Very Well Then

I need to promote my blog a bit.  I tried calling those Entertainment 720 guys from Parks and Recreation to help me out, but they said my site wasn’t dope.  Or something like that.  So I’m left doing my own promotion.

So I decided to create what I’m calling the 2013 Twins Lineup Challenge.*     The challenge is for you to pick the Twins predominant lineup for 2013.  More on what “predominant” means.

* I’m calling this a “challenge”, not a “contest”.  For me, the term “contest” is forever associated with something George Costanza won.  You go elsewhere to be master of your domain.  This is a “challenge”. 

The prize for the winner:  one t-shirt of your choice from the Diamond Centric collection.   If you best predict the Twins lineup, you get a t-shirt.  And it costs you nothing to try.  (I am unaffiliated with DiamondCentric.  But their t-shirts make fine Twins-related swag.)

I’m not looking for the opening day lineup.  I’m not looking for the most used lineup card.  I’m looking for the lineup that shows who played the most for the Twins in 2013.

Okay, what I’m really looking for is for you to predict what the Twins 2013 Baseball Reference Page will look like at season’s end.

Baseball Reference fills in the predominant lineup of the team — generally, whoever plays the most at any position gets that slot on the BR page.    The pitchers are classified as the starters based on some formula of games started and innings pitched, while the relief pitchers appear to be ranked on innings pitched alone.    Check out what the BR page looked like for the 2012 Twins.

So this challenge is for you to pick (as Baseball Reference lists them at season’s end) the following:

• the 9 position slots (includes DH)
• the top 5 reserve batters
• the 6 starting slots
• the 1 Closer slot
• the top 4 additional relief pitchers.

That’s a 25 man roster — so 25 points available in this challenge.  For the challenge, the order does not matter for the the 5 reserve batters or the relievers.  For the starters, the order does not matter except as a tie breaker — explained below.  The Closer is its own slot (if you have Perkins as your closer and Burton gets the most saves, you do not get a point for Perkins even if Perkins makes the list of 4 relievers).

1.  Pick 25 roster slots, as set forth above.  One point for each slot you get right, as determined by Baseball References 2013 Twins page.  The person with the most points win.

2.   The first tiebreaker is the number of correctly-ranked starting pitchers for your entry.  For example, for 2012 if you guessed the order of the six starting pitchers for the Twins would be Diamond, Blackburn, Liriano, Duensing, Hendricks and De Vries, I would have called you a lunatic.  And you would have received 2 points in the tie-breaker for correctly having Diamond as the #1 starting pitcher and Hendricks as the #6 starting pitcher.

3.  The second tiebreaker is the time-stamp of your entry.

4.   You can also enter “Other”, if you choose a player that is not in the Twins System at the time of your entry.  If Oswaldo Arcia starts the season in the minors but gets the most PA’s to be Right Field, you only get a point for the RF slot if you guessed Arcia.  A minor league Twin is not an “Other”.   But if the Twins trade for JJ Hardy to be their shortstop two days after you made your entry and you put “Other” as your shortstop, you get a point.  For entries made after such a hypothetical trade, you would only get a point if you had Hardy as your SS.   See how it works?

5.  You must make your entry in the comments section of my blog.   Entries made in the comments section of Twins Daily do not count, nor do entries made in tweets, written on bathroom walls, or whispered to a dog.    While you’re at my blog, I recommend that you follow me on Twitter (@Very_Well_Then).  Throughout the season I’ll try to make a few updates on the state of this contest.  And hopefully I’ll have some other blog entries to let you know about.

6.  One entry per person.  Don’t use several different emails.  Take a shot at this.  Get on with your life.

7.  Entries must be submitted before first pitch on opening day.

8.   You have to do better than me to win.  It’s my challenge.  This post counts as the entry with the earliest time-stamp.  I already win the second tie-breaker.

9.  Void if prohibited by law.  (I thought I’d better say that.)

Here’s my entry:

Now, go ahead and take your guess in the comments section.