Back on March 26th, Grant proposed that we try to predict all six division races in baseball.  Forty-eight people made the attempt, possibly our highest response ever.  Grant promised a prize of $20 from Amazon.com, although I'll let our winner take that up with Grant - he claims to be "worth three figures," so good luck collecting.

Grant proposed a five-point system; five points for the right team in the right finish, decreasing by one point for each place you're off.  Slightly complicated, but at least there were no superdelegates to confuse the matter.  So, for example, if you predicted the NLWest exactly right, you'd get 5 points for each position, 25 points total.  So there were a grand total of 150 points up for grabs.  There were two tiebreaker questions: (1) number of Giants wins, and (2) number of Velez starts.

Before I reveal our top scorers, here's a look at some of the interesting results.  We did have a clear winner, so the tiebreakers weren't necessary.  But they were interesting when viewed as separate contests.

Giants wins: Most of us were in the upper 60's and lower 70's, but only two people got the exact total (72) correct: Kernbergmaradona and satyricrash.  Seven folks only missed by one, with Sky Kalkman, Goofus, Natto, Skaldheim, Poe, and oldjacket guessing 71 and mlb22 guessing 73.  Five others predicted 70, and one predicted 74.

Velez starts: Guesses were pretty well all over the board, as you might imagine.  Lowest guess was Skaldheim's 3; highest was 150 by both Kitspool and wilriv.  Poe had the clearest vision here, accurately predicting 50.  Tying for second place were mlb22 at 46 and Sky Kalkman at 54.  Next closest was Mr_M with 63.

Some of the divisions were harder to predict than others, in particular the ALCentral.  Most of us got the last-place finishes of the Pirates and Orioles.  We figured the Cubs and Brewers were the class of the NLCentral (although most had them swapped).  But the Tigers were the near-universal choice for first place; their last-place finish earned most of us only 1 point.  Conversely, the White Sox were picked as high as third by only a few - most of us had them in last or next-to-last place.

In the NLWest, the division we should know best, no one predicted the exact outcome.  Most of us had the Giants in last place; the Padres self-destruction took us by surprise.  And the Diamondbacks were the most-popular choice for first place.  Only eight of us foresaw the Dodgers winning the division: lyricalkiller, Victor Frankenstein, camwoody, Natto, Mr_M, W8ingForATitle, Lyle, and baetown.

Some people did, however, get entire divisions correct: Victor Frankenstein got the ALWest exact.  Plus, he had the most entertaining team names.  (Vic, there were two team in the NLEast I wasn't sure about, so I calculated your results both ways.)  Mr_M got the NLCentral exact (a harder feat with six teams compared to Vic's four) and only missed the Giants/Pads in the NLWest.  And friar got the ALEast perfect, correctly forecasting the Rays' success.

So, without further ado, here are our top scorers:

124 - Natto

120 - Mr_M, W8ingForATitle

119 - Grant, Skaldheim, Lyle, BaronVCE, Vic Frankenstein, Poe

Most exact predictions:

15 - Natto

12 - Mr_M

11 - Victor Frankenstein, jcb9, Cookyman, Scottsdale

10 - lyricalkiller, Kernbergmaradona, Sky Kalkman, Goofus

And special mention to our lowest scorers:

106 - mlb22

107 - oldjacket, satyricrash, NearestNorwich, friar; (satyricrash claimed to have just returned from the future - but apparently not one in this timeline).

108 - i did my job, boonitez

* * * * * CONGRATULATIONS, NATTO! * * * * * * * * *

Since thirteen of us were foolhardy enough to venture guesses on the election, I thought I'd do a recap for those interested (warning: no Trade Matt Cain content).

Here are the numbers so far (MN Senate race will be a run-off, so we won't know those results for at least a couple of months, as I understand it):

Electoral Vote:  364 - 174 (based on cnn website).  I'm giving Missouri to McCain and N. Carolina to Obama, based on their current leads in those states.  Idaho Nick was our closest guesser at 360-178.  Second closest was jponry with 374-164 - if Missouri were to go to Obama, she'd only be off by only one.

