Let's Go Tribe's preseason prediction contest final standings (hitters)

I'm gonna skip the ham-fisted metaphors and jump right in to see who won a free LGT t-shirt!

If you'd like to look back at the mid-season update, you can find it here.

Scoring

Every player is worth 90 total points with each category being worth 15 points. The top 5 closest predictions are awarded points, 1st - 5 points, 2nd - 4 points, 3rd - 3 points, 4th - 2 points, 5th - 1 point. Ties share points. For instance if two entries are tied for first, they each get 4.5 point, splitting up the total points from 1st and 2nd place. This, to a small degree, makes a tougher prediction more valuable. Say predicting Michael Brantley's SLG more difficult than Ryan Raburn's SBs. Even though everyone included OBP and SLG for hitters, thereby also predicting OPS, OPS was not used in the scoring as it was sort of double dipping off the components which make it up. It will be included in the breakdowns for display purposes.

Leaderboard

At the midway point, tgriffith1992 had a commanding lead that shrunk considerably, but not enough to unseat the master of all hitting prognosticators! Despite scoring in the top 3 on only 2 players, he was able to rack up a moderate amount of points on every player except Brantley and Cabrera, propelling him to victory. Congrats Tyler!

Player Breakdown

Carlos Santana

The top 3 performers are: tgriffith1992 - 8, ethorn - 8, mlw831 - 7.5

This was a fairly even matched prediction as it went mostly to those who projected him on the low end. Except those steals! Look at those steals!

Yan Gomes

The top 3 performers are: mlw831 - 9, keenej - 8.5, SabosGoggles - 7.5

Yan came through for those who thought highly of him and beat the LGT Consensus in every category except OBP. Hat tip to rolub, SabosGoggles and Alex Trebek for correctly predicting 21 home runs as nobody predicted he'd hit more.

Nick Swisher

The top 3 performers are: playdoh - 20, NCTRIB 11.5, talonk - 9

It looks like playdoh won this category hands down, but the reality is that everybody lost here.

Jason Kipnis

The top 3 performers are: mlw831 - 21, Alex Trebek 19, tgriffith1992 - 16

Another category for those predicting a down year, though nobody saw it come quite like this. Kip couldn't even hit projected marks in steals, largely a product of being on base less I would assume. Hopefully this isn't so grim next year.

Asdrubal Cabrera

The top 3 performers are: michael.coon.5011 - 16, talonk - 12, emd2k3 - 9.5

The numbers here look a little off because of the deadline trade. While his slash lines didn't change much after the trade, Asdrubal went on to best our consensus of PA and SB but still fell short in HR. Even with the trade, the slash lines were still down, so pessimists got the ball in this one.

Lonnie Chisenhall

The top 3 performers are: YoDaddyWags - 15.5, sorrento to cooperstown - 105, CTTribe73 - 9.5

YoDaddyWags is a optimist of the finest ilk. So much so that even he out-predicted Lonnie's season this year. In the end, LGT undershot the numbers but still weren't too far off after Lonnie came back to Earth as the season wound down.

Michael Brantley

The top 3 performers are: V-Mart Shopper - 10.75, USSChoo - 9.5, NCTRIB - 9.5

So, we didn't see Brantley's magical season coming, did we? He outpaced every single person in every category but stolen bases - AmbienTribe had him pegged for 24. What a year!

Michael Bourn

The top 3 performers are: NCTRIB - 15, MTF - 13, SabosGoggles - 12

Pessimists again took control here. Missed time due to injuries and those injuries affecting his speed really kept Bourn down. There were times when it felt like Bourn was better than last year but, in the end, the only thing he did better was hit triples. A down year, again.

David Murphy

The top 3 performers are: sorrento to cooperstown - 11.25, talonk - 9.5, playdoh - 8

LGT was very close on PA and Magic Hands' final batting average, but he was overall much less productive with those plate appearances than we'd hoped.

Ryan Raburn

The top 3 performers are: rolub - 11.5, keenej - 11.5, CHIEFG - 11.5

There isn't much to say here. This was a disaster. The only thing that makes it hurt a little less is that the Raburn came to the plate about half as often and Swisher.

Conclusions

The predictions seem to spell out what we saw from this offense all year long - inconsistency. Not many players were predicted with much accuracy because so many players either broke out or fell on their face. That made for a lot of points going to people predicting on the extremes, but that's how it goes when you play the game.

Congratulations, Tyler! You've scored yourself a free LGT t-shirt. You can swing down by the LGT corporate headquarters during normal business hours to pick it up. (this means email Jason) Be sure to check in with the security guards first!

Results for the pitchers are coming soon!