Pit Your Wits '16: Week 1

After the long, dark winter, we rev up the Pit Your Wits machine once more. Our favorite team has already been in pursuit of their championship for almost a week now, so that means your pursuit of a different championship begins now. As it has for several seasons now, the format remains basically the same. Most weeks, I'll post a new article, leading off with the top three contestants from the week before. I'll give you an updated look at the standings, and then follow it off with a new contest. "But ISH," I hear you calling, "How do we get in the top three? What must we do to be declared worthy?" Good question, hypothetical poster who may be taking this a tad bit too seriously. Here is what you do. Go ahead and post your response to my prompt in the comments. Then, everyone needs to rec the comments they like. The top three most-rec'd comments will be our podium.

As you can see, for the most part, the format is the same as it has basically always been. The big change, however, is how it is going to be scored. Last year, first place got X points, second place got Y points, and third place got Z points. This year, the number of rec's for each of the top three comments will be how many points each comments gets. Example: If AzDbacksfaninDC, Clefo, and asteroid are our top three, and DC has three rec's, Clefo has two, and asteroid has one, that would be how many points are added to their season total.

Hopefully this is going to achieve two goals. First, I really want to encourage rec'ing of the submissions. Your vote matters! If you like what someone said, reward them! Give them another point in the standings! Help them build more of a lead! Second, this will also eliminate the possibility of clinching the first or second half championships a week or more in advance. Theoretically, you can now jump to first place in one week, even if you 50 points down. No lead is safe now, and hopefully it will lead to some exciting finishes at the end of each half.

There is one other big change. I'm outlawing Nacho Slides. That was funny for the first two years, but now I don't want someone to just post Nacho Slides every week and get thirty rec's and win the season by a thousand points. You are all smart and funny individuals. Let's find a new joke to run into the ground LOL.

Now that we'ev got all of that housekeeping out of the way, let's get to the fun part, shall we? The Dbacks pitching staff has had a less than stellar start to the season. Dave Roberts Stewart and Tony la Russa have come to you for some inexplicable reason for a solution and have signed a legally binding contract to do whatever you tell them! How do you solve the pitching woes? Go!