WINNER of First Annual MLB Prediction Contest is....

Back in March I launched a contest to predict the top performing teams and players for the 2012 season, and as I said way back then, now we know who was a PROGNOSTICATOR and who was a FOOL~!  Your winner is......

CHUNTER of Chipp 'n' Dale and Things Done to Cards fame, come on down~!

1. Chunter - 99 points
2. Steve D. - 89 points
3. Play at the Plate - 82 points (PATP won the mid-season prize)
4. Kyle4KC - 81 points
5. The Lost Collector - 76 points
6. Milwaukee Southpaw - 76 points
7. Greg Zakwin - 74 points
8. AdamE - 51 points
9. The Angels in Order - 41 points
10. JoJoBoom - 35 points
(You can click the contest link on the right-hand side of the blog page to see what the predictions were)

What makes Chunter's win even more impressive is that he didn't take advantage of the "change one pick at the All-Star Break" rule, and he still beat the rest of us.

As expected, most of us fared much better trying to predict which teams would win their divisions or the wild card than in trying to pick who would win the stat categories, but that's where Chunter separated himself from the pack.  SEVEN of his 10 player picks finished in the top 10 of their category; only two other players (SteveD and Play at the Plate) got six.  The real clincher was that he nailed both the ERA and Strikeout leader (Kershaw and Verlander), getting the full 10 points for each.

No one managed to get all 5 playoff teams from either league, but The Lost Collector came the closest - in the National League he got two of the division winners (after switching from Philly to Washington at midseason) and nailed both wild cards, but his pick of Milwaukee to win the NL Central was (regrettably) not correct.  In the American League no one got more than 3 of the teams correct.  There were a lot of Boston, Anaheim and Tampa Bay picks, and of course NO ONE took Baltimore.

The stat categories were a very mixed bag.  Surprisingly, only ONE person managed to pick a player that finished in the top 10 for home runs (The Angels in Order, G. Stanton).  Only two people scored points in the Holds category.  On the flipside, 7 out of 10 scored in Strikeouts, and 8 out of 10 got points in Stolen Bases.

So Chunter, it looks like you collect Chipper Jones and the Braves in general.  Lucky for you Chipper is one of the players I keep a small player collection of.  :)  E-mail me and let me know if you have any other collecting interests that I might be able to include in your prize package, and don't forget to give me your address!

Thanks for playing everyone!  Hopefully we can get even more people involved next season~!