Popular Vote: 120,500,791.  Most of us guessed higher, so Speedforthewin's 120,000,000 was easily the closest.  Second closest was oldjacket's 130,000,000.  postiveuphemism thought there would be more than 150 million votes.

Popular vote percentage: The latest numbers I have are 53% for Obama and 46% for McCain.  kennv is our winner at 52.5-46.5 - very impressive!  Second place is jponry with 52-46, CB30 and oldjacket with 52-47, and Idaho Nick with 53-47.  nvsfg thought Obama would win 56-44%.  On the other end of the spectrum, I predicted a much narrower 48.8-46.9.  I know nothing.

Senate:  Small problem here, as four races are officially undecided.  The CNN website indicates a 13,000-vote lead for the Democrat in Oregon; a 3,400-vote lead for the Republican in Alaska (newly-minted felon Ted Stevens); a 114,000-vote lead for the Republican Saxby Chambless in Georgia; and a statistical tie in Minnesota.  Georgia state law requires that the winning candidate must have 50% of the vote, minimum, or there must be a runoff - the vote now is precariously close to the magic 50% number, so there may or may not be a runoff.  I'm going to give Oregon to the Democrats, and Alaska and Georgia to the Republicans.  Minnesota will take months to decide, so I'm going to leave them out of the numbers here.  So for our purposes, the result is 56-41-2. So we a tie for winner here, with oldjacket (56-42-2) and Evan (57-41-2) the closest to the result.  Thus, oldjacket is pulling for the Republican in Minnesota, and Evan is pulling for the Democrat, Al Franken. positiveuphemism again had the highest Democratic guess at 60-40.  Neifichicken, on the other hand, predicted the Republicans would have the edge 51-47-2....or was that a typo, Neifi?

House: some races are apparently not yet decided. I didn't delve too deeply into this; CNN is reporting the results as 254-173 with eight races not decided.  I hate uncertainty, so I'll go with MSNBC's numbers (I'm assuming they've predicted the likeliest of outcomes), so let's go with 259-176.  With that, kennv is our closest prognosticator at 257-177. Second place goes to the math-challenged bgunn with a 258-176. Third place goes to the equally math-challenged Lyle at 257-177. Bgunn and I have clearly forgotten that 435 number from our Civics classes.

See, Evan, you did quite well.  As for me, I'll stick to baseball predictions, and guess nothing in 2012.

Last December's free agent signing of Aaron Rowand generated lots of comments by us Giants fans.  I think Ott summed it up best:

So, which Rowand are we getting? The .270/.320/.420 from his worse years, or the .310/.370/.515 from last year? If the former, then yeah, this stinks. If the latter, I don't hate this move.

So let's see how our group wisdom turned out:

                                 AVG     OBP     SLG     HR

Rowand 2008:     .271     .339     .410      13

         McCoven:     .286     .352     .462      18

AVG:  The lowest guess was .263 by koel; the highest was .315 by antinous.  Our winner at .270, the second-lowest guess, was jasomack.   Coming in second at .274 was groug.

OBP: We did better on this prediction.  Ever-optimistic antinous had the highest guess at .380; lowest guess was .330 by jasomack.  Tied as our winners were koel (.338) and Dan from NM (.340).  Jasomack's low guess was good for second place.

SLG: We apparently expected more from Aaron.  Antinous, consistent to a fault, predicted a high of .530;   Natto went with an even .500.  Most pessimistic prediction was .420 by our winner, jasomack.  Second place, with the second-lowest guess, goes to Scottsdale.

HR: Most of us thought AT&T would depress Rowand's HR total.  Even so, antinous thought he'd be good for 25 jacks.  Viva Gigantes thought 24, and even sober-minded Evan guessed 23.  Scottsdale averred only 8 HRs.  Our tied winners, with guesses of 14, were Cookyman and koel.  Just behind was Drysdalecousin with 15, and groug had 16.

