Starting to think over predictions for the upcoming NFL season. Made me look back to see how my baseball predictions have gone – all in all, not too bad. (Since there’s still some season left, I’m not penalizing for teams who are out of projected position by less than two games, as there’s plenty of time to make up the difference.)

NL West – only difference is that I had the Rox third and Dodgers fourth – a reverse of what happened.

NL Central – the top three teams are all within two games of each other, the others are in line (though the Pirates fire sale may push them down in the standings by the end of the year).

NL East – I had the Fish fourth, rather than second, but they’re in a cluster of teams within two games of each other. The others are in order.

AL West – The A’s did much better, and the Angels much worse, than I had expected.

AL Central – I had the Royals at the bottom – they’re in second, but falling. The Twins and White Sox are within two games of each other. I had the Twins first and still think that’s reasonable.

AL East – I flipped the bottom two teams.

Three of my projected division leaders (SF, Atlanta and the Yanks) have commanding leads. One (Seattle) is tied for the lead in its division. The Twins and Cardinals are in tight races. One of my two wildcard projections (Philadelphia) is in the thick of the race. The Angels are the only team I had projected for the playoffs that is pretty much out of the race already.

Of course baseball’s much easier to predict than football. Part of that has to do with the length of season. One upset in baseball is about .617% of the season’s results. One upset in football is 6.25% of the season’s results. With that caveat, watch this space for NFL predictions. (Or don’t. Suit yourself.)