Morning, BPPers! Money just went out to our top three; congrats again to them, and to the Rangers for celebrating this historic moment by planning a Pride Night next season. Just saying!
...Anything's amiss math-wise here, let me know as soon as possible. Otherwise, thanks again for playing, be safe, and I'll see you next year -- same Bunt time, same Bunt channel.
I don't hate this outcome; I like a first-time winner! I like Bochy. I'm glad Travis Jankowski gets a ring; why not. (I hated seeing it all come apart for the Diamondbacks like that at the end, but that's how it goes sometimes.)
The final points of the BPP season:
Seager 2
Semien 5
Carroll 1
And Semien going on an eleventh-hour tear means Joe repeats as pool champ:
129 YOLO Joe
120 Wonsetler
109 Fell
Congrats to all our top finishers! Joe walks off with $231, Wonsetler $66, and Fell $33.
I'll send payouts tomorrow morning when I'm not dead on my feet; gives everyone time to check my math one last time. Until then, the full final standings:
Thanks to either a surge of post-Scherzer/Garcia-news adrenaline; Snakes pitchers just being worn out; or both, Texas jumped all over Arizona early. Bochy made some weird choices with the pen and kiiiind of cracked the door for Arizona, but they couldn't come all the way back.
Not the case in the pool! At last, Semien outdid Seager in points (barely; and Seager is now tied for the pool's overall points lead). That means we have a new leader and that Zombie Crase got chased out of the money. Sorry, friend; I thought you had a shot at a payout here.
Here's what we've got after Game 4:
122 YOLO Joe
118 Wonsetler
102 Fell
100 Crase
86 SDB
63 Bingham
58 MArbour
53 Cayenne
38 Tormey
That's probably that as far as the money finishers; Fell could move up if the series goes a full seven -- but I don't think it's going to. I think I'm probably paying people tomorrow morning. There's all sorts of clichés that fly around the various booths at this time of year about how long the season is, it comes down to who's less banged up/gets hot in October, the postseason works differently...all in varying proportions of truth to "gassing on to fill airtime," but time itself doesn't work differently, and the postseason started, functionally, a month ago. That's a long time for an 84-win team with that many young players to not just get hot, but either stay hot or figure out how to grind it out. The Rangers to me seem better built to hang in and make something happen.
I've made predictions like this before -- I said something similar in 2015 when the Mets got out over the canyon and looked down; it happens, kind of a lot -- but I've been wrong before too (also kind of a lot). Eovaldi and Gallen face off tonight at 8:03 ET, and in theory, that's a hard one to call. But in practice, the Diamondbacks look nearly cooked, and I will call it for the Rangers.
We'll see either way, as we always do. Good luck to all and I'll see you back here after Game 5!
Probably some jokes to be made, here on Halloween morning, about how scaaaary the outlook is for the Rangers after Scherzer and Garcia both went down last night -- Garcia looked in especially bad shape -- but I'll spare you. The Ranger bullpen held the line and let Texas go up 2-1.
Seager homered again, while Semien keeps chipping away, one point at a time:
Seager 4
Semien 1
Carroll 0
No substantive changes for us as a result (the WS may have to go all seven for Crase to get knocked out of the money).
112 Wonsetler
109 YOLO Joe
100 Crase
89 Fell
80 SDB
56 Bingham
52 MArbour
47 Cayenne
37 Tormey
Game 4 is, of course, on FOX at 8:03 PM ET. As my esteemed colleague Craig Calcaterra noted, with projected starters Heaney and Mantiply, don't expect a pitchers' duel -- and honestly, around here we don't want those anyway, but we'll see how it turns out. Good luck, all!
Only had half an eye on this one -- the other half of that eye was watching news of Matthew Perry's untimely passing cross Bluesky; a full eye was absorbed with a Wharton novel (I contain multitudes) -- but authoritative pitching and offense from the Snakes evened up the Series at one apiece.
