So, Brilliant Reader Geoff Silver has bravely decided to have a contest where you predict who will be my 50 greatest baseball players. I will pull out his rules here:
— Everyone starts with 1000 points.
— For each spot in the rankings that a pick is off, you lose one point. E.g., if you have Al Kaline at No. 50, and Joe ranks him No. 42, you would lose eight points for that pick.
— Picking someone who isn’t on Joe’s list is a 25-point deduction
Seems reasonable to me. If you are interested in playing, you can email Geoff here. I’m planning to start the Top 50 on Wednesday so you have a couple of days to get in.
Just remember: Duane Kuiper is No. 11. Or No. 10. It depends on what I do with Raul Ibanez.
Update: I guess I should have mentioned this before — there is one tie in the Top 50. So if you want to guess at that tie … that might be a good tiebreaker. Heh. Tiebreaker. See what I did there?
I just emailed in my picks. Looking forward to the last 50 even more now.
Thanks, Joe…I have a feeling this will boost the number of entries a bit!
All-If you’d like to enter, please email me to request the entry spreadsheet, rather than make your own or (worse) just writing a list in gmail. This will make my life much easier, and prevent errors in the scoring. The entry form has a pull-down menus with pretty much everyone you might want to include, but if I’m missing someone just leave that spot blank and let me know who you want it to be when you submit your entry. Don’t worry, Kuiper was already on there and I’ve just added Ibanez.
We’re over 30 entries now…this should be fun!
you should all look at the “hall of fame selector”, I have included the poz100 ranking as an option,
http://tangotiger.net/hofselector/
So for #50 when Joe selects Duane Kuipper will you announce the BRC (brilliant reader consensus) #50 pick Bobby Gritch at that time?
Can I also make a suggestion that Baseball Reference’s ELO Rater, bWAR, and fWAR lists of top 50 be entered as they stand to see how they compare? Just throwing out there
I think that’s probably something we can each do on our own. I put the bWAR and fWAR into a table anyway, to make my picks.
I understand I can do it on my own, and already have that info in a spreadsheet, but just was hoping the organizer would facilitate the ranking to see where they placed amongst the contestants who enter… i.e. Karyn finishes first, Patrick second, fWAR, John Doe, bWAR, Jane Doe, ELO, etc.
I plan to do this, and will keep you updated.
Patrick, you you have this info in a spreadsheet, just send it to me and I’ll include it. Feel free to add the ESPN top-50 too, if you want. Thanks!
The anticipation is figuratively killing me.
It is literally causing me to check this site more frequently than usual.
Okay…trying to figure out what to do with Joe’s revelation that there will be a tie in the top-50. This obviously gives everyone a 51st player, but I’m not sure what the best way to handle this is. I’ll send out an email to the entire group…if you have any suggestions for the best way to handle this, please let me know.
How about the top fifty with an “alternate”. Everybody sends in one player that they feel like they missed with an approximate number. He will take the place of your worst prediction. For instance if you missed one guy but your alternate was five spots away from his actual slot, you would simply get a -5 rather than the -25 for that one miss. I don’t know…
It’s a fine idea, but I want to keep the scoring as simple as possible. Tricky to automate something like that.
Well, it sure seems like the tie has to be Clemente and Kaline.
Anyway, Geoff, with regards to the scoring … if Joe has someone at 24, and I have them at 50, will I be docked 26 points versus the 25 if I didn’t have them on my list at all? It doesn’t seem overly likely to occur, but it is possible, I think in particular with the Negro Leaguers like Paige, Charleston, etc.
Something to think about.
Yeah, I thought of that, too…I could make the penalty 50 points, but that seems pretty harsh. I’m hoping it won’t really be an issue.
I’ll throw it out to the group when I send out a note in a few minutes…
Geoff, I was just thinking of sending you a newer list that would have 51 names instead of 50. The predicted tie we would not choose from the drop down but would type in. Would that work? Would it help to make the tie entry start with an asterisk?
