What's the point of having polls without looking back on them afterward? No real point at all unless you care solely about capturing the mood of the moment. That's a tad useful, but the present is always clouded by prejudices that we have trouble piercing until we have the benefit of hindsight to illuminate how stupid we all were.
I didn't vote in any of these polls. I didn't want to run the risk of tampering any of them. That precaution allows me an opportunity to mock all of you who voted for a response that ended up not happening. Losers.
As the news regarding the extent of Cliff Lee's injury and pending silly suspension (remember that?) surfaced, I tossed out a poll asking how many innings the community thought Lee would end up pitching in 2010. Most people still thought he would have a robust season, but very few predicted Lee surpassing 200 innings. He ended up with 212 on the season. 90% of you were dolts.
A Poll Regarding the Seattle Mariners
On the eve of Opening Day, it seemed appropriate to have a poll on the number of wins for the Mariners in 2010. Wow did you all fail. Of 1,932 votes, just 12 ended up in the correct bin. And you have to wonder how many of those 12 were gag votes or from fans of division rivals. According to this poll, 100% of you have no idea what you're doing.
Stepping away from measurable predictions, I asked midway through April about people's feelings on the Brandon Morrow for Brandon League and Johermyn Chavez trade. I doubt a re-run of this poll today would get anywhere near the same pattern. A majority of people, 65%, identified as liking the trade at that point.
I still think the trade is a roughly fair one. Too many people are simply going to slap the "starter" label on Morrow and then rail against trading a starter with his potential for a reliever and prospect, but I said then and maintain today that the assumption that Morrow is a starter could not be made at the time.
Furthermore, Morrow had been on the block nearly all winter and that was what Z pulled the trigger on. We have a record of him being rather fantastic on trades so I don't see much reason to suspect there was some fabulously better offer out there. Theoretically, 28 other teams had an opportunity to obtain Morrow and none of them blew away Toronto's offer.
The criticism that I can get behind is that perhaps the trade should simply have just not been made at all. Though I can see that if the team was trying to compete in 2010, which they were, a fickle Morrow in the rotation one week and not the next would have presented problems. I think that's what the front office was afraid of.
Regardless, one year is nowhere near enough to post-judge the trade. Chavez had a very good year in 2010, even after adjusting for High Desert, and Brandon League still has the same elite reliever potential if he would just throw his splitter. No, not your fastball. Your splitter. Splitter. Yes, like the fastball but now just move the fingers apart a little. Right. Now throw that. See? Not so hard. Do it again. Again. Again. Keep going, I'll tell you when to stop.
Anyways, one year is too little to judge Morrow on as well. Call it the lesson of Gil Meche if you need, but remember that fragile pitchers, which Morrow is, are a double whammy of injury concern. There's a lot of time left before the book closes on this one.
I didn't say stop, Brandon.