Sean McAdam, of ESPN, has won the 2001 Baseball Predictions by one point over Randy Youngman, columnist for the Orange County Register. Sean was 28th at the All-Star Break and waited until the last day of the season to take the lead. The key to his win was picking Minnesota ahead of Detroit and Kansas City in the AL Central, one of just six players to make that pick. This is Sean's second season in the predictions. He was 6th last year.

There were seven different leaders this year, down from eleven in 2000, and just twelve lead changes. Al Green (61) was the leader when the standings where first computed at the and of April. Randy Youngman took the lead in mid-May and held the lead most of the way through the end of the season. Randy traded the lead with Cecil Fields (10) of Boeing, Huntington Beach, through June and Jerry Saltz (3t) also of Boeing, Huntington Beach, briefly in August. Two other players, Jack Clark (7) of Etowah, TN, and Gene Scearce (39) of Yorba Linda, California could only manage to tie Youngman for the lead once each during the season.

Division Leaders: Below is a list of the top picks in each division. There were 38 correct division scores this season, 28 in the AL East and ten in the AL West. Randy Youngman (2) and Jerry Saltz (3t) managed to get both of the divisions correct. Jerry Saltz, Brock Hauck (23) and Fran Nimick (42) made the list three times while eight players made the list twice.

In the AL East over 3/4ths the players scored eight points or less, taking that division out of play, while in the AL Central, nearly 2/3rds of the players had either 38 or 40 points.

AL East			AL Central			AL West			NL East			NL Central			NL West
R. Youngman	0		Bob Klapisch	4		R. Youngman	0		Dan Demangos	4		TSN Weekly	4		Sean McAdam	12
Jerry Saltz	0		Kristen Mize	4		Jerry Saltz	0		Charles Kovac	8		David Lipman	4		Chris Mauro	12
SF Chronicle	0		Hal Berger	4		Jerry Hilger	0		Dubow/Walker	8		Dudley Michael	12		Athlon Sports	12
Bill Thibodeau	0		Sean McAdam	6		Jack Clark	0		Brock Hauck	8		Brock Hauck	14		Brett Carman	12
Shane O'Niell	0		Chris Mauro	6		Cecil Fields	0		Jeff Miller	8		James Rover	22		Fran Nimick	12
John Baker	0		D. Shaugnessey	6		Atticus Ryan	0		Jerry Saltz	12		MLB Yearbook	40		Mike Kern	12
Steve Bisheff	0		Brock Hauck	38		Mark Nichols	0		Phil Hensley	12					R. Shinabarger	12
Rebecca Kupay	0		Gene Scearce	38		Gene Scearce	0		Cecil Fields	12					Mark Whicker	12
Ginny Whiteley	0		Fran Nimick	38		John Mitchell	0		Fran Nimick	12					Bob Ryan	12
Larry Palomino	0		ESPN.com	38		Tim Carvalho	0		Herb Stoltenberg	12
Jeff Miller	0								Russ Shinabarger	12
Bob Ryan	0					7 tied @	4		John Wilford	12
and 16 others	0								Donna Lang	12
49 tied at	3		91 tied @	40		69 tied at	86		33 tied @	20		40 tied @	44		23 tied @	16

Tie breaker: The TB represents the points accumulated by each player's six projected division winners. Nancy Jo Michael (15) picked all six division winners and had a perfect tie breaker, edging five players that missed on only San Francisco in the NL West and tied with a tie breaker of 2.0.

Keys: The following is a list of the keys (10 pts or more) to our individual performance this year. Caps indicate positive or good keys, while lower case indicate negative of bad keys. The approximate value is the amount of points saved on or added to our scores. To determine the importance and value of of each key, look at the final standings (pg3) and find the significant gaps, for example, in the AL East, Toronto finished 16.5 games ahead of Baltimore. Then compare the keys to the consensus below.

The most important key this year was taking Seattle and Oakland ahead of Anaheim and Texas in the AL West, where the A's nipped the Angels by 27 games. This resulted in a 54 point swing that effected the entire field as 68 players had the pick right while 80 players missed it. Just over half (75) the players had both Houston and St Louis 1st and 2nd in the NL Central. Pittsburgh was also a factor but conributed less than ten points.


Cum Stats: A pair of new three year players, Gordon Edes (51), columnist fort he Boston Globe and Robert Kuwada (47), Columnist for the Orange County Register are the new Cum Stat leaders. They moved ahead of last year's leader, Dudley Michael (19). Gerry Hamilton (26) regained the lead for veteran players, replacing last year's leader, Darin Slocum (142).

Best Prior: The last two columns of the final standings represent the best finish for each player through 2000. This is a weighted value. For example, it is better to finish 20th against over 200 players than to finish 10th against less than 100 players. The following is a list of the top two players for each game played over the past 26 years.

Credits/Kudos: I'd like to offer my thanks to those who contributed to this year's game. Nelson Slagle (82) and Randy Lang (89) were the top contributors, each submitting 18 picks. The following are some of the others who also contributed:

ggh 16oct