Thank you Joe for the heads-up.
Gonna be tough to get 30+ people to make the necessary edits to their list before Joe’s next post (tomorrow). I’m thinking we just roll with the original rules for those who submitted prior to this annoncement, and everyone gets hit equally with the 25-point deduction unless they had the foresight to pick a tie. Probably need to set up a different scoring standard for those who submit after the announcement (and knowingly wrote in 51 names).
I just emailed everyone who expressed interest in joining the contest. My email is below. If you think you emailed me about entering, but didn’t get anything from me, please email me again. I don’t want anyone to feel left out!
108 people expressed interest in the contest (this list), and I’ve received 61 entries so far. Thanks to all of you!
With the contest starting tomorrow, I just wanted to send out a quick update and solicit some input from the group. The biggest issue to address is Joe’s revelation that there will be a tie in the top-50. There are several possible ways to deal with this, but I’m inclined to just go with the top-50 lists people have already provided (and for those who haven’t sent theirs yet, just include your top-50. But, I do want to do something, so here’s what I’m thinking: Everyone can send me their tie picks; you’ll get a 25 point bonus for each name you pick correctly, for a maximum of 50 points. This is fairly easy to build into the spreadsheet, and I can just add the tie picks manually. To make things easier, you won’t have to pick players that you have consecutively in your rankings. For example, if you have Kaline #48 and Clemente #40, you can still predict that they’ll tie. One benefit to this is that if you miss on the tie, you won’t be doubly penalized for having moved someone higher or lower than you otherwise would have.
It’s also been pointed out to me that it’s possible for the standard point deduction to be larger than the penalty for missing someone entirely. E.g., if you have Kuiper at #50 and Joe ranks him #4, you’ll be penalized more than if you had left him off the list entirely. This doesn’t seem fair, so I’m ruling that missing someone entirely will result in a 50-point deduction rather than a 25-point deduction.
If anyone has any brilliant reader suggestions for better dealing with the tie issue, I’m certainly open to that. Please let me know, and if we change things up I’ll email the group to let everyone know.
My plan is to send everyone’s picks out shortly after Joe posts #50. Once I do, please take a couple of minutes to find your entry and make sure everything looks right. If you haven’t submitted your picks yet, you can use the attached spreadsheet (please use the drop-down menus), which includes a handful of guys that I missed the first time around.
Thanks, everyone…looking forward to seeing how this turns out!
Btw, I realize the current structure will require that everyone take a 50-point deduction for missing the 51st guy. This sucks, but the only way around it is to have everyone resubmit their ballots, which is a huge headache with 60+ already in.
If anyone can think of an alternative way of dealing with this issue, please let me know.
Thanks!
What if you award points as follows:
1. Everyone starts out with zero.
2. For each name in the contestant’s list that is also in Joe’s list, the contestant gets 50 points minus the difference between Joe’s ranking and the contestant’s. If Joe ranks player A at 20 and the contestant has him at 30 (or 10) that counts as 40 points.
3. For each name in the contestant’s list that is not in Joe’s list, no points are awarded.
With this scoring system, you can limit contestants to 50 players on their lists and it would still be fair.
Geoff,
My thought is to do it exactly as you outlined above. I think trying to implement changes at this point will create more problems than it solves.
Thank you again for organizing, and don’t sweat the small stuff. It’ll be fun and work out fine.
I do not understand the need to make a penalty of 25 or 50 or any extra points for missing the list entirely. I believe it will be entirely legitimate for someone to miss a top 50 guy – and after all we are not really making our own top 50 list, but predicting Joe’s. Will he leave out entirely 19th century players? Satchel Paige could be anywhere from 2-150. Has he drastically shorted catchers? Will he have three or four or five Negro-Leaguers? Anyway I’d rather not load up on any special penalty points anywhere, but at the same time whatever you end up doing will be decided before hand so I expect it to be fair enough regardless.
