BPP 2012: Some stats

Welcome (back), all! The new postseason "system" is either going to make the pool a white-knuckle rollercoaster, or a total disaster. Or both, if you're the one who picked Kris Medlen. (You're not. I am. And I think I messed up big-time.)

Some interesting stats before play gets underway this evening:

1) Miguel Cabrera repeats as the top hitter pick, with 22 of you selecting him. The most popular team for hitter picks is Washington.

2) Justin Verlander is, unsurprisingly, leading the pitcher picks with 14, but when I counted them up, his margin wasn't as big as I'd expected; NatGio was also a favorite with 12. And the top of the pitcher-pick leaderboard team-wise belongs to...St. Louis? Most of that is O'Reilly Wild, who by the end of today will either look like a goddamn genius, or be sobbing quietly into the non-Busch lager of his choosing.


3) Cincy isn't taking up much space on the picks list, possibly because poolites have gotten burned on them several times before (Votto especially). Atlanta just has the one representative, and see above re: genius/weeping. The last time I was the lone ATL picker, Heyward thanks-for-nothinged my ass and I finished with 49 points. 49! Do you know how many dark stars have to align for a BPP slate to suck that bad?

4) I don't have a prediction for this year's Shane Victorino Memorial Red-Headed Step-pick Award, as Victorino himself is absent from the proceedings. But if it's Jim Thome, we're all screwed six ways from Sunday, because nobody picked the Orioles no-how.

No predictions on the games themselves, either, although Calcaterra's reasoning for picking Atlanta and Texas in their respective match-ups makes good sense to me -- but, as he also points out, it's one game.

The games begin at 5:07 PM ET in Hotlanta, Cards v. Braves on TBS. Baltimore at Texas follows 8:37, also on TBS. Good luck, and I'll see you back here at dinnertime.

...POSTSEASON! Love it.