Place Your Bets on the 2014 Diamondbacks: The first lap

For each line, we give the original projection, the amount wagered over and under, and the current pace, assuming we continue at the same rate going forward.

Wins: 84.5 (3350-4562) - Pace 48, UNDER

Well, not quite going as well as expected, is it? On the other hand, it is going a sight better than it seemed it might late on Wednesday, when we looked about to fall to 5-19. That would have been a pace in the mid-thirties - and some way behind Trumbo's home-run rate. Has a player ever had more home-runs than his team has had wins? Suspect not [Dmitri Young led the 43-win 2003 Tigers, with 29 homers] However, for one reason and another, that possibility looks a lot less likely for the Diamondbacks than it might have a few days ago.

Place in NL West: 2.5 (2164-1700) - Pace 5, OVER

I think there seems to have been some confusion over this bet. and suspect a few people misinterpreted "over" here as a first- or second-place finish, when it actually means third, fourth or fifth. Where their wagers made the intent clear, I've adjusted appropriately. That's more than Las Vegas would have done. :) Obviously, we are well behind the pace here as well; right now, I'd probably settle for us climbing out of the basement, with the San Diego Padres the nearest in the standings, @ games ahead of us. It's gonna be a long haul...

Paul Goldschmidt's home runs: 35.5 (1100-4073) - Pace 18, UNDER

It's hard to complain about Goldie's performance, when he has an OPS+ of 144, and has easily been the best offensive performer on the team to date. However, that is probably quite heavily depended on a BABIP of .392, and I'd be a lot more comfortable about its long-term sustainability, if he were to go back to whacking more balls out of the park entirely. He's not actually so far behind his 2013 numbers; through the first 27 games there, he had five home-runs, so it would only take a couple of bombs for Goldschmidt to be back there. But at currently little more than half the necessary pace, he has some catching-up to do.

Mark Trumbo's home runs: 37.5 (1200-4136) - Pace 42, OVER

The good news: Trumbo is certainly doing what he was brought in to do: hit home-runs. The bad news: he won't be doing any more of it for while, due to his stress fracture. The current prognosis is for Trumbo to miss six to eight weeks, which will probably mean around 40-45 games. So, by the next update in a month, he'll be some way behind the curve, and will have to get his skates back on. There always seems to be a line each year which gets derailed by unexpected injury. With Trumbo having averaged 151 games over the previous three seasons, this might be it.

Brandon McCarthy's innings pitched: 144 (1452-1350) - Pace 182, OVER

On the other hand, there are lines where the betting is almost entirely determined by your opinion of a player's health. So far, so good for McCarthy, but it's very early days yet. Over his career to date, McCarthy has thrown 187.2 April innings, and 174.2 May ones. But in June and July, those monthly numbers plummet to 53.1 and 87.2 innings respectively - since his 2005 debut he has managed a total of only seven June starts. So the treacherous shoals of summer injury are very much ahead of Brandon.

Bronson Arroyo's home runs allowed: 31.5 (100-4847) - Pace 30, UNDER

I had to hang on to this one until he left the game on Saturday, as he had allowed five home-runs coming in to that start, giving absolutely no margin for error. Another one would have set a pace of 36, and jumped the line. However, in what was very easily Arroyo's best performance of the year, he blanked the Phillies for six innings, and kept them in the park entirely. His early back issues appear to be behind him [well, where else would back issues be? Hohoho], though the news he's having blood tests is a bit disconcerting. Fingers crossed, we'll see more outings like Saturday, and fewer of... the other kind.

Archie Bradley's starts at MLB level: 12.5 (2200-716) - Pace 0, UNDER

Still waiting. Still plenty of time for this one though. He could be in the minors through the All-Star break, and still reach the line with a second-half call-up. Hard to say where about he lies in the rankings these days, even though I was not expecting Bradley to be called up before any chance of Super Two status had passed. Still, even given that, before the season, would you (or anyone except Mrs. Bolsinger) have said Mike Bolsinger would get called up and post a major-league W before Archie Bradley? No, me neither. We'll see what happens.

Martin Prado's OPS: .770 (4300-136) - Pace .569, UNDER

Damn, Remember how badly Prado started off last year? His OPS on April 26 was actually 40 points higher than now (.609) - it never got below .582 at any point in 2013. And that's discounting his defense, which has been pretty questionable: his sixth error yesterday trails only middle-infielders Ian Desmond and Dan Uggla among all major-leaguers. Still, we have seen how he can suddenly turn it on and become almost unstoppable, for weeks at a time. If he wouldn't mind doing that, sooner rather than later, I think we'd all appreciate it.

Bench-clearing incidents with Dodgers: 0.5 (2866-250) - Pace 0, UNDER

None yet - and we have already played more than 40% of our seasonal quota of games against Los Angeles, even though it's still not the end of April. We face them here in mid-May, and there in mid-June, both for three-game sets, but there's then a long gap until a two-game series in Arizona at the end of of August, before three at Dodger Stadium about a week later. So, the odds are they won't be plunging into our pool to mark their championship this year. Although if they don't start playing better against everyone else, they won't be celebrating much, being 7-10 against non-Diamondbacks, going into Sunday's game.

So, what does it all mean? Here are the tallies of payouts based on the above.

Three people have aced their bets so far, and three have missed out on all their best so far. Overall, the picture is slightly in the red, but only by less than $2,000, which is an improvement over the previous years, from what I recall! Finally, you might want to check the original thread linked above, and make sure that what I've credited you with matches your actual bets. I've tried to check as far as possible e.g. confirmed that everyone's wagers add up to $1,500. But with close to 30 participants and up to nine bets per punter, there's clearly plenty of scope for putting you over when it should have been under...