First time player, Sunil Pandya, of Miami Beach, Florida has won the 2004 Baseball Predictions by 17 points over Brit Harvey of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sunil first took the lead on July 5th and was the leader at the All-Star Break. He traded the lead with two other players until he took over for good in late September. Sunil was one of just three players to pick Colorado and Arizona 4th and 5th in the NL West.

There were seven different leaders in 2004 and thirteen lead changes, up from three and three, respectively in 2003. Brit Harvey was the early leader when the standings were first computed at the end of April. Other early leaders include Martin Visser (49) of Redding, CA, James Frank (6) of Newport Beach, CA and David Lipman (57) of ESPN.com. Martin lead thorugh most of June until AJ Julian (30), a high school student from Los Alamitos, CA took the lead in late June. Chris Smith (34) of Fort Worth, Texas lead briefly in early July. After Sunil stepped up he traded the lead with AJ and Brit until he took the lead for good on September 24th.

Final Standings						Sunil Pandya's Picks
ALE	GB		NLE	GB		ALE	Pts		NLE	Pts		SCORING: Computed by matching the Final Standings to each
NYY	-		Atl	-		NY	-		Phi	10.0		player's picks, and calculating how many games each team
Bos	3.0		Phil	10.0		Bos	-		Atl	10.0		finished out of their predicted order of finish. See
Balt	23.0		Fla	13.0		Bal	-		FL	-		Sunil Pandya's picks (left).
TB	30.5		NYM	25.0		Tor	3.0		NY	-
Tor	33.5		Mont	29.0		TB	3.0		Mon	-		KEYS: Codes used to define the success (of failure) in each
							6			20		division's results. Caps indicate positive or good keys and
ALC	GB		NLC	GB		ALC	Pts		NLC	Pts		lower case are negative or bad keys. Example: T- picked
Minn	-		StL	-		Chi	9.0		Chi	13.0		Tampa Bay and Toronto 4th or 5th in the AL East.
ChWS	9.0		Hous	13.0		MN	9.0		MN	3.0
Clev	12.0		ChiC	16.0		KC	22.0		StL	16.0
Detr	20.0		Cinc	29.0		Cle	8.0		Cinc	--		TB- Tie breaker: Points accumulated by each player's six
KC	34.0		Pitt	32.5		Det	14.0		Pitt	--		projected division winners.
			Milw	37.5					Mil	--
							62			32		Cum Stats: Average percentile placing of 119 players that have
ALW	GB		NLW	GB		ALW	Pts		NLW	Pts		participated for three or more years. Yrs- Years played;
Ana	-		LA	-		Ana	--		SF	2.0		Rank- Rank among 119 players.
Oak	1.0		SF	2.0		Oak	--		SD	4.0
Tex	3.0		SD	6.0		Sea	26.0		LA	6.0		Best Prior: Best previous finish, year and place.
Seat	29.0		CO	25.0		TX	26.0		CO	--
			AZ	42.0					AZ	--		Abbreviations: W03- won game in 2003, etc.
							52			12
						Total	........		184

Consensus: This year the Yankees or the Redsox were favored over the Cubs or Astros. Steve Mann (90) and Dave Harmel (101) each had Boston over St Louis in the World Series.

Division Leaders: Below is a list of the top picks in each division. There were 12 correct division scores this season, down from 138 last season. No one had more than one division correct.

AL East	Sc		AL Central	Sc		AL West	Sc		NL East	Sc		NL Central	Sc		NL West	Sc
Ed Stokes	0		AJ Julian	24		James Frank	0		A. Hazlewood	0		Greg Skruch	0		Sunil Pandya	12
Gene Scearce	0		Tom Tippett	28		Jordan Frank	0		Josh Sinnett	0		Larry Palomino	6		MLB Preview	12
Sunil Pandya	6		Craig Leen	28		Kelly Binks	0		Athlon Sports	0		Tom Tippett	6		Gary Huckabay	12
Lynne Martinelli	6		Doug Pappas	28		Brit Harvey	4		Gail Lampson	0		Dave Harmel	6		Mike Cain	34
James Frank	6		Jerry Davis	28		Andre Vorster	4		Bill Kirk	0		Danny Ford	7		Joseph Longiaru	34
Jim Thomas	6		Chris Dombrowski	28					Terry Quinn	0		N. J. Michael	13		Herb Stoltenberg	38
Todd Newville	6		Atticus Ryan	34					Donna Lang	6		Al Finlay	13		Jim Thomas	38
Joseph Longiaru	6		A. Hazlewood	34					Lynne Martinelli	6		AJ Julian	16		Todd Newville	38
Gene Yarrobino	6		Brit Harvey	40					Gene Yarrobino	6		Joe Russell	16		Shawn Dunaway	38
Don Dawson	6								Don Dawson	6		Steve Mann	16		Mike Kern	38
& 31 others tied @	6		29 tied @	44
69 tied @	21		45 tied @	50		72 tied @	52		34 tied @	20		68 tied @	32		104 tied @	84

Tie breaker: The TB represents the points accumulated by each player's six projected division winners. David Dial (7) and Kristen Mize (160) had the best tie breaker with 13.0 points. They each had five of six division winners correct, missing only on Houston in the NL Central.

Cum Stats: 2003 winner, Atticus Ryan, remains our Cum Stat leader with a four year average of 9.65%. He holds a 14.4% lead over David Dial (7) of Brea, CA. Gerry Hamilton (87) of Trinidad, CA retained the lead for veteran players and now holds a 5.1% lead over Tedd Thomey (27) of Long Beach, CA.

Best Prior: The last two columns of the final standings represent the best finish for each player through 2003. 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. Brit Harvey, who finished 2nd this year, improved his previous best finish which was 120th in 1996.

ggh 13Mar