Not a ton of points to go around, because the only thing anyone picked Pham to do was shoot his mouth off, which he's also still doing for some reason? No money in that for us, alas, but a few points on the board, as follows:
Carroll 2
Seager 0
Semien 1
Seager's whole feast-or-famine thing is at least going to keep things interesting here in homestretch...
108 Wonsetler
104 YOLO Joe
100 Crase
84 Fell
76 SDB
55 Bingham
48 MArbour
43 Cayenne
37 Tormey
Today's a travel/get-out-of-the-NFL's-way day, with play resuming at 8 ET on Monday in the desert. Anything looks funky with my math, let me know, and I'll see you Mischief Night!
...okay so maybe this World Series IS going to be kind of plot-heavy!
I was listening to the (not quite!) end of the game while getting ready for bed; I'm not a big "they're due" guy, but it did seem like the Texas radio booth's murmuring about Paul Sewald's to-date postseason invincibility was going to bring, or break, some kind of malocch'. Whatever the case, a Seager homer tied it; I fell asleep (soothed, I won't lie, by the reminder that the dumb Manfred-Man baserunner doesn't apply in the post) and was awakened by the ballpark hollering that greeted another Garcia homer in the 11th.
Points!
Carroll 3
Seager 4
Semien 1
(Side note: Garcia now has as many TB since the LCS began as Seager has total: 31.)
With that, Zombie Crase slides into third, but still has a healthy lead over the next closest aspirant to the money:
108 Wonsetler
103 YOLO Joe
100 Crase
83 Fell
76 SDB
54 Bingham
48 MArbour
43 Cayenne
35 Tormey
We go again at 8:03 ET; the baseball commentariat I follow has this outcome at Rangers in 6, but it may not get that far. We'll find out...good luck, everyone.
...My god, that was grim. Maybe more so because the pool is now a blast radius, but that was really unfun to watch, and I have so little interest in watching a D-backs/Rangers Series, too. I know it's uncool to bag on other people's teams -- I, a voting adult who still follows the goddamned Mets, understand this well, and 95% of the time I'm happy to watch any baseball, even garbage-time teams I don't follow. But for some reason this World Series is not compelling to me at all.
I might feel different by Friday. As for what the F happened to Philadelphia, well, what I don't know is a lot, but if I had to guess, that Kimbrel/bullpen trash fire the other night put a lot of mental pressure on the hitters, some of whom had started to cool down a bit anyway, to really mash and give the pen huge leads to work with; it didn't really work, and Arizona was able to play better enough. That's how it goes sometimes.
And this is how it goes sometimes with the BPP. Sometimes it's just a handful of people zombie-ing to the finish line. One year, back in the aughts, it was one person.
Let's wrap up the points and see who's left.
Carroll 3
Castellanos 0
Harper 0
Schwarber 2
Stott 2
Turner 0
The italics mean those picks are out. LVP here is pretty clearly Castellanos, who had not notched a base in over a week. MVP is Schwarber, with Ketel Marte making his case for the Victorino in 2023.
...If you've read this far, thank you/sorry and here's the money after the LCSes.
104 Wonsetler
100 Crase
98 YOLO Joe
78 SDB 2 and Fell
72 SDB 1
69 (not so nice) Yuhan
52 Bingham
44 MArbour 1
39 Cayenne 2 and LyonCorn
32 MArbour 2 and Tormey
25 O'Reilly
As noted, not a great outcome for the pool in terms of keeping things interesting, but hey, all Carroll needs to do is hit [checks calculator] 13 home runs and Tormey's RIGHT back in this thing!
...Okay, seriously: if your name is in italics and you aren't in the money as of this writing, your slate is toast, and you won't appear in future updates. I'm sorry about that; thanks for playing, step into the comments anytime, and better luck in 2024!
The standings as currently constituted probably won't change a TON, whatever happens, but we'll let it play out.
(FWIW, I did start a "ghost" spreadsheet and randomly assigned everyone another pick before this series; I'll try to do it again before the Classic and see how that affects things, maybe write up a little report on the off day.)
Again, my condolences to the Phillies-heavy slates. Check my math, thanks for playing, and I'll see you back here at week's end!
