A lot of people have written about “Back to the Future II” as a predictive force pointing toward a World Series victory for the Cubs in 2015, but I have an even stronger case for the Cubbies.
At some point last year (I think), Pop Tarts rolled out a line of Major League Baseball-themed packs with a baseball team logo printed on each tart.
I got a few boxes and kept track of what came out of each pack, though I did forget a few. My initial thought was looking at the pairs as potential trade partners, which has happened in at least one case, but I think there’s a different way to look at them.
After seeing the Cubs pop up time after time, it seemed like ranking teams by their Pop Tarts prominence could be a predictor for the 2015 season. Behind the Cubs, there is a decent group with two tarts each:
The back of each box has a list of every team with a little white box and some sort of “Collect them all!” message. Sadly I failed to get a picture of this, but it is funny to think that somewhere in these great United States there is someone who really is collecting Pop Tarts. This is the kind of thing I don’t want to Google. Anyway, I ended up with 22 of the 30 teams.
Beyond the Cubs winning, we can also use this list to predict who will win each of baseball’s six divisions:
I don’t like having the uncertainty of the AL Central and especially the AL West with more than half of its teams listed. The Twins were terrible last year, but more importantly I took a picture of the Royals Pop Tart:
Congrats, Royals!!!
The other division is a little more problematic. It’s historically a bit of a crap shoot, and last season the A’s and Mariners finished second and third. The Rangers were last, but basically their entire team was injured, so they will surely be better in 2015. The Angels won by 10 games and the Astros have tons of young talent, so I thought it only fair to include both of them in my solution:
@cjhannas Hi Chris!
— Houston Astros (@astros) January 9, 2015
Congrats to the Astros! Can baseball start now?