SnakeLines, The Final

Week 25 review

Interest was light, and success was even lighter last week, as we asked you to select the number of wins the Diamondbacks would get, over their final ten games against the Rockies, Padres and Nationals. Things started off well enough in Colorado, as the team took two of three, but they could then only manage one of four on the next leg, in San Diego, meaning they needed to take two of three back at Chase against Washington to reach the line. Defeats on Friday and Saturday ended any hope of that, rendering Sunday's contest meaningless. Of course, the team then won that, but ended the week at four victories, short of the line which had been set at five.

• Winners (0)
• Sinners (5): AzDbackfanInDc, blank_38, Gildo, GuruB, imstillhungry95

But, wait! There's more! During this week's Video Round Table, kishi reminded me that, way back at the beginning of the season, we had what was effectively a "zero round", where players were asked to predict the number of wins for the 2013 Diamondbacks. If you got that right, you'd get 10 points, with a sliding scale of payout from there down, depending on how close you were to the final tally. Obviously, that jackpot could have an extremely large effect on the final standings, so let's review the numbers people came up with for that.

• 10 points, nailed it! - LiamNeeson (81)
• 9 points, one game out - xmet (82)
• 8 points, two games out - Craig from AZ (83)
• 7 points, three games out - imstillhungry95 (84)
• 6 points, four games out - Zavada's Moustache (85), Clefo (85), azshadowwalker (85)
• 5 points, five games out - blank_38 (86), snakecharmer (86), SenSurround (86), backtocali (86)
  
• 4 points, six games out - GuruB (87), Azreous (87)
• 3 points, seven games out - Grimmy01 (88), Stumpy657 (88)
• 2 points, eight games out - BigLeagueAZ (89)
• 1 point, nine games out - tstack1014 (90)
• 0 points, 10+ games out - eel (92), EzioExManAZ (93), DbackCardsFan (92), soco (162!)

I note that not one of the twenty or so predictions over-estimated our win total for the year, apparently providing fairly incontrovertible proof that fan optimism ruled the roost going into 2013. It'll be interesting to see if the same holds true next season: mind you, after the past couple of years, I'm expecting a rush of money on a third consecutive .500 record! And so, plugging those numbers as well in to the rankings, this is what we find...

Final standings

• 18 points
  blank_38
• 16 points
  grimmy01
  xmet
• 13 points
  AJV19
  GuruB
  SenSurround
• 12 points
  Craig from Az
  Gildo
  imstillhungry95
• 11 points
  LiamNeeson
• 10 points
  azshadowwalker
  walleye01
  
• 9 points
  
• 8 points
  Angry_Saguaro
  JoelPre
  piratedan7
  TolkienBard
  
• 7 points
  AzRattler
  
• 6 points
  backtocali
  BigLeagueAZ
  frienetic
  Zavada's Moustache
  
• 5 points
  AzDbackfanInDc
  preston.salisbury
  rd33
  snakecharmer
  
• 4 points
  Azreous
  eel
  FlannelFlapjacks
  Marc Fournier
  TimInTucson
  
• 3 points
  azcougs
  catbat
  Stumpy657
  
• 2 points
  bozzy35
  BrokeNBattleX
  Maizefed
  Songbird
  Xipooo
  
• 1 point
  AZfan85308
  babakolo
  benhat
  BobRob12
  Muu
  navyazfan
  porty99
  Shawnwck
  tstack1014
  
• 0 points
  azsportsfan31
  BattleMoses
  Daniel Corbin Jr.
  DbackCardsFan
  Diamondhacks
  EzioExManAZ
  hotclaws
  leemellon
  littleRoom
  PatrickPetersonAZ
  since_98
  soco
  Surksquatch

So, in the end, the tie-breaker wasn't really needed - for your interest, however, the actual number of runs scored was 38, so everyone was well over on the tally there too. GuruB's 44 would have been the closest, so I anoint him as having sole possession of fourth place, with grimmy01 and xmet sharing second, and overall victory going to blank_38 - congratulations to him.

Thanks to everyone for taking part: it was a fun endeavor to write, and I think it's something which will probably make a return trip at the beginning of 2014, in a similar or identical format. We'll see you then!