April 11, 2013

BP Unfiltered

32 Predictions Contest Response Summary

by Sky Kalkman

Printer-friendly

Contact Author

A total of 694 people entered the 32 Predictions contest, including Ben Lindbergh and me, but not including the nine of you who didn't leave a name and the 10 of you who entered after the deadline. Those weren't good strategies for winning.

Sixty-nine percent of you thought Ben would score better than I would, which, frankly, is pretty insulting. He did enter before me, so he owns the tie-breaker.

The most lopsided question was Runs + RBI by Bryce Harper over Carlos Beltran at 96% to 4%. There were five questions within 51/49, and the only 50/50 question was James Shields Wins vs Wil Myers HRs

Below is a list of frequencies for every question, sorted most to least lopsided. Some participants decided not to answer every question, which, again, wasn't a good strategy.

I calculated a groupthink score for each entry by averaging the overall popularities of each of the entry's choices. A higher number means an entry looks more like the consensus entry (non-answers counted as the average, 59.3%, which is also then the average groupthink score across all entries.) The most groupthink entry belongs to oltarzewskt1 at 65.8%, and the least conforming entry (by far) goes to Scott Pelarski at 44.3%. My entry is 59.0% groupthink, Ben's is 61.2% (what a hack).

You can find a full list of entries here, sorted by time of entry, with Ben's entry and my entry at the top. It includes the groupthink score, too.

Thanks for entering. I have a lot of fun with this contest every year. I may post standings part way through the season, or November may be the next time you hear about this, when the free year of Baseball Prospectus is handed out to the winner.

Sky Kalkman is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
Click here to see Sky's other articles. You can contact Sky by clicking here