket sales stoked.

But it won't take long for Atlanta fans to smell the body odor from this lineup. When new import Nick Markakis, averaging 16 homers a year, is your number two long ball threat, well, B.J. Upton might get some playing time after all.

Hart is full of it, it being something other than short-term answers. If the trades were deft and the returns as useful as they appear, it should be a short reload in northern Georgia.

Just not in Atlanta.