OBSESSED BALLERS FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE

Now that the 2014 OBFBL and MLB seasons are well behind us, and all the awards have been handed out, let’s see how we all did with our preseason predictions.

The full poll results can be accessed at: https://obfbl.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/obfbl-2014-poll.xlsx OR by clicking “League History”, then “Preseason Poll” in the above menu).

OBFBL PREDICTIONS:

• Four people correctly predicted the Blue Balls to win the Shooter Cup, and the Crackheads to finish in second (Conley, Gunn, Mazgay, Chard)
• For overall standings predictions, Conley came closest with four teams picked in the right slots, and being close on four others
• Half the league correctly predicted the Sex Panthers to finish last, in a rebuilding year for them
• For OBFBL storyline, we’ll give partial credit to the Hamilton breakout prediction by Mazgay, and no credit to Kim’s prediction that the “Brad Miller pick doesn’t look that bad”. Hopefully Fisher’s prediction doesn’t come true

• Four people correctly guessed that the Crackheads would end up with the most pitching rotos, including Conley, Ferreira, Gunn and Main
• Three people corrected guessed that the Blue Balls would end up with the most batting rotos, including Conley, Gunn and Main

MLB PREDICTIONS:

• AL East:  Only one person (Chard) predicted the Orioles to win the division. He also had the highest number of playoff teams predicted correctly at 8 out of 10
• AL Central – Most had the Tigers, Smith did pick the Royals to win it and they had a nice run as a Wildcard winner
• AL West – Three people (Smith, Fisher, Chard) picked the Angels to win
• NL East/Central/West – Nearly everyone correctly picked the Nationals, Cardinals and Dodgers. These three teams were favored to win their divisions and they all did it, which is rare
• AL Wildcards – A few had the Royals making it
• NL Wildcards – A few had Pittsburgh and a couple had the Giants. Conley nailed both NL wildcard teams
• AL / NL Winners and World Series – While several people picked the Giants and Royals to make the playoffs, no one had either team making it all the way to the World Series

NOTE: In the “expert” picks on the right side of the poll spreadsheet, you’ll see that Mike Wilner did pick the Giants to win the World Series

• Prediction for Blue Jays – predictions were all over the map, the Jays’ rollercoaster season was fun at times but ended up in disappointment, again. The 84-78 prediction by Riley for the Jays record was really close (83-79 actual)
• Billy Hamilton SB total: His final total was 56 which ended up being below the predicted average of 57.9, but fairly close to it. As for who was closest, Smith gets that with his pick of 63 SBs
• AL MVP: Trout was the consensus pick (8 out of 11 chose him), and he came through winning it after being runner-up for 2 straight years
• NL MVP: None of the predicted players were in the running for the MVP award, which went to SP Clayton Kershaw
• AL Cy Young: Corey Kluber (picked by no one) surged to the award, edging out King Felix (who was picked by Main, Dickie, and Chard)
• NL Cy Young: Kershaw wins the award unanimously. In our poll he was picked by Smith and Gunn to win it
• Al Rookie of the Year: Jose Abreu dominated the AL this year and won the award unanimously. He was picked by Conley, Mazgay, Dickie and Fisher
• NL Rookie of the Year: No one picked Jacob deGrom, who had a very good but not a standout season, and he beat out Billy Hamilton (picked by Smith, Riley, Mazgay, Main and Chard) for the award. Kolten Wong (picked by Conley, Ferreira, Gunn and Dickie) was third.
• Comeback Players of the Year: No one thought of Chris Young or Casey McGehee who were the winners. Aside from Cueto (picked by Main) who had an outstanding year (but perhaps wasn’t considered for this award), none of the other players predicted were that great and many of them were still busts.

FANTASY PREDICTIONS

AL Breakout Players:

GOOD Picks: Jose Abreu, Yordano Ventura, Kole Calhoun, Sonny Gray, Alex Cobb [all picked by multiple people], Cody Allen (picked by Chard)

BAD Picks: Danny Salazar, Xander Bogaerts, Mike Moustakas, Dan Straily, Ivan Nova, Brad Miller (some picked multiple times as breakouts, see spreadsheet for individual picks)

NL Breakout Players:

GOOD Picks: Christian Yelich (picked by Smith), Marcel Ozuna (picked by Mazgay), Charlie Blackmon (picked by Dickie), Anthony Rendon (nicely picked by Fisher), Billy Hamilton / Alex Wood / Zack Wheeler / Nolan Arenado / Kolten Wong (each picked by multiple people, see spreadsheet for individual picks)

BAD Picks: Tony Cingrani, Chris Owings, Michael Wacha, Archie Bradley (see spreadsheet for individual picks)

AL Fantasy Busts:

GOOD Picks: Wil Myers and Brad Miller (Conley), Dustin Pedroia  and CC Sabathia (Main), Jered Weaver (Mazgay), Alex Rios (Fisher), Prince Fielder / Xander Bogaerts / Josh Hamilton / Brett Lawrie (picked by multiple people, see spreadsheet for individual picks)

BAD Picks: Sonny Gray, Jose Bautista, Adrian Beltre, David Ortiz, Felix Hernandez, Koji Uehara, Doug Fister (see spreadsheet for individual picks)

NL Fantasy Busts:

GOOD Picks: Sergio Romo (Conley), Martin Prado (Mazgay), A.J. Burnett, B.J. Upton and David Wright (Main), Chase Headley (Cheese), Bryce Harper and Everth Cabrera (Dickie), Jean Segura (multiple people)

BAD Picks: Doug Fister, Carlos Gomez, Giancarlo Stanton, Yasiel Puig, Anthony Rizzo, Kenley Jansen, Justin Upton, Huston Street (see spreadsheet for individual picks)

That wraps it up for the poll and results for 2014, I hope you enjoyed the summary report.

We’ll do this all again just prior to the 2015 season!

Thanks,

Sean