Baseball fans:
Congratulations to Brian Wells, winner of the 2017 MLB Predictions Pool! In his seventh year of competition, Brian becomes our thirteenth new winner in thirteen years.
• Two unique picks were made this year, both by Bob English: Alex Colomé for AL saves, and Jeff Samardzija in the NL IP category. Bob was also one of only two entrants to choose Charlie Blackmon for NL runs.
• This year is only the second time we've averaged over four correct picks poolwide. We're still a bit short of the 2010 mean score of 5.5...
• For the first time in pool history, each of our ten pitching categories (AL and NL) was correctly predicted by at least one entrant.
• Harvey Hawkins led the pool with 51 HBPs. Harvey attends Central Park East 1 elementary school in East Harlem, and will be rooting for the Yankees in tonight's AL Wild Card game.
• Danton Boller had his strongest finish to date this year, and Garrett Schwab matched his personal best.
Here are the season category leaders, with bold indicating players we actually chose:
AL BA: José Altuve (11)
AL HR: Aaron Judge
AL RBI: Nelson Cruz
AL R: Aaron Judge
AL SB: Whit Merrifield
NL BA: Charlie Blackmon
NL HR: Giancarlo Stanton (2)
NL RBI: Giancarlo Stanton
NL R: Charlie Blackmon (2)
NL SB: Dee Gordon
AL IP: Chris Sale (6)
AL W: Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber (4), Jason Vargas
AL ERA: Corey Kluber (10)
AL SO: Chris Sale (8)
AL S: Alex Colomé (1)
NL IP: Jeff Samardzija (1)
NL W: Clayton Kershaw (6)
NL ERA: Clayton Kershaw (12)
NL SO: Max Scherzer (11)
NL S: Greg Holland, Kenley Jansen (13)
AL HBP: Carlos Gómez
NL HBP: Anthony Rizzo (10)
AL HBP: José Berríos, Mike Fiers, Charlie Morton
NL HBP: Jhoulys Chacín, José Ureña
Thanks to Bob for joining us this year, and congrats to Brian for winning a close race. We sincerely hope you all had as much fun as we did, and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2018!
-Jud and Dan
PS- all major league teams begin the season on March 29th next year, so start cracking the books early!
