2013 Red Sox community projections: The surprising Shane Victorino

The 2013 Red Sox were a pleasant surprise for many fans in Boston, and perhaps no individual player better represented that surprise than Shane Victorino. Once infamously labeled the worst contract of the offseason (sorry, Keith), the $13 million outfielder proved his doubters wrong with a renaissance season in Boston. His offensive numbers were better than they had been in any year outside of his exceptional 2011, and when combined with stellar defense in Fenway's huge right field, it didn't take long for "Shanf," as he is affectionately known around these parts, to become a fan favorite.

This he did despite playing all season as banged up as can be. It was hardly a rare occurrence to see him chase down a difficult fly ball at full gallop before slowly limping back to his spot in right. And that's without mentioning all the times he took one for the team, as it were. He was even forced to abandon switch hitting due to injury--a change which saw him hit .300/.386/.510 against righties from the right side of the plate. Simply put, nothing was going to get in Victorino's way this year.

Unfortunately, we did not universally see this coming:

First, I've got a little bit of explaining to do. You'll notice the lack of plate appearances. That's the result of a snafu with the form that also ate a few early entries without usernames. That's also why you might see some people (such as theartolater) with multiple submissions. So no tarring and feathering for cheating needed. Unless you really want to.

Now, we've certainly got quite a few good guesses on the board, but it's mostly thanks to everyone coming right in around 15 on homers. In the "one perfect, one near miss" category we have the aforementioned Theartolater, Bwatts10, Josh Amaral, Rogue Nine, and diggity823. Then there's redsox15 with the three near misses.

Sorry, folks with the exact numbers, but I'm gonna have to go with redsox15 here. The real summary of these responses is that we undersold Victorino. Sure, our RBI totals trended higher, as did our stolen base figures, but the average guess on the two most important numbers up there in OBP and SLG came in around 15 and 25 points low respectively, which makes coming within two points on those figures more impressive to me. Doesn't hurt being just one off of the homer total, either.

So congratulations, redsox15. As your prize, here's the spite of the five people you were chosen over!

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