Can this 1-year-old kid win The Vault?
If a baby can do it, so can you
Think you're a baseball psychic? Think you can know the future with startling clarity? Could you use a cool $1 million in your bank account? Well, then you should make your picks in The Vault. It's MLB's newest contest: Predict which players and teams will lead the Majors in categories like home runs, wins and World Series titles over the next decade, and if you're right, well, buddy, you've got a sweet chunk of cash coming your way.
MLB.com's experts made their picks. MLB players did the same. But predicting things is really hard -- and predicting things 10 years from now? I mean, c'mon. Even a baseball genius would have a tough time seeing that far into the future.
So, rather than rely on a genius, we took a different tack.
First, we used a computer projection system modeled by stats whiz Tom Tango to look into its crystal ball of 1s and 0s. Then we called up Ken Rosenthal -- no, not the famous baseball reporter, but another Ken Rosenthal who lives in Annandale, Va. Then I asked my Mom. And last but not least, I even had the 1-year-old son of a friend of mine (who can already navigate touch-screens at a third-grade level) take a crack at it.
Here's how they did -- we'll compare them all to MLB.com's resident expert, Mike Petriello:
Our computer simulation spat out our individual stats leaders -- which we used to average out who would perform the best and hence win the individual awards -- but it refused to predict team wins and World Series because, well, it's a robot and robots don't always listen.
And if you're wondering how a baby does when making his selections, well, let's just say it took a little while:
The Other Rosenthal's picks were made with a little more intention. A Yankees fan who mostly just checks in to see how the team is doing and if "the Red Sox are doing worse," he decided to call up a baseball fan friend of his for help. He was happy to make some homer-friendly selections -- he predicted the Yankees would win the most World Series titles and Gerrit Cole would win the most Cy Young Awards -- the rest of his picks seem pretty reasonable.
Meanwhile, my mother took a very different approach. A baseball fan insomuch as she raised me and grew up with a Reds-fanatic mother -- though she doesn't pay much attention otherwise -- she went all in on the Reds for the next decade. Given their recent offseason acquisitions, perhaps it's not all that crazy.
And while her other picks (Mookie Betts to win the most MVP Awards, for example) seem to make sense, her methodology wasn't exactly scientific. "His name rhymes with cookie," she explained.
Still, when the next decade is over, perhaps she, or a one-year-old child, or even you, dear reader, will do better than every other person out there.
After all, baseball's weird: 24 teams passed on Mike Trout in the Draft, and the Nationals had just a 3 percent chance of reaching the postseason last year before turning around and winning it all, so you've got as good a chance as anybody else. Good luck.