2019/2020 Pick 5 Results

Alright. I give up. I had been waiting in the hopes that somebody would sign so one of our contestants would score a point, but it’s become clear that the universe is against us this year. Whether it’s a lack of ownership desire to spend money, or a coronavirus, or some other absurd problem propping up, it is clear the writing is on the wall. Free agency, trades, etc: everything is in a standstill. And we’re not going to wait until May, June, July, or whatever other month it ends up being when baseball resumes to crown a winner.

Back in November (yes, it was only five months ago), I asked you all to choose five players you thought the Red Sox would bring in to the fold. The results were not great. A reminder: to win the game, you had to pick players who would join the Red Sox organization, whether it be by trade, free agency signing, or any other method that ended with the Red Sox rostering a player who was not on the team after free agency began. More detailed explanation in the main post here.

Below is every participant with their choices. I have bolded the correct answers and crossed out the wrong ones. I have also included the Mookie Betts tiebreaker, because that’s important if it comes to it. I have also put all your choices into alphabetical order for convenience sake so I can tell if anybody had the exact same combination.

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#SB7 - Chad Bettis, Starlin Castro, Xavier Cedeno, Brock Holt, Jason Kipnis. (Mookie traded to White Sox)

Avenidasox - Shin-Soo Choo, Corey Dickerson, Howie Kendrick, Jason Kipnis, Martin Maldonado. (Mookie not traded)

jaaaaasper - Greg Holland, Brock Holt, Shelby Miller, Rick Porcello, Trevor Rosenthal. (Mookie not traded)

Phantom255x - Corey Dickerson, Brock Holt, Howie Kendrick, Martin Maldonado, Rick Porcello. (Mookie not traded)

Bosoxsince89 - Homer Bailey, Shin-Soo Choo, Brock Holt, Devin Mesoraco, Julio Teheran. (Mookie traded to Braves)

dsharp - Dellin Betances, Brock Holt, Howie Kendrick, Rick Porcello, Zack Wheeler. (Mookie not traded)

AlohaSox - Shin-Soo Choo, Gerrit Cole, Scooter Gennett, Brock Holt, Dallas Keuchel. (Mookie not traded)

Shane Andrarowski - Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech, Dustin May, Joc Pederson, Luis Robert. (Mookie traded to White Sox)

Chris Sanford - Dellin Betances, Greg Holland, Brock Holt, Howie Kendrick. (Mookie to Padres)

A Random Human - Dellin Betances, Brock Holt, Collin McHugh, Tanner Roark, Justin Smoak. (Mookie not traded)

J. Elam_RSF - Jose Abreu, Madison Bumgarner, Brock Holt, Jake Odorizzi, Will Smith.

Fromalabama - Brian Dozier, Brock Holt, Rick Porcello, Austin Romine, Stephen Strasburg (Mookie not traded)

BenTheCoug - Nicholas Castellanos, Will Harris, Chris Martin, Ivan Nova, Zack Wheeler (Mookie not traded)

Horace Fury - Corey Dickerson, Tyler Flowers, Avisail Garcia, Pablo Lopez, Touki Toussaint. (Mookie not traded)

kstrack4 - Mike Foltynewicz, Avisail Garcia, Brock Holt, Drew Waters, Zach Wheeler. (Mookie traded to the Braves)

South Coast Ghost - Dellin Betances, Kyle Gibson, Adam Haseley, Jose Martinez, Brad Miller (Mookie not traded)

Umpire Strikes Back - Corey Dickerson, Edwin Encarnacion, Brock Holt, Howie Kendrick, Martin Maldonado (Mookie not traded)

Good_Better_Betts - Steve Cishek, Brock Holt, Jonathan Lucroy, Ivan Nova, Gerardo Parra. (Mookie not traded)

whitevi75 - Daniel Hudson, Jake Odorizzi, Danny Salazar, Eric Sogard, Adam Warren (Mookie traded to Dodgers)

Sadly Cynical - Cole Hamels, Brock Holt, Marcell Ozuna, Rick Porcello, Will Smith. (Mookie traded somewhere!)

