BPP 2023: Here we go!

Great day in the morning, we made it to the playoffs! Welcome back to Bunting's Postseason Pool. We've got a couple new faces in the crowd, a bunch of the usual suspects returning, and 33 total slates in play. That's a $330 pot to work with: that's $231 for the first-place slate, with 2nd and 3rd taking home $66 and $33 respectively. 

A nice little payday for a few folks, so that's why it's important to let me know if you see mistakes. It happens; it will happen again; we have two "Diaz, Ya"s in the box scores; if I bonked the data entry or the arithmetic, please let me hear from you! Email (bunting at tomatonation dot com) or in the comments -- which are also available for wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Speaking of the spreadsheet, let's have a look!

Heavy action on the Atlanta ballclub, unsurprisingly, with Acuña and Olson pulling 12 picks each -- but our most-picked hitter is former Barve and current Dodger Freddie Freeman, with 13. His teammate Mookie Betts, his former teammate Ozzie Albies, the Orioles' Henderson, and various and sundry 'Stros all had a respectable number of picks as well. 

And despite the same 7-8 players showing up in various combinations a lot of times? No duplicate slates this year, as far as I can tell.

More numbers/wool-gathering after the jump...

Largest number of picks by team is Baltimore with 5 (a number of other teams had 4). Smallest number: Minnesota, picked by exactly nobody...which could well mean that they end up in the Classic a la the Phillies last year, heh/sigh.

Y'all don't seem super-confident in the Florida teams, which is interesting from a "pool chief psychoanalyzes the picks" standpoint -- the Marlins avoidance I get, because I don't think they have October depth this year either, but when it comes to the Rays, I get the feeling y'all have gotten burned on TB picks in the past and just don't want to go there. Which is practically handing the Shane Victorino Memorial Unpicked Hero Cup to Randy Arozarena again, although MY pick for that dubious distinction this year is Michael Harris II.

I have no prediction for who ends up in the Series, though; the AL side in particular, I just have no idea whose pitching is going to keep it together. I don't want to pick the Astros, but I suspect that's who we see on the American League side. And I think they face the Bravos, but I thought that last year and Atlanta got knocked out in four. 

But that's why they play the games -- and said games start at 3:08 PM ET on ABC, TEX @ TB. More schedule info on MLB.com, which is also where I get my box score/total base counts. Updates here on the blog depend on my schedule info, but you'll see me a couple times a day in the early going.

Questions? Comments? Error reports? See you in the comments (or email me) -- and good luck, everyone!