GOG 2009 Final Results

It is time to wrap up the whole 2009 season, and the GOG along with it. This fANpost way freaking long. Scroll down to find answers and scores for GOG #00, an overview of the whole 2009 GOG, the final season standings, and awards.

GOG #00 Answers

It's a pretty tough thing to predict how a baseball season will unfold. Back in the those happy days of late March, most of us here at AN were in an optimistic mood. Matt Holliday and Jason Giambi were going to team up with Cust to provide some serious punch in the middle of the order, Orlando Cabrera was going to boost our shortstop production well above replacement level, and Justin Duchscherer would return quickly from his DL stint to provide All Star caliber starting pitching. Heck, some people were even expecting big things from Nomar.

Of course, that all turned out to be a fantasy, as the A's season quickly headed south. By the start of June, it seemed likely that 2009 would go down as the worst season of the decade. And, well, it was, but only just barely (we also won 75 last year, but that was with only 151 games played). The late season surge in offense, led improbably by Rajai Davis, along with fantastic rookie performances from Anderson and Bailey, kept the season interesting and leaves me in a hopeful mood for this offseason.

But, getting back to the GOG, all that recap should just serve to remind you that none of us saw the events of this season coming, so don't be too shocked by how far off your predictions were. Also, many many thanks to micdog2001, who looked up most of these answers for me.

1. Predict Oakland's 2009 record [3 points] -- The AN consensus on this one is summed up in a plot that I put together back in May. Oakland finished with a record of 75-87, which is one game worse than the lowest win total anyone guessed (that would be ANti-dentite). It's hard to accurately guess a season win total, so I gave partial credit here: 3 points for being exactly right, 2 points if you were off by one game, 1 point if you were off by two games.
2. Predict the AL West final standings [+1 for each correct, -1 for each incorrect] -- The final AL West standings have the Angels in first, Rangers in second, Mariners in third, and the lowly A's in fourth place. No one managed to predict this one perfectly, but people get two points for each team in the correct position. The community consensus is summed up in this plot.
3. Which team (AL or NL) finishes with the best record? How many games do they win? [3 points each] -- The Yankees with 103 wins. As with question 1, I gave partial credit for people's predictions of the season win total.
4. Name the AL and NL wild card teams [3 points each] -- Boston in the AL, Colorado in the NL
5. Which team (AL or NL) is most improved from their 2008 record? Which team declines the most from 2008? [3 points each] -- Most improved team was the Mariners, who finished with 24 more wins than they had in 2008 (honorable mentions to the Rockies and Giants, but it really wasn't close). The team that had the biggest decline was the Mets, who have 19 fewer wins than their 2008 total (honorable mentions to the Indians and Cubs).
6. Which AL teams will the A's have the best and worst win percentage against? [3 points each] -- The A's fared best against the Orioles, with a 5-1 record, and worst against the Yankees, going 2-7.
7. Does it really have to count? :: Which league wins the All Star Game? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] -- The AL wins the All Star Game... again.
8. The Real Greatest Rivalry :: Predict the result of the Oakland-LAAA season series (19 games total) [3 points] -- This one was close for most of the season, but then the Angels swept us away right at the end. The final tally is 7 wins for Oakland, 12 for LAAAAAA.
9. The Future of the West :: Which minor league system has a better W/L record - Texas or Oakland? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] -- For this question, I didn't count Arizona Fall League teams, Dominican Summer Leagues, rookie leagues, etc. For the Oakland system, I summed up the records for Vancouver, Kane County, Stockton, Midland, and Sacramento, for a combined record of 234-195 (0.545). In the Texas system, we have Spokane, Hickory, Bakersfield, Frisco, and Oklahoma City, who all combined for a 216-214 record (0.502). So the advantage here goes to the Oakland system!
10. Does the A's W-L record beat their Pythagorean record? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] -- The Athletics score 759 runs and allowed 761, which puts them at an even 81-81 for their Pythagorean record. So yeah, they underperformed by six games (which I believe is just one standard deviation, before people start flipping out).
11. Who will lead the 2009 A's in stolen bases? [3 points] -- That would be Rajai.
12. Being in the Right Place at the Right Time :: Who will lead the A's this season in WPA? [3 points] -- The A's 2009 leader in WPA was Michael Wuertz with +3.05 wins, who earned it by striking out hitter after hitter in close and late situations. For position players, the leader was Rajai Davis with +2.73 wins. Nobody guessed either of those two.
13. The Starting Rotation :: Who logs the most innings pitched for the 2009 A's? Which A's pitcher with at least 100 IP has the best ERA for the season? [3 points each] -- Most innings pitched was by Trevor Cahill with 178.2 innings pitched (chalk this up in the category of “reasons why Oakland didn't contend in 2009”), but Brett Anderson was right behind him with 175.1. The best ERA among pitchers with at least 100 innings was Dallas Braden, who posted a 3.89.
14. Injuries, Death, and Taxes :: How many times do the A's use the DL this season? [3 points] -- According to this article by Byg Urb, the A's used the DL 17 times. I tried to count them all up myself and got only the following 16 (in roughly chronological order): Duchscherer, Nomar, Ellis, Devine, Chavez, Casilla, Giese, Nomar again, Sweeney, Outman, Giambi, Barton, Braden, Crosby, Mazzaro, plus the strange business with Ben Copeland (taken in the Rule 5 draft despite being injured at the time, stashed on the Oakland DL, then called up for a cup of coffee once he got healthy, and quickly returned to the Giants). So I gave people credit if they answered either 16 or 17.
15. The Ringer :: Will Matt Holliday still be in an Oakland uniform at the end of the season? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] -- Nope, but I am amazed at how many people answered yes to this question. We were really being optimistic at the start of this season, eh?
16. Giambi's return :: Predict Jason's season totals for AB/BB/HR [2 points each] -- Giambi's line with Oakland was 269 AB, 50 BB, and 11 HR. I gave people credit for being within 20 AB, 5 H, or 1 HR of the correct answers.
17. Nooo-mah! :: Predict his AB/H/RBI [2 points each] -- Nomar had 160 AB, 45 H, and 16 RBI. Here, the acceptable margins of error were 15 AB, 5 H, and 2 RBI.
18. Someone not named Crosby :: How many games will Cabrera start at SS? [3 points] -- I didn't really specify whether I would be counting just the games he played for Oakland. So I gave credit for either his 100 games started as an Athletic or his 157 total starts. But nobody guessed either of those.
19. How many games will Duchscherer start this season? [3 points] -- We all know how this one turned out.
20. Who earns more saves this season, Devine or Ziegler? [+1 if right, -1 if wrong] -- Ziegler wins this one with his seven saves. I should have included an “other” category...
21. The MAC Question :: How many Major League innings to Anderson, Cahill, and Mazarro combine to pitch in 2009? [3 points] -- Those three pitchers combined for a whopping 445.1 innings pitched, with Cahill and Anderson as the top two workhorses of the staff. This is a problem. Unsurprisingly, no one was especially close on this question, so I gave credit to anyone who guessed 400 or more.