I sure would like to send in a corrected ballot with 51 names if you can handle that. I do appreciate your leadership on this Geoff; it’s already adding to the fun.
Geoff – in what form do you want our responses? As a spreadsheet or as a PDF?
I’ve created a spreadsheet with pull-down menus for each pick…if you would like one, just shoot me a note and I’ll send it to you. Thanks!
I concur with those who do not think the extra penalty for omitting a player Joe lists is necessary. If I foolishly omit Stan Musial or Ted Williams or whoever, I not only lose the points for missing him but I obviously will have someone on my list who does not belong. Or does the 51st tie-guy thing solve that? Regardless, I’m fairly sure Joe will throw us a curveball or two which will result in nearly all of us missing a player he included.
There is no extra penalty…you will be penalized for selecting a player Joe doesn’t include, not the other way around. If Duane Kuiper does get selected, most of us will lose 50 points because it’ll mean a guy we picked didn’t make it.
Geoff,
Am I correct in assuming your drop down menu does not have anyone Joe had from 51 to 100? The drop down menu does not allow for write-in votes. I noticed Trammell was not included as an option. I was half way thinking Joe might resolve that oversight by making him a tie for #50.
That’s correct. Joe didn’t technically include Trammell in his top-100, but wrote a separate post explaining that this was an oversight. He won’t be in the top-50.
I tried to be comprehensive in my list, but I definitely left a couple of guys out. If someone’s missing and you want me to include them, just let me know.
“You’re welcome, Curt Schilling, Cool Papa Bell, and Ron Santo.” – Joe
please send me a spreadsheet
Thanks for the response. And thanks for putting this contest together. Narrowing down to 50 and trying to read Joe’s mind is not an easy task. Avoiding my own biases (Indians fan = overrating Thome, Ramirez, Feller, etc) is probably the toughest part.
Let’s not over-complicate this. Geoff has gone to considerable trouble to make this thing go, and as long as we’re all playing by the same rules, it will be fair.
That said, I’m totally putting Kuiper in at #4.
does a tie mean a 51st player or does it mean a number gets skipped? i.e. kuiper and ibanez tie for 10th so there is no #11? for example, if alverez and goldschmidt tie for the HR lead, you don’t say bruce is #2, you say he’s number 3.
Based on the Bagwell/Thomas tie, it means a 51st player will be picked. But your point is well-taken. 🙂
I want to brag a bit… I predicted this (a tie) a couple of weeks ago on this site (around #55?), believing that the players who remained seemed clear and obvious, but numbered one more than the number of spots left at that time.
I’m a little sad that I won’t be able to see who (else) picked the remaining 51 exactly. I kind of hope that there is a shocker, and a player I don’t expect (hint: a catcher) makes the list.
I don’t think I have a better idea of the tie other than Kaline/Clemente. I sort-of think Joe is the kind of guy who will want to have two players tied at #1. But I’m not willing to predict that.
I tried to think of the best strategy for which of the 51 players to leave off the pick list. Should it be your #51 pick? No, maybe it should be the player whose rank you’re most unsure of. So if you think Oscar Charleston could be anywhere from #1 to #30, he might be the best choice to leave off your picks. Then again, you will lose an average of one point per spot between Charleston’s rank and the rank of the tie (I think! I’m having trouble figuring this), so it seems you should balance what you think your biggest miss is, with what you think the difference between that player’s rank and the tie is. Hmm.
I urge anyone who hasn’t picked to find and read Bill James’ and ESPN’s top 100s, and compare with Joe’s.
I don’t know how the tie could be, poetically (or hack poetically, depending on your point of view), anyone but Bonds and Clemens.
yep, I think you’ve cracked it. but where do they place? I’d go about 5, maybe as low as 8.
So is a negative score possible? 50×50=2500 so if you missed everyone that would be a -1500, no?
