Congratulations to Scott Lucas who emerged the victor in the 2003 Batter's Box Predictions Contest.
There were 39 entries in the challenge issued in the March 25 post Throwing Down the Gauntlet.
You can see the full results in this Excel spreadsheet -- there are three pages to it, one called "Results" in which we learn, well, the results of the challenge; one called "Standings" in which we see everyone's predictions for the division winners, playoffs and World Series; and one called "Awards" which, hard as it may be to believe, outlines everyone's predictions for the major post-season award winners. Note: except for the "Results" document, the entries are listed in order of when posted.
Just a few observations ...
The Box really knows its American League teams, anyway, as the consensus pick for all three divisions actually won the division -- Oakland drew 31 of 39 picks in the West, while Minnesota grabbed 23 in the Central and New York 27 in the East. Boxers also nailed at least a plurality in the AL Wild Card, as the most common selection, with 16, was Boston.
The National League was a slightly different story, though the Box choice for the West was San Francisco with 27 of 39 picks, while eventual East winner Atlanta managed a tie with Philadelphia with 17 picks each. Over in the Central, a majority (20) of Boxers selected St. Louis, while 15 tabbed Houston and just three -- including your humble scribe, ahem -- nailed the Cubbies as eventual winners.
The NL Wild Card drew nine different teams as predicted winners, with Arizona (14) leading the pack while eventual World Champ Florida was selected by ... ah ... erm ... exactly nobody. The Arizona total of 14 comes with a Marisian asterisk as pistol managed to select the D-Backs to win both the West and the Wild Card of which, of course, they did neither.
With nobody tabbing Florida to make the playoffs, you can see where scores were pretty screwed at that point. The plurality NL champ was San Francisco (12), while Philadelphia, Houston and Arizona were each selected six times. Over the AL, Oakland (17) and Boston (10) were the favored choices while the Yankees were, probably out of sheer spite, named just four times -- the same number of times as the Twins.
Thirteen different teams were picked as the eventual World Series winner, including one vote for an Anaheim repeat and stalwart fans who chose the Dodgers and Mets to win it all.
The Box apparently also knows its MVP votes, as pluralities went to Alex Rodriguez (14) and Barry Bonds (15), the eventual winners. In the NL, Lance Berkman and Vladimir Guerrero didn't really live up to the hype (five votes each) but Albert Pujols stepped up to validate his four mentions. In the AL, Manny Ramirez was a solid second with nine mentions, while Eric Chavez presumably convinced the five people who named him as the future winner never to try that again. Shannon Stewart received no mentions.
Boxers played it safe with the Cy Young voting as Pedro Martinez (22) and Randy Johnson (20) were the pre-season selections. While Eric Gagne received no votes -- in fact, no reliever in either league did -- eventual AL winner Roy Halladay tied with Tim Hudson for second in AL selections with five each. The solid number two selection in the NL was 10-game winner Roy Oswalt, who battled injuries.
The eventual Rookies of the Year in both leagues went completely unrecognized in Box voting as Dontrelle Willis (and Brandon Webb, for that matter) and Angel Berroa received no picks. The leader in the AL was Hideki Matsui with 26, while the NL leader -- ironic given recent conversation -- was Hee Seop Choi with 10. Other prominent mentions went to Mark Teixeira (7) and Travis Hafner (4) in the AL and Marlon Byrd (8) and Brandon Larson (6) in the NL. So, Boxers apparently have a real keen eye for young talent.
As for the actual results, a perfect score of 152 remained just out of reach of most Boxers, as Lucas won going away with a final total of 55. We didn't need to go to the tie-breaker (how many combined games will the Tigers, Orioles, D-Rays and Royals lose in 2003), but for the record the final actual total of 388 was nailed by three people -- Craig B., jacko and Steve Z.
The average entry score was 30.5, so the most average entrants were Gitz (30), Spicol (30), Mike Moffatt (31) and jason (31).
Who's holding up the final standings from the bottom? The Detroit Tigers of the Box, with nine points, is our own Jordan Furlong, who finished one point better than 10-point scorer Kent Williams. Ladies and gentlemen, your Coach and GM.
On the other hand, Robert Dudek (49 and tied for second) and Craig Burley (42) did the ZLC proud -- relatively speaking. The average entry score for the ZLC was 28.4, so Box readers basically beat the living hell out of ZLC predictors, though if we were to randomly remove the two lowest scores from the ZLC, not naming any names, that score would improve to 34.3, not nearly in Scott Lucas country, but a bit more respectable.
Comments? This is a contest which features the New York Mets being chosen as World Series champs, two selections of Pat Burrell as NL MVP and a love-fest for NL Rookies Who Didn't Really Pan Out. Surely there are comments?
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20031127124250999