2017 OTM Community Predictions Recap

Remember this? A handful of you posters responded at the beginning of the season, and now’s the time to see just how good your predictions were for 2017.

For this process, I’m going to assign point totals for everything in the base prediction. If you passed over something that I considered important, you will be given a 0% for that particular score. I figure this is fair because I make the rules.

So here’s what will be graded in the recaps:

• Standing Order for division. +1 point for each exact placement (if you had the Red Sox in first, and they finished in first, then you get one point). You will receive a half a point if you were off by one spot, and nothing if you were over one spot off. Maximum of 30 points available here.
• Playoff Teams. You will receive two points for correctly predicting the playoff teams, and thus, the beginning of playoff matchups. If you had the Sox and Astros playing each other in round one, you will receive two points. You will receive one pity point per matchup, if you got one of the teams right. (If you had the Mets facing the Cubs, you will get one point. If you had the Mets facing the Cardinals, you will get no points for that matchup). You will receive one further point for correctly choosing the winner of that matchup. You will receive 5 points if you correctly predicted the Astros win the World Series. Maximum number of points available here is 25 points (I think!)
• I could have counted awards, but frankly, I’m not going to wait for awards to come out. So I’m going to give OOLF points to anyone who chose a player I consider to be close in the discussion for those awards. To be considered close, you must fit the following criteria for each award:

MVP - You must be in the top 5 among position players in fWAR and top 2 in fWAR among pitchers, in your specified league. Mookie Betts, for how much I love him, does not qualify.

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Cy Young - This one is a little more subjective, so I’ll try to be clear here. You must either be in the top 4 in fWAR by league OR be top 3 in ERA among qualifying players in your league OR attained 200+ IP, whilst also having a K/9 rate within the top 5 among qualified players in your league. I believe this is fair.

Rookie of the Year - Must be Aaron Judge in the AL (there’s no contention, sorry), or Cody Bellinger in the NL (there’s more contention here, but come on, no one is really in the same league, and it would be complete crap if he didn’t win it).

For each award you receive right by MY metric, you will receive 5 points in each league, for a maximum of 30 points.

• With 85 points on the table, I’ll give you an extra 15 points, just for having all three things completed, no matter how poorly you did. So no matter what, you will not get a 0, so long as you tried your best.
• Max Score? 100 points, unless I messed up the math, in which case it’s whatever amount of points there is available, because I’m not a mathematician, Jim.

Without further ado...

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On to Lansdowne Street

Division: AL East (1.5), AL Central (2), AL West (1), NL East (1), NL Central (3), NL West (3). Total (11.5)

Playoffs: Indians (1), Astros (1), Red Sox (1), Cubs (1), Dodgers (1), Nationals (1), Dodgers advance to NLCS (1), Dodgers advance to World Series (1). Total (8). Note - The reason OtLS got only one point for each, was because he only predicted half of the matchup, and failed to get them in the right positions.

Awards:

AL MVP - Robinson Cano (0)

NL MVP - Anthony Rizzo (0)

AL CY - Corey Kluber (5)

NL CY - Clayton Kershaw (5) - ERA qualifier

AL ROY - Andrew Benintendi (0)

NL ROY - Dansby Swanson (0)

Total - 10

OVERALL SCORE - 29.5+15 = 44.5/100.

Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

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I’m skipping Painting the Corners, because they took down their post, and that’s not really cool so...

SoxFanInDC

Division: AL East (3), AL Central (2.5), AL West (3), NL East (3), NL Central (3), NL West (2). Total (16.5)

Playoffs: Yankees (1), Red Sox (1), Indians (1), Astros (1), Cubs (1), Nationals (1), Dodgers (1), Yankees move on to ALDS (1), Astros advance to ALCS (1). Total (9)

Awards:

AL MVP - Jose Altuve (5)

NL MVP - Corey Seager (0). Seager was very close, and I was tempted to award partial credit, especially since he’s still a possible choice, but I do not believe he will win. If he does, I’ll add 5 points.

AL CY - Yu Darvish (0). He didn’t end the season in the AL, so it’s almost a certainty he won’t qualify for the AL version of this award, and I’m not going to award partial credit unless he somehow ekes out an upset in the NL.

NL CY - Clayton Kershaw (5)

AL ROY - Andrew Benintendi (0)

NL ROY - Dansby Swanson (0)

Total - 10.

OVERALL SCORE - 35.5+15 = 50.5/100

Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

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Matt Collins (link at top)

Division: AL East (2), AL Central (2.5), AL West (3), NL East (1), NL Central (3), NL West (2.5), Total (14)

Playoffs: He mostly didn’t do this, and he got both wild card teams wrong. I have no way of knowing what team he thought would be best in each league, so I can only assign one point for each of the division winners (6), and then points to the Dodgers for advancing to the NLCS and World Series (2). Total (8)

Awards:

AL MVP - Mike Trout (5)

NL MVP - Bryce Harper (0)

AL CY - Yu Darvish (0)

NL CY - Clayton Kershaw (5)

AL ROY - Andrew Benintendi (0)

NL ROY - Dansby Swanson (0)

Total - 10

TOTAL SCORE - 32+15 = 47/100. I’ll give Matt the 15 points because while he didn’t fill out his playoff bracket completely, he did include enough for me to at least give him some credit. Also he kind of runs this site, so participating at all in this exercise was huge. I don’t think OtLS will mind too much that this bumps Matt slightly ahead of him.

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My Predictions

Division: AL East (3), AL Central (2.5), AL West (2.5), NL East (1), NL Central (3), NL West (2.5). Total (14.5)

Playoffs: Yankees (1), Red Sox (1), Indians (1), Astros (1), Nationals (1), Cubs (1), Dodgers (1), Cubs advance to NLCS (1). Total (8)

Awards: I didn’t do any of these myself, because the piece was getting too long, but I assure you, I would not have gotten many right. I won’t count them, since they weren’t listed, but I vaguely remember my preseason predictions being Mookie Betts/Chris Sale/Andrew Benintendi because I’m a massive homer, and then Harper/Scherzer/Swanson, because I’m an idiot and also because I always look for a reason to not say Kershaw, even though he’s always the best. If you were to count my results, you’d only give me 10 points, like everyone else.

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

OVERALL SCORE - 22.5. I’m not going to give myself the 10 awards points (since I didn’t post them in my original post, and it would be cheap of me to do so), nor am I going to give myself 15 bonus points, even though that wouldn’t help anyways. My score “could” have been 47.5, but it isn’t.

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So congrats to SoxFanInDC, literally the only person who got in before the deadline who actually got at least a 50%. On a curve, you all passed except for me, I think.