It might be fun to make such a list. Who is better Chris Sabo or Harold Baines?
Both Geoff and Joe Poz have discussed how the “scoring” will play out. Can I make a suggestion?
I don’t like the new wrinkle, where a voter gets docked a huge 50 points for NOT having a name on the Top 50 list. There are at least 8-9 candidates that we have all discussed in the Comments section, who will be locked out of this game of musical chairs. Phil Niekro is Geoff’s choice for that guy (33rd on the all-time WAR list, 10th on the WAR-pichers list…ahead of guys like Christy Mathewson). Mine was Fergie Jenkins.
But it’s also true that most of the greatest catchers of all-time won’t make the list (Cochrane, Piazza, both Pudges, the vastly underrated Gary Carter, maybe even Yogi). Plus, if you asked 100 baseball fans “Who is the greatest pitcher you ever saw?” depending on how old you are, your answer will almost certainly be Pedro, or Koufax, or Bob Feller…and NONE could make the list.
So, if Poz decides to, say, include Koufax but not Pedro, should I really be docked a full 50 points? It seems unreasonable that someone who wrote in Willie Mays for 47th place, or Babe Ruth at #39 would lose fewer points. Your thoughts?
I think the final 51 are clear, and so the big -50 penalty is a-ok with me. There have been many, many posts where I and others have given reasons for who will be in or out, and people who ignored or dismissed those discussions should be penalized big 🙂 :).
Geoff is it too late to enter?
Nope…send a note to poz100contest (at) gmail and I’ll send you the entry form. Thanks!
In turning in your top 50 lists, I wonder who the other responders had the hardest time leaving out of the top 100. I say 100 because if they are not in this list of 50, then they are not in the top 100. For me the most difficult choice came down to two of Manny Ramirez, Juan Marachal, Yogi Berra, Cap Anson, or Bob Feller. Now only three of those would I put in the top 50, but the other two I have as 66 and 80. So I welcomed the news that it is actually a top 51, but I had no fun with that last choice. At least three of those are not in Joe’s top 100 and the best idea I can come up with is that he forgot someone else than just Trammell. I have no one in my list I would consider a surprise, but do believe it will be quite easy to have someone Joe does not – in fact I am expecting it.
OK, embarrassment. Geoff emailed me that the lists are only 50 names; I had misunderstood. That means then that only four of those five names can be in my list: I was very uncomfortable leaving Ramirez, Marachal, Anson, and Feller out of the top 100, but I suppose everyone will have similar thoughts and not about the same names as me. I notice someone above has stated that the top 50 are all very obvious, but I confess they are not to me and I am dubious of that assertion. Now Joe, don’t go doing something crazy like putting Koufax in here, or leaving Bonds and Clemens out.
Wait, you don’t think Koufax will be in there? No way he or Pedro Martinez get left off Joe’s list IMHO. Due to both of their high peaks but low career WAR I find it very difficult to place them numerically, but I would be willing to put money on the line that those two guys are on this list.
Huntley, I’m too chicken to put up money on that, but I’ve left Koufax off because his peak is not enough to make up for less than half a career (he only started over 30 games in four seasons). I do have Pedro rather high though. At this point it is about who you can stomach being left off entirely and Koufax was one of the first I crossed off of my original list of 58 possible names I had left.
I recognize that Koufax will be a staple for several and I am very interested in seeing the spreadsheet of all our picks when Geoff gets that ready. For me the fun will not be in matching Joe or the norm, but I will definitely enjoy lots of back and forth on these names and I appreciate Geoff’s contribution very much.
I doubt I will ever tire of talking about this kind of ranking. Every advance in our understanding of baseball statistics has allowed me to redo this list. The first big reset for me was how very valuable OB% was, to the point of making Ted Williams vastly more valuable than Joe DiMaggio. That was one of the many times that Bill James readers were ahead of conventional wisdom. Replacement value, OPS+, ERA+, average value, Park Effects, etc. – all have given me new chances to go back and fix my top 100 list. Still top flight fun for this old baseball fan.
