2014 Player Predictions Mid-Season Update - The Hitters

In 2013 we all made player predictions for our Cleveland Indians, sent them off like a message in a bottle, ne'er to return. This year though, your chickens are coming home to roost. I'm mixing metaphors here, so we better just get to it. Here are updates to the 2014 Player Predictions!

Remember, the winner gets a free LGT t-shirt!

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.

All stats are current through the midway point, 81 games.

Leaderboard

We have an impressive 37 users receiving points among the hitters, but there was truly one user who rose above the rest. tgriffirth1992, you're in the lead with an impressive 72.77 points. That is 7.277 points per player or roughly 8% of all available points. With so many competitors, I was quite surprised to see one user so clearly take a lead. Below is the entire scoreboard, after which we'll break down each player.

Player Breakdown

Carlos Santana

The top 3 performers are: no1ever - 10.10, Matt Y. - 9.67 and tgriffith1992 - 8.50.

If you started off by predicting a down season from Carlos you were able to pick up quite a few points in the later categories, though, we'll see how that holds going forward. LGT as a whole has nailed the HR total to date.

Yan Gomes

The top 3 performers are: mjschaefer - 9, ethorn - 8, NCTRIB - 7.50.

This was a tightly bunched group. LGT did probably it's best job of predicting a player with Yan. Interesting since there was so much discussion before the season as to how he would fair. He has played more than all but 3 users predicted, but has been pretty close to all other predictions.

Nick Swisher

The top 3 performers are: playdoh - 14.50, NCTRIB - 13, talonk - 10.

Ouch. If you predicted Swish to have a down year, you scored big here. I would say that we failed as group to predict this, but Nick deserves all the credit here. And yes, I know the formatting/rounding is messed up. It was quicker to admit the mistake than fix it. Apologies.

Jason Kipnis

The top 3 performers are: mlw831 - 21.5, Alex Trebek - 17.5, tgriffith1992 - 17.

Double ouch. Again, those pessimistic on Kipnis scored big here. With Kipnis turning it around a bit lately, it will be interesting to see how this changes. He has a huge gap to make up - every single user over-estimated every single category for Kipnis. That gives you a glimpse of how the first half went for Kip.

Asdrubal Cabrera

The top 3 performers are: MFG - 10, emd2k3 - 9, tgriffith1992 - 8.38.

You're starting to see how tgriffith1992 has built their lead. LGT did a decent job of predicting Asdrubal's overall results, though, the OBP has dropped off drastically from what was predicted.

Lonnie Chisenhall

The top 3 performers are: YoDaddyWags - 13.14, CTTribe73 - 12.5, Deebo Jones - 10.

YoDaddyWags and CTTribe73 made most of the money from BA, OBP and SLG predictions - where Lonnie really made fools of us, including them. They just happened to be the most optimistic. This ranking probably won't change much. Even if Lonnie falls back to earth he still has a large buffer to work with between him and the highest predictions. He's the anti-Swish/Kipnis!

Michael Brantley

The top 3 performers are: V-Mart Shopper - 13.50, USSChoo - 9.50, NCTRIB - 9.50.

Optimists reign supreme again! This is a lot like Lonnie's - not likely to change much. Brantley has just been that good. He's had 12 HRs to the mid-way point. The highest prediction? 15. Chris Antonetti might just be a genius.

Michael Bourn

The top 3 performers are: pezzicle - 11.50, bschwartz - 9, AmbienTribe - 6.50.

Michael Bourn has had a strange season. We under-predicted his SLG but he's done that without speed and not a large number of HRs. He's getting XBHs without speed translating to SBs. I find that simply odd. Otherwise, we did a very good job of predicting his results. We can all agree we'd still like to see him on base more often.

David Murphy

The top 3 performers are: pezzicle 14.23, tgriffith1992 - 9.5, sorrento to cooperstown - 9.13.

pezzicle made some big movement on both Bourn and Murphy. While Bourn's was against a crowded group, Murphy's was a bit more pessimistic. Old "Magic Hands" should be re-dubbed "Streaky Hands" I think. Interesting note: Murphy's Home OPS is .140 points higher than his Road OPS. Worth noting that B-Ref has Progressive Field as a nearly neutral park this year. Chew on that.

Ryan Raburn

The top 3 performers are: bschwartz - 14.5, rolub - 14.5, CHIEFG - 11.5.

You spell disaster R-A-B-U-R-N. Nobody thought that Raburn would have a failure of a season quite like he's having, but the 3 users listed above were among the most pessimistic. So, congrats?

Conclusions

This has been a bumpy ride of a season. Two hitters wildly above what we thought they'd do and three (four if you count Murphy) hitters wildly below. As streaky as this team has been, I wouldn't be surprised to see a big move on these numbers by the year's end. A few, I'm looking at you Swisher, have a lot of making up to do. Best to start now. Until then, enjoy the lead, Tyler!

Next up, pitchers!