After 19 games, Michael Bourn has 11 steals, meaning he is on pace to steal 94 bases. Not bad, although not overly comforting considering Bourn's meager. 211 average. If he doesn't get his average up in the .240-.250 range, there will be no shot of him seeing enough ABs to make a serious run at 100 steals.

A few quick notes:

- Vince Coleman, the last guy to steal 100 bases, had 16 steals after 19 games in 1987. That put him on pace for 136, and he eventually wound up with 109.

- While Bourn has been disappointing at the plate thus far, resident bold predictor Tim Ott has been a bigger disappointment. His initial prediction that Brandon Lyon would save 50 games was a disaster, so we let him switch. Ott then forecasted that Kosuke Fukudome would win the MVP, a prediction that isn't fun to follow on a daily basis. So Alex, Dean and I decided to allow Ott to make a second switch and revert back to his initial backup prediction that Ryan Howard would strike out 240 times this season.

How exactly did Ryan Braun establish himself as the greatest hitter ever in such a short period of time?

MLB.com's resident seer and same-name theorist, Dave Feldman, got to the bottom of Braun's Brauniness and unlocked the origin of Braundom in a very Braunian edition of Unusual Suspects last September 5.

According to Feldman, "On May 26, a single day after Ryan Braun the hitter made his debut, Ryan Braun the pitcher imploded by allowing five earned runs in two short innings as his ERA skyrocketed to 7.94 in what was easily his worst outing of the season. In fact, during the Braunian Era, the Royals reliever's ERA sits at a paltry 7.15, compared to the 4.82 mark he posted before his hot-shot namesake got the call."

True to the prophecy, things continued to spiral out of control for Ryan Braun the pitcher, whose After Braun earned run average (ABERA) climbed to 7.20 by the end of 2007. Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, he was optioned to Triple-A during Spring Training and may never see a big league mound again.

Which, as the theory goes, virtually guarantees the continued ascent of Ryan Braun the hitter.

Braunspeed,

Dean

Michael Bourn, the fastest man on turf (that would have been a great nickname if the Astros still played in the Astrodome, but unfortunately it doesn't really work), swiped two more bases tonight, giving him six in eight games. While he has a long way to go to achieve Mickey Rivers and Vince Coleman status on my all-time basestealers list, the first week of the season has been an impressive one for Bourn. 

In the eighth inning of tonight's game vs. St Louis, Bourn got such an amazing jump, that by the time Yadier Molina stood up to throw to second base, Bourn was already sliding in safe. Might have been the easiest steal of second ever.

Looks like Dean (Ryan Braun - 2 HR in 6 games) and Alex (Conor Jackson - .385) are keeping pace, while Tim's Brandon Lyon prediction might rank right up there with when my dad predicted in the NY Post that Michael Spinks would beat Mike Tyson in one round.

Bourn is looking great on the bases, and if he can just keep his average above .250 and remain in the leadoff spot the entire season, 100 SBs should be a lock (just jinxed his career with that ridiculous statement).

After Sunday's Braunian three-hit effort, Braun carries a two-game home run streak and a 54-homer pace into Tuesday's series opener vs. the Reds at Miller Park.

As if he needed any extra motivation to lay the Braun down on NL pitching, Braun has allegedly challenged cash-hungry Home Run Beat the Streak players to pick him every day the Brewers play for the rest of the season.

If all goes according to plan, Braun will simultaneously celebrate Tax Day and break the Major League record by homering in his ninth straight game next Tuesday, April 15, in St. Louis. From there, he will shatter the all-time HR BTS mark two days later in the series finale at Busch Stadium.

Braunspeed,

Dean

"I can't say anything bad about the Braun pick. He put up such Braunian numbers and showed such Brauny ability at the plate that I can't help but foresee him reaching even a higher apex of Braundom this year."

       --Dave Feldman, MLB.com's resident soothsayer, diarist, geriatrician, handicapper, sociologist, lawyer, Russian judge and political correspondent, on Chiungos' Braunian selection

No one has swiped 100 bases since Vince Coleman pulled off the feat in 1987 (109 SBs). In fact Coleman and Rickey Henderson are the last two players to even reach the 80 mark, doing so exactly 20 years ago in 1988.

So why am I predicting a fairly unknown outfielder to become only the fifth player in MLB history to steal 100 or more bases in a season? A few reasons:

1) I like making insane predictions and always liked speedsters growing up. My first favorite player as a kid was Mickey Rivers, before Coleman became my guy from 1985-1990 and 1994-1995 (I try to block out the three years in between with the Mets).

2) I watched Michael Bourn for the first time last year on Sunday night baseball. The rookie came on to pinch run in the seventh inning and immediately stole second. On the next pitch, despite a bad jump, he was standing at third. Wes Helms then hit a grounder right at a drawn-in Omar Vizquel, yet Bourn somehow still managed to beat the throw home and scored. Might have been the most impressive display of raw speed I have ever seen.

3) Bourn, like Coleman, has little to no power. And while he didn't put up the kind of stolen base numbers that Coleman did in the minors (Vince holds the record with 145 steals at Macon in 1983), he did steal 164 bases in 397 career minor league games. His on-base percentage was a very respectable .377 in the minors, a number higher than Coleman ever posted in 13 big league seasons. In fact, if Coleman could steal 107 bases in a season where he had a .301 OBP, as he did in 1986, why can't Bourn reach the century mark this season, even if he only has a .320-.330 OBP? Doesn't seem completely absurd.

Anyway, I made the prediction on Monday while chatting with Alex, Tim and Dean, and after two days of baseball, Bourn already has three steals and is on pace to finish the season with 243. And while Bourn could become the next Brian Hunter, Quilio Veras, Chuck Carr or Alex Cole, it should be entertaining to watch the speedy Astro on a nightly basis (as I did last night until 1 in the morning despite my wife's protests to shut off MLB.TV on my computer.

-- Gregg Klayman