GOG #00 Results

There are big points on the line for this one. Plus, when I tally the final season scores, GOG #00 is going to count double. So hold on to your hats...

• maximum score = 75 points
• minimum score = -9 points
• mean = 9.807 points
• standard deviation = 5.986 points
• median = 10 points
• mode = 15 points

Congratulations to Kyli, the grand prognosticator of the 2009 season! Of course, Kyli went on to not enter into any of the other GOG so we are left considering what might have been...

GOG Season Recap

With that old business out of the way, let's take a look at some more numbers!

• Total number of people who posted an entry for at least one GOG = 111
• Total number of entries posted, including GOG #00 = 1280
• Total number of points awarded, including GOG #00 = 8752
• Average score, not including GOG #00 = 6.2420 points

And here is a histogram of every score this season (except GOG #00). It looks pretty nice and Gaussian, if you ask me. Also, in case people are curious, that bin on the very far left is Athletics fan and runner, from GOG #04. The bin on the far right is muffinpryde, from GOG #43.

Next up, let's take a look at everyone's GOG batting average (hey, if I call it GOG+ or wGOG, can I sit with the cool kids at the stats table?). This is defined for each person by taking their total points for the whole season and dividing it by the maximum number of points possible for the GOGs that person actually entered. So, if you're doctorK that would mean all the points, but it's less for everyone else.

The black histogram below is for everyone, even the people who only posted entries for one GOG. The red, green, and blue histograms count only people who participated in at least 10, 20, or 30 GOGs, respectively. Historically, the requirement to be in the running for the AVG title is to participate in at least one third of the GOGs, which translates to 17 entries for the whole season. Also, as you can see from that dashed line, we aren't exactly a whole bunch of Tony Gwynns around here.

GOG Final Standings

Ok, here is the moment you've all been waiting for (unless you just scrolled straight down here!). The final standings for the 2009 GOG...

Ok, anyone who has been watching the GOG standings during the season had a pretty good idea of who the top two would be. Congratulations to the 2009 GOG champion, nevermoor! But let's not forget zaniac75, who kept things exciting the whole way (and was in the lead for most of the first half). I thought that the double point potential of GOG #00 could have closed the gap, but these two were just way ahead of everyone else.

Actually, nevermoor wins the whole triple crown here. For most of the season, swatnick had command of the AVG category, but a poor showing on GOG #00 handed that one to nevermoor. Finally, I added a third category, in the far right hand column, that keeps track of the number of times a player won the GOG (you get the point whether or not your are tied for first). In this category as well, nevermoor is looking pretty dominant.

And here is one more plot for you all -- the final top 10, tracked across the whole 2009 GOG season.

GOG Awards

Before we get to the end of season awards, I want to thank the people who helped me keep up with the GOG this season. That would be nevermoor, who wrote a couple of them himself when I was on vacation, and doctorK and micdog2001, who looked up all the answers for me several times when I fell behind on grading. I thought this was a fun way to follow the A's season (particularly in a year when we needed some distraction from their record). Next year? We'll see...

• The Jimmie Foxx Award for Domination goes to nevermoor, of course. I said enough about his record above.
• The Campy Campaneris Award for Perfect Attendance goes to doctorK. I don't know what inspires such dedication to the GOG, but I appreciate it.
• The Rich Harden Award for Domination in a Small Sample goes to FormerHuntsvilleStar. I didn't have the win count statistic before, so I hadn't noticed this, but FHS posted entries for only 12 GOG, but managed to win 4 of those!
• The ??? Award for a Promising Career Over Too Soon goes to mikeA, who managed to hang on to a spot in the top ten even though he stopped playing around GOG #35. When he dropped out, the race for the title went from three players to just two. (I can't think of an Athletic to name this award after -- Duchscherer maybe? It's still too soon to tell with him.)

Ok, that's it. It's high time for me to stop spending so much time on baseball-reference and fangraphs. Enjoy the offseason!