This has been covered ad nauseam, but Pedro and Koufax are not similar. It’s basically the same as lumping Bob Gibson and Johan Santana into a group. Nothing against Santana, but he’s no Bob Gibson.
BobDD, I agree with you. The Top 50 are not remotely obvious. What about Mule Suttles? Bill James ranks him as the 43rd greatest player of all-time, above Johnny Bench, Bob Gibson, and others. JoePoz is a huge fan of Negro League baseball. So, he’s gotta be in there, right?But is Mule in your Top 50?
He was a last-minute subtraction from my list, because it was him or Al Kaline, and if you include Lou Whitaker in your Top 100 (as Joe did), you sure as heck can’t leave out Mr. Tiger. Or can you?
Cap Anson was, in many ways, a blight on the game. And Joe isn’t including many players from the 1800’s, so he’s out, right? Yet, again, according to B James, he may be the most influential ballplayer in history …in fact, he probably is more responsible for the game (as we know it) than Alexander Cartwright, Abner Doubleday, Jackie Robinson, Landis, anyone. Plus, he was the best player of his era. In or out.
Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, all those great catchers…probably 15 players who are seemingly “locks” are gonna be left out. Should make for some fascinating reading.
Geoff, an easy answer to the problem of everyone getting slugged 50 points for the tie player… Just start the scoring at 1050.
I actually thought about this…people don’t actually lose any points, since the scoring is based on your own picks. It’s actually possible to get 1,050 points if you get all 50 picks, plus the tie right, although getting the tie completely right would mean leaving one of the tied players out of your top-50.
I just figure that some people will go negative. We’re all using the same game board so it doesn’t matter in the end. It may not be ideal but we probably won’t know an ideal way until after we’ve played. And at that point, it isn’t like we’ll have a chance to do it again.
Everyone in the last few comments is mentioning the same names I struggled with. It wasn’t so much ranking my top 50 as putting myself into Joe’s shoes. Who is he likely to pick. And on many, I wasn’t sure. Once the contest starts, we should do a thread with our players we regret most leaving off the list. I think this would be most interesting BEFORE we know if they made it and where.
Exactly.This isn’t about making my list (or your list), but rather predicting what Joe might do. Toughest is guessing where he’ll list Negro League players. Personally, I’m in the minority on this, but I wouldn’t include anyone who never played Major League Baseball but I’m understand that Joe would. It is a great shame that some were excluded based on race, but I can’t pretend it didn’t happen and they did play in MLB. Just as I can’t add 100 wins to Bob Feller or pretend Ichiro played his whole career in US. What happened, happened and what didn’t, didn’t.
That is a key point in a lot of ways. This is the best baseball players, not best MLB players. But since MLB is the top league, you have to take into account the competition for some of these different players and possibly make assumptions. Largebill’s method is not mine for a personal list but I see where he is coming from.
Taking that into account, I am always blown away by Ted Williams’ numbers despite missing 3 full seasons and nearly two more because of wars.
I need to go to bed, so I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about this right now, but I realize there’s a small issue with the scoring system I’ve devised, which is that everyone will have negative scores until we get near the very end. Basically, we all start at -2,500 and work our way back toward zero. Probably no sense in changing it now, but it’s a little odd that if you nail #50 you’ll be “leading” with -2,450 points. Oh well.
I must have been tired…everyone starts with -1,500, not -2,500. My bad.
Not to nitpick, but since it looks like you are now adding points instead of subtracting, wouldn’t it be easier on you just to start at zero and not deal with negatives?
Will you be sending out the final scoring rules along with all the picks?
I’m still not sure if I did the tie picks correctly. Oh well.
I’ll send out the final rules, along with the picks. We’re only adding points for the tie, so that shouldn’t be too tricky.