Overall, jasomack won two of our four categories, and came in second in another.  And in the fourth category, HR, he would have been listed as tied behind groug.  Honorable mention to koel for winning (in ties) two categories.

I'll close with a quote from the projection thread by kennv:  "Stupid Rowand.  Stupid Sabean. Stupid stupid stupid."

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!

Here's the link to the community projection for RayRay.  As a group, we mostly  underestimated Mr. Durham.  To wit:

                                           AVG.      OBP      SLG       HR       AB

  Ray Durham 2008:     .289       .380       .432         6        370

McCoven prediction:    .266       .335       .407         12       412

AVG:  There wasn't a wide range of expectation;  Evan predicted .298, and ChrisHero predicted .214, but they were our clear outliers.  Our winner is NeifiChicken with .288.  Moggeee came in second with .292, and The Gene Hackman was third with .285.

OBP:  ChrisHero was the pessimist here with a .309; top optimist was moggeee with .372.  Given Ray actually posted a .380, moggeee is our clear winner.  tedfordfan was second closest at .366.  Tobias was third with .363.

SLG: Tobias (.465) and walrusman (.463) were the high guesses.  Lowest guesses were by Lyle(.367), Animal Mother (.368), and groug (.369).  The closest prediction was .425 by allfrank.  Second place ended in a tie between Evan (.444) and scotterduder (.420).  Just behind in fourth place was the optimistic NeifiChicken's .445.

HR:  Our group wisdom foresaw 11.85 HRs from Ray, not the 6 he actually hit.  This can be explained by whatever moggeee was smoking just prior to predicting a McCoven-high 30 homers for Durham.  Lowest guess was 4 by groug.  The winner with an exact prediction of 6 was scottsdale.  stutteringjohntamargo came in tied for second with 5, as did ChrisHero with 7.  Tied for fourth were groug(4) and Animal Mother(8).  Poe predicted 9, and six of us predicted 10.

AB:  We predicted 412 ABs, but Durham only managed 370.  Lowest guess was groug's 318 (seeing a trend here), and highest guess was moggeee's 546(see above).  Poe was our winner with a prediction of 365.  Scotterduder came in second with 400, and imovermyhead was next closest at 338.

The highlights were the comments about how Ray's season would go.  Grant thought no one would want Ray at the trading deadline.  Cynema the Band accurately foresaw that someone would want Ray as a pinch-hitter coming off the bench, but thought Sabean would either hang on to Ray for his "leadership" or trade him for "someone like Livan Hernandez and a PTBNL."  Kitspool jokingly suggested Ray would be traded for Jeff Kent at the deadline.  I thought he'd hit well enough in the first half to be an attractive trade target, but then get injured and end that possibility.  The Gene Hackman accurately predicted "a trade to a contender" and thought Ray would "contribute in a big way" to that contender's playoff run.  WilliamVanLandingham foresaw a brilliant first half, followed by a season-ending hamstring injury, leading Sabean to look at the first half numbers and sign Durham to a 3yr/7million contract.  Scotterduder figured there would eventually be a Durham injury, imagining a 3-way collision with Rowan and Frandsen as a result of too much hustle.

It's hard to choose an overall winner.  I'd lean toward Poe, but I'd like to hear others' opinions.

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Brian's actual 2008 stats:

ERA: 4.62    IP: 62.1    K: 67    BB: 28    HRA: 7    Saves: 41

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Joe Perez, erstwhile reporter for the Norwich Bulletin who covers the Connecticut Defenders, has posted an article decrying the Giants' treatment of the CT organization.  His springboard for wishing the G-men gone is Travis Denker's comments about not enjoying hitting in the cold of Connecticut. He cites the disagreement about who should pay for moving the fences in, and he takes a swipe at left-coast types who coddle crybabies.

I have some responses, but I'd like to know what the rest of you think.

Here is the article.