Scarecrow13 - Wilmer Flores, Collin McHugh, Tanner Roark, Austin Romine, Johnathan Villar. (Mookie not traded)

Izzydropkick - Xavier Edwards, Jedd Gyorko, Jason Kipnis, Hunter Renfroe, Matt Strahm. (Mookie not traded)

JD Biagioni - Brock Holt, Reynaldo Lopez, Nick Madrigal, Drew Pomeranz, Michael Wacha. (Mookie not traded)

ASDK - Brock Holt, Marcell Ozuna, Drew Pomeranz, Tanner Roark, Eric Sogard (Mookie traded to Braves)

speeddemond - Kole Calhoun, Robbie Erlin, Jeremy Jeffress, Justin Smoak, Michael Wacha (Mookie traded to Twins)

alfredo - Manuel Margot, Wil Myers, Sergio Romo, Eric Sogard, Pedro Strop. (Mookie traded to the Padres)

Jake Kostik - Scooter Gennett, Brock Holt, Drew Pomeranz, Will Smith, Yoshitomo Tsutsugo. (Mookie traded to the Braves)

So here we are. As long as I didn’t make any mistakes above (and it’s possible I did! Correct me if you find a mistake), the final results are as follows

1 - Scarecrow13, Good_Better_Betts, A Random Human

0 - literally everybody else.

However, I made it very clear that this year, there would be ZERO ties. So only one of the above three can win. A reminder of the tiebreaker rules:

Tiebreaker #1 will go to the Pick 5 with the highest overall 2020 salary of properly chosen players.

Tiebreaker #2 will go to the Pick 5 with the highest overall AAV for a single player to sign with the Red Sox. (example - if the Red Sox sign Gerrit Cole and he gets $28 million per year, he will beat Strasburg who got $27 million or whatever it is below 28 million)

Tiebreaker #3 will go to a fill-in question. You will submit your Pick 5 with the answer to this question. The question is: Will Mookie Betts be traded? If yes, to whom? If you do not answer this question, you will be ineligible for TB#3 and all further tiebreakers.

Tiebreaker #4 will go to the Pick 5 that has the lowest salaried player chosen (the inverse of Tiebreaker #2. Yes, you can theoretically have both).

Tiebreaker #5 will go to the Pick 5 that is submitted earliest by time stamp. We are doing this, because we really do not want a tie, and there is more incentive to post later in the cycle to have more information to make your picks. As this is the last tiebreaker, we expect this will not have to be used. It will only be used if we still somehow have a tie after all four other tiebreakers have been used.

So by the first tiebreaker, we can eliminate Good_Better_Betts, who had Lucroy, while the other two had McHugh. Lucroy is here on a minor league deal, and McHugh is making 600,000 dollars this year. It is worth noting that if Lucroy was in the majors (which there was a good shot of!) then he would have made 1,500,000 dollars, which would have Good_Better_Betts as the winner. However, this is an incentive, and not a guaranteed portion of his contract, whereas McHugh is guaranteed to make what his contract dictates. Plus, he has other incentives in his own right.

Some may ask, “Well why not wait until Opening Day to determine a winner then?”

This is a fair question. However, I wrote in the rules: “Deadline for the contest to end will be the first day of Spring Training.” Spring Training came and went. He could not be in the majors without a major league contract. Thus, Lucroy is out.

Both of the remaining players had the same choice, so tiebreaker 2 is a tie. Tiebreaker 3 was the Mookie question. Scarecrow13 said he wouldn’t be traded. So did A Random Human. Still tied. Tiebreaker 4 was lowest salary, and since both had the same player correct, it is still tied.

Thus, as I should have expected, tiebreaker 5 came into play. I even bolded it because it was silly of me to expect anything else.

The winner, because they were the first to post, is A Random Human. Congratulations. Welcome to the Hall of Champions.

Past Winners with links (Can anyone guess 3?)

2020 Pick 5 Winner: A Random Human (1)

2019 Pick 5 Winners: Chris Sanford, crossedsabres8, Dabageldond, Good_Better_Betts, mattowens04, ty42198, and xii_dex (2)

2018 Pick 5 Winners: Chelista625, Bogey2Short, SirBenjaminPK, Ricochet!, crossedsabres8, REDSOXFAN1973, timtime321 (2)

2017 Pick 5 Winners: sguglie2, titio1300, On to Lansdowne Street (1)

2016 Pick 5 Winner: Rick Bentsen (2)

2015 Pick 5 Winner: RogueNine (2)

2014 Pick 5 Winner: .406 (2)

2013 Pick 5: Pick 5 Writer’s Strike

2012 Pick 5 Winner: aubatron2011 (2)

2011 Pick 5 Winner: mg050369 (2)