I thought this was going to be fun, but after reading all these comments this morning I’ve almost lost the will to live, let alone play. Just one question (of the many I could pose) — are we submitting 50 or 51 names?
Oh Pedro, talking about rules IS fun for some of us nerds that like stats and lists and games.
Yes! To answer the Q: it’s actually 52 names: the top 50, plus the 2 tied players.
Right, but it’s only 50 unique names, at least for most people.
I’m deeply sorry for forcing you to read all the these comments and participate in a free contest that’s based on the free content provided on this blog. What a tragedy.
Sorry to offend Geoff. I was trying to make a joke, but sadly failed. I appreciate all the hard work you are doing on this contest.
This is exactly why we need a sarcasm font.
I submitted 50 names, with two of the names tied (Josh Gibson and Satch Paige). Frank Thomas and Bagwell were tied in the bottom 50, but also remember that Roy Hobbs was on that list too, so that still equals 50 real baseball players. I was wondering myself if he’d do that again, so my actual hardest omission was Steve Nebraska from The Scout, the greatest fictional athlete of all time, even over Tecmo Bo. It’s hard to top flying into Yankee Stadium by helicopter for Game 1 of the World Series in your debut, then throwing a 27 K, 81 pitch perfect game while also hitting a home run every time up. His WAR for that game was 1.0.
As for all the crazy settings and numbers games and what do we do about this, I didn’t really put much stock into it. This is just a fun thing to do, to play along with Joe’s list. As far as I know, there is no mega cash prize for the winner. Just pick your top 50 players and send them in, I say.
Good point Jake … I wouldn’t mind seeing Sidd Finch at #41.
And yeah — who cares about the scoring minutiae. It’s just for fun. No need to create any extra headaches for Geoff.
Dammit! I forgot about Finch…terrible oversight on my part.
Okay, so here are the greatest fictional players of all-time…Joe really needs to do a separate column ranking these guys, but here’s how I’d have them:
Bugs Bunny
Sidd Finch/Steve Nebraska (The Scout)
Bobby Rayburn (The Fan)/“T-Rex” Pennebaker(Mr. 3,000)
Roy Hobbs
Stan Ross (Mr. 3,000)
Billy Chapel (For Love of the Game)
Casey
Bingo Long
Clu Haywood
Jake Taylor
Jack Elliott (Mr. Big Baseball)
Nuke LaLoosh
Roger Dorn
Rick Vaughn
Willie Mays Hayes
Sam “Mayday” Malone
Crash Davis
Henry Rowengartner (Rookie of the Year)
Pedro Cerrano
Moonlight Graham (semi-fictional)
Kelly Leake
Benny Rodriguez (Little Big League)
Amanda Whurlitzer
Ryan Dunne (Summer Catch)
Isn’t Benny Rodriguez from The Sandlot? Unless there is another Benny. I haven’t seen Little Big League.
Yes…he’s from The Sandlot. My bad.
Some other great fictional players (using movies or other shows not yet mentioned):
Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis, “A League of Their Own”) – Probably at least as good a catcher as Crash Davis….although Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh) may have been even better as a pure hitter.
Sammy Bodeen (Jeff Corbett, “Talent for the Game”) – I would only consider him if he gets to keep Virgil Sweet (Edward James Olmos) as his personal catcher to help him through the tough times.
Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty, “Band the Drum Slowly).
Going old school, how about Professor Vernon K. Simpson (Ray Milland, “It Happens Every Spring”). I mean, using a fluid you can put on a baseball that is repelled by wood? Perfection.
