Here are the results of our March 25 community projections for Eugenio Velez (or, as some of the McCoven fondly refer to him, Speedy McFuckup):

                           AVG   OBP   SLG   HR   3B   AB   SB   CS  

E. Velez 2008:    .262    .299    .382     1      7    275   15     6 

McCoven:          .267    .315    .398      4     8    344    33     8

Only 13 stalwarts were brave enough to record their predictions for all to mock afterwards.  Overall, we did reasonably well.  We clearly thought Eugenio would get more at-bats, which partially explains our higher expectations for SB, CS, & HR.

AVG: Evan had the lowest guess of .247; foothillsfan guessed a high of .285 (note: if you just average their guesses, you get .266 - only .001 off Velez's actual stat).  We had three winners in this category, each missing only by .002: xanthan & jasomack with .260, and WilliamVanLandingham with .264.

OBP: Getting on base would seem to be the foundation of Velez's worth to the team.  Jasomack was exactly correct with his McCoven-low guess of .299, Eugenio's actual result.  Animal Mother came in second with .302.  foothillsfan was the most optimistic, predicting .350.

SLG: We expected more from Velez - guesses ranged from a low of .327 (rock n jock) to a high of .450 (foothillfans).  Most accurate was jasomack, who was right on with .382. Animal Mother came in second at 3.75, and xanthan was third with .390.

HR: No one guessed as low as Velez actual result of one HR.  Lowest guesses, and our tied winners, were Lyle and xanthan with predictions of 2.  WilliamVanL, rock n jock, and foothillsfan guessed 3.  Most optimistic were tedfordfan, joebirdie3, and jasomack with predictions of 7 each.

3B: Velez spending half his games in spacious Mays Field should equate to lots of triples, right?  Our guess of 8 was only one over Velez's actual total of 7.  Perfect guesses were recorded by xanthan and foothillsfan. Grant was just behind with a 6, and Evan guessed 8.

AB: I thought the biggest question going into the season was just how many at-bats Eugenio would get on this team.  Lowest prediction here was 263 (rock n jock), and highest was Baron's 403.  Our winner was the 280 guessed by foothillsfan. Second place was 263 by rock n jock.

SB: Having speed is one thing, but actually stealing bases is something else. We way over-estimated Velez's success here; the lowest guess, and therefore our winner, was 23 by some guy named Grant. Lyle and Animal Mother tied for second with 25 each.  Highest guess was 47 by both tedfordfan and BaronVCE.

CS: Strangely, we came pretty close on this one. No one guessed 6 exactly. Our winners were Lyle, xanthan, and Dan from NM with 5, and joebirdie with 7.  Just behind were Grant, WilliamVanLandingham, and Animal Mother with 8.

Overall, it looks like xanthan was the best prognosticator, winning four of the eight categories (AVG, HR, 3B, CS).  Special kudos to jasomack, who was exactly correct on OBP and SLG, and tied for closest AVG.  Congratulations!