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March 27th: The game is on, again. When last I left you in October, I admitted to having, once again, hit the wall and I was looking for someone to step up take the reigns of the Annual Baseball Predictions. Within a couple of weeks there were two offers. Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and Chris Smith of Fort Worth, TX both expressed an interest in taking the game. Chris explained that his plate was full at the time but when he had caught up he would get back to me. I turned to Josh and in February we gave Josh access to the UnitedLeagues website and added him to the distribution of the E-mail Form page and we were up and running. Also at about that time I began to prepare a set of Operating Instructions for Josh. I trust that he is studying hard now. In any event I will stay with this until Josh is ready step up.

On March 19th the invitations went out to about 190 current and former participants and the first player predictions started rolling in. As of this writing we have received 46 sets of predictions.

April 3rd: This morning a reminder went out to about 120 current and former participants. We currently have 89 sets of predictions, including six this morning and six new players. Last year we received exactly 100 sets of predictions in the last two days so we'll probably be fairly close to 200 participants. Keep those cards and letters (and e-mails) comin'.

April 8th: The e-mail form page has been closed as of this date and we will go forward with 190 predictors including 15 new predictors. Work on the Consensus will begin now and we plan to up and running about April 30th.

April 18th: The Player Consensus has been uploaded. This year's consensus includes 186 players. Detroit in the AL Central is projected as a near unanimous pick to win the division, while two other teams, the Yankees in the AL East and the Phillies in the NL East are projected as easy winners in their respective divisions. The Angels and Giants are also projected as division winners while the Cardinals are a very narrow choice over the Reds in the NL Central.

Two divisions, The AL West and the NL Central are projected to have big gaps between the first and second divisions while the AL Central appears to be wide open behind the Tigers.

The American league representative, either the Angels, the Tigers or the Yankees are projected as the World Champion, over the Phillies from the National League. That would seem to reflect the fact the two of the senior circuit's top sluggers have defected to the American League this year.

April 23rd: The spreadsheet has been completed, tested and run twice including today. The results are posted on the leader board page. We are on schedule for a first posting of all Player Standings to the site next Monday. Stay tuned....

April 30th: The first Players Standings were uploaded to the site on this date.

May 21st: Here is an up date on the game transition. As announced at the beginning of this year's game there will be a hand over of the game's activities to Josh Stinnett of Bellingham, WA during the season. Josh has had some unexpected new priorities on the home front and he has had to commit most/all of his time to those priorities. As a result, Josh hasn't been able to devote much time to the game but things are beginning to improve now and he will be getting back to the game. In the meantime he has made some progress with his spreadsheet and we expect to be comparing notes within the next few weeks.

I have begun work on the current CumStats data and hope to have that ready for the site and for the hand over by the All-Star Break.

July 12th: CumStats files accounting for 160 active three players, including ten new three year players and 205 inactive players have been posted to the web site. There is no change to the current Top 4 Players file but there is a new three player, Danny Knobler of CBSSportsline.com that we should keep an eye on. Danny is currently (A-SB) in 133rd place just ahead of Josh Sinnett, our current CumStat leader. (Not to worry, Josh, as it's a weighted average and you got weigh more wait (play on words) than Danny.

The 160 active three players represends 84% of the current player count. The last time that I recall looking at this level of data was in 2007, five years ago. At that time we had 78% of the current players were also three year players and I thought that might have been an all time high. Now, despite declining player count, the level of repeating players is remaining high, so I guess that we are doing OK.

August 6th: Last week I reported the loss of and important CumStat file. That file, which includes the detail player stats for a total of ninety players has been broken into two separate files and recreated. All is well behind the scenes once again, well almost.

August 13th: Last week I learned the Josh Sinnett will be unable to take on the task of running the game, so I will be looking for a new replacement during the off season. I will try to keep the game going until there is someone else in place, but I won't be able to run the game for very much longer. If you think that you might be interested or would like to recommend someone for the job, please let me know and we'll start the process.

October 15th: The new CumStats for 160 currently active players has been posted. John Salizzoni of Manchester, NH is our new CumStats leader. John finished tied for 23rd this year and and has a seven year average of 23.17, two-tenths of a point better than new three player, Larry Waters of Danbury, CN. You can view the details, year-to-year results of the top four players which has also been posted.