Everyone's paid (except Juan Soto)

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. 

TEX 5, ARI 0; Rangers are World Champs

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:

A bit ironic that, last year, the last round was kind of subdued because nobody picked the Phillies...and this year it was kind of subdued because so many did. Still, a pretty wild and fun pool year overall. Our MVP is Corey Seager, passing Alvarez on the last day of play for 44 TB at the end of the post. (MLB.com has him at 45. I'm sure that's correct, but it doesn't really affect anything, so: stet. But as I said, if you see any other errors, lmk.)

LVP, wellllllll: Mookie Betts. He's not the only pick who hung a collar this year, but he's the only one who did that and decided to defend Trevor Bauer the other day. No thanks.

With a little more time, Ketel Marte might have locked up the Flyin' Hawaiian Memorial Award for the most valuable un-picked player, but this year, it's indisputably Adolis Garcia. Hat tips to Marte and Josh Jung, though.

And to all of you! Thank you so much for playing, commenting, and making this fun, this year and every year. Hope I'll see you (and anyone you drag into this annual lunacy!) again in 2024.

xo

SDB

TEX 11, ARI 7

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!