Also, I know “The Sandlot”, which is only the greatest baseball movie ever, has already been mentioned with reference to Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez. I think we should also include his 8 teammates(Ham Porter, Michael Palledorous, Alan McClennan, Kenny DeNunez, Bertram Weeks, Tommy and Timmy Timmons, and Scott Smalls) as at least honorable mentions. However, I think the greatest player of all time might be the one player everyone overlooks from “The Sandlot”, and that’s Mr. Mertle (the owner of the “The Beast”, James Earl Jones). After all, until he was blinded by getting hit in the head by a baseball, he was considered to be at least the equal of Babe Ruth. Oh, and Wendy Peffercorn can hang out with the team anytime.
We should also acknowledge Frank Drebin/Enrico Pallazzo (Leslie Nielsen, “The Naked Gun”). Best. Umpire. Ever.
No Gil Gamesh?
Here’s the update I just sent out to everyone who expressed an interested in participating in the contest. If you didn’t receive anything from me, but think you should have, please let me know ASAP. Thanks!
We’re just about ready to kick things off, so I wanted to send out another update. 133 people expressed interest in the contest, and we’re currently at 92 entries, although they keep trickling in and I’m hoping to reach 100. If you haven’t submitted an entry, please do so ASAP, as Joe’s posting of pick #50 will serve as a hard deadline, and late submissions will not be accepted.
A few other notes:
*If you haven’t done so already, please send me your pick for who the tie will be. As I explained, this will serve as a bonus for those who get one or both choices right. Again, these choices do not have to be consecutive in the rankings you submit; in fact, they don’t even need to be included in your top-50. For example, if you have Casey at #8, but don’t have Bugs Bunny listed at all (even though Bugs was way better), you can still predict that Joe will list them as a tie. Please note that the tie prediction deadline is the same as the entry deadline, so if you don’t let me know, you will not be bonus-eligible.
*It may take a little time, given the number of entries, but in the next day or two I will send out the master spreadsheet, which will contain everyone’s picks. Please take a few minutes to find and review your own picks and let me know if there are any issues. NOTE: This does not mean you can make edits to your picks; it just means that if I’ve screwed something up you should let me know about it. Mantle and Musial are staying where they are. I haven’t deleted any emails, so if I missed your tie picks or something, just let me know and I’ll find them.
*I haven’t made any new changes to the scoring system. When I send out the master I’ll make sure they’re clearly laid out, but basically you start with 1000 points, then lose points based on how far off each selection is, plus a 50-point penalty if you pick someone that doesn’t make Joe’s list. You can get a maximum 50-point bonus if you nail the tie.
*I will build out the scoring calculation as soon as I feel confident that everyone’s picks are in order, then send out an updated master that allows everyone to follow along with the scoring. I’d give my excel skills a solid B+ (although my recent switch to a mac is KILLING me), but if any of you bankers/consultants wants to do a quick audit at that point, I’d greatly appreciate it.
*As far as I’m concerned, the only prize is bragging rights.
If you have any questions, please let me know. I appreciate everyone’s participation, and look forward to a great contest!
Thank you for organizing this! It seems like a lot of work. You deserve a hearty huzzah.
Huzzah!
Am I the only one that has hit refresh approximately 15 times today?
I’m sure you’re not, but you could just type your email into the “Follow Joe Blogs” box on the right and save yourself some trouble…
Not sure if Geoff is still checking this thread and is available to confirm, but I’m surprised no one has noted the resemblance of this contest to Bill James’s “similarity scores” from… I think it was Politics of Glory / Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?. Personally, I really hope that was the inspiration for the “1000 points, minus one for each difference” methodology, just so I can bookend with another story: Nate Silver’s identity was guessed at (or possibly deciphered) back when he was using the online moniker “Poblano” to forecast elections, because his “most similar Congressional districts” was so conspicuously similar to the calculations that went into his original PECOTA system. And you know what they say about great minds…..
Hey Pat, not sure what you’re asking me to confirm. I didn’t think about it when I was coming up with the rules, but I’m sure I was influenced by similarity scores in using 1,000 points and subtracting based on ranking differences.
But just to be clear, I am not Nate Silver or Bill James, in case that wasn’t obvious. 🙂