Soothy

It's time for our predictaroo retrospective.  Back in March, a nation looked towards a year of great debate as it set to choosing new leadership while welcoming the dawn of a bright new age of enlightenment and reason.  Instead, the Phillies won the series while a team from the spring training circuit stunned pundits everywhere, and for much of the year, gas cost more than milk, resulting in many people giving up their SUVs in favor of riding cows to work.  Prior to the events that transpired, your intrepid authors donned their fortune teller turbins and peered into the future.  With today's announcement of The Gnat as AL MVP, it's time to take a look back and decide which author was the most accurate.  Or more accurately, least wrong, as we boggle at how ridiculous a lot of those prognostications turned out to be.

Since none of my fellow authors authorized, asked, or really care one hoot about this, I'm going to be completely arbitrary in my scoring and dictatorial in awarding the "Soothy" to the soothiest soother to have soothed a sooth.  And so we begin.

The AL East predictions are the creamed corn.  I don't know what creamed corn has to do with anything.  I just like saying "creamed corn."  Anyway, you get this wrong, you lose.  Everyone got it wrong, so in effect, this contest is already less attractive than a seven-day walkabout in Flint in February.  YF, Nick, SF, and Paul were homers.  John and ag went with Beantown.  +1 point for everyone since all six participants had Boston in the post.  +1 point to YF, Nick, and ag for picking the Rays to finish in front of the Jays.  +1 to ag for being the least wrong in the beast, and therefore, the winner of the coveted RayJay award for being the beast's best handicapper.  Unfortunately, that's all ag will win the rest of the way.

In the AL Central, the Detroit Tigers can go suck eggs.  At least that's what everyone except Paul and Nick (who picked the Tribe) are saying after picking them first.  Paul picked the ChiSox dead last, so it's +2 to Nick, +1 to Paul, and -1 to the rest of the dunces.

Out west, John and ag are wrong and stupid.  -1,000 points each for picking the M's.  -999 points to YF, SF, Paul and Nick for picking them second.  +1 point to Nick for picking Texas ahead of Oaktown.

In the NL, no one really cares.  -20,000 points to ag for picking three teams that finished a combined 48.5 games out of first.  YF was the only one of us to have Philly in the post season: that's worth 18 points.

The playoff picks were a total disaster, so we will give 26 points to John for picking an NL team to win the show.  -12,345 points to SF and ag, who had Detroit, and +.002 points to YF, Paul, and Nick, for keeping hope alive and sticking with their home teams.  Losers.

Individual Award Prognostications

If you made it this far after seeing how wrong we all were in the first section, you must be horribly desperate for decent reading material.  You have my sympathies that you found none here.

AL/NL CY: SF would have been closest on the AL vote (sorry, K-Rod is dq'd) if he had pulled the trigger on DiceK, but he could not or would not, so he loses 10 points for wussing out while John wins this ticket for picking C.C., since if he hadn't been traded to the Brewers I'm guessing he would have given former teammate Cliff Lee a good battle, and CC rated in the senior circuit voting as well.  That's a hearty +49 points for John, who clearly knows his pitching as he also had Brandon Webb for NL, but sandwiched it with John Smoltz so he loses 13.6 points for being a waffler.  Nick begrudgingly gets 4 points for picking K-Rod (who is still dq'd), but my opinion of Nick is now at an all-time low.  Paul loses 6 points for his unwavering loyalty and totally unflattering suck-up to Beckett.  YF, SF, Paul and Nick's NL pick went to Johan, who got hosed in the voting, but he's a Metropolitan so that's minus 13.7 points each.  Minus 42 points to ag, whose horses didn't rate.

AL/NL ROY: Clear win for Nick here, who nailed his picks with Evan Longoria and Geovanny Soto.  +396 points.  SF and John are thankful to not lose any points here since they each got the AL correctly, but no prize for second place.  Minus 500 points to YF for picking a Yankee.  Minus 500 points to Paul for picking a Red Sock.  Minus 1,500 points to ag for also picking a Red Sock.

AL/NL MOY: SF picked Joe Maddon, which was correct, but had the Rays finishing fourth in the East.  What to do?  Let's give him six points, which is more than generous.  YF and Nick both picked Lou for the NL, that's worth 51 points, because he was a Yankee.  ag's picks both got fired.  Minus 823,577 points.  Paul and John are lucky to escape unnoticed with their horrid picks. 

AL/NL MVP:  In the NL, YF played it safe and picked Pujols, which pays, but it is such a low-risk pick it is short odds.  13 points.  SF, Nick and John picked a Metropolitan.  That's -126 points each.  -666 points to SF, Nick and ag for picking Madonna's boyfriend in the AL.  -425 points to Paul and John for picking a Tiger.  YF picked a Red Sock, but the wrong one, for AL MVP.  He gets another 62 points for that, one for each inch of last year's ROY's most valuable frame.

Tallying the scores:

YF: -1,367.698
SF: -14,151.7
Paul: -1,927.998
Nick: -1,348.698 -1,352.698
John: -1,487.600
ag: -859,128.000

There you have it.  Nick wins the 2008 Soothy, and it's water-tight.

Update: an election worker in Ohio screwed up and gave Nick credit for picking K-Rod instead of his actual pick, which was for King Felix.  Nick loses the conjunctive 4 points, but still wins the battle.  And Nick's popularity is still at an all-time low.