HAPPY 2023 OPENING DAY! After the huge let down that was the 2022 Chicago White Sox, we are all holding out hope that this year will bring us a Sox team that bounces back. This is the fourth year of the White Sox Lineup Simulator Challenge and for the second year in a row, we have set a submission record! 135 lineups were submitted, of which 107 of them were unique!
Before getting to the results and awards, I want to thank you for sharing, re-tweeting, blackmailing your friends, and most importantly: submitting lineups! I also cannot forget to thank our wonderful sponsor More Than Dawgs . More Than Dawgs is a locally owned hot dog stand located at the southeast corner of 3400 S. Shields during game days and most evenings during the summer. The More Than Dawgs crew were very generous and are providing $100 of gift cards to top performers! Be sure to check them out during the summer and do note that they also can cater parties! Lastly, I need to thank my friend (and OOTP guru) Don for helping me rewrite my simulation program. With his help, I was able to process each of your submissions for 10k games in a few blinks of the eye. Thank you Don!
As a reminder, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept, be sure to check out my post for the first run of the challenge and the post from last year’s challenge. As a quick reminder, I run each lineup for 10k games, and take the average runs per game. This ensures that the exercise gets to the core of the lineup's ability and isn't ranked on a very high or very low simulation. Additionally, the numbers used to feed the simulator come from ZiPS projections via Fangraphs' website, so I’d be remiss to not thank Dan Szymborski for making them publicly available.
This was the most competitive year yet! 135 submissions each ran 10k times resulted in a very tight race (just look at this distribution plot!). Like last year, I have placed the results in a quick and easy dashboard. Click the link and filter by your name or twitter handle to find your results!
Results
The Awards Section
The "Smartest Person on the White Sox Interwebs" Award
We have yet to have a repeat champion and this year continues that trend. Congratulations to @regionrat14 on winning this year’s challenge! Their lineup beat out the second place finisher by a whopping 0.005 runs per game. Talk about razor thin margins! With your new title comes a great reward: a $30 gift card from More Than Dawgs. Be sure to enjoy a few hotdogs (or something else) before heading into your next Sox game and I hope to see you defend your title next year!
The "Close But No Cigar" Award
Last year’s winner @richwp01 just missed winning for a second year in a row! Their lineup produced 4.0129 runs per game, missing out on the crown by less than 0.05 runs. Seeing that this year brought even more submissions, I am quite impressed! Well done!
The "Middle Ground" Award
Hanging out right in the middle were @bendraus7 and @eleven90three. Both lineups produced about 3.943 runs per game. Maybe next year you both can get closer to the top 25% of submissions!
The "OOTP Isn't Real Life" Group Award
Brian finished in 15th (great job), Adam finished 40th (solid), Ben finished 67th (good job getting mentioned twice), Nick finished 81st (come on man), Eric finished 112th (hard to believe you’ve won so many titles in BAMN), and George finished in 132nd (shocking…). Each year continues to show me that y’all really don’t know ball.
The "CHGO Bragging Rights" Award
It's always great to get submissions from larger accounts on White Sox Twitter and this year I was fortunate to get submissions from two hosts of the CHGO White Sox Podcast, Sean Anderson and Herb Lawrence. Both Sean (39th) and Herb (45th) did well overall, but Sean beat Herb's lineup by 0.01 runs per game. Having Grandal, Jimenez, and Benintendi in their top three slots certainly aided in their strong performances. Hope to see both of you again next year!
The "House Divided Cannot Stand" Award
Last year we saw Goose narrowly edge out Mel by 2.6 runs and this year…MEL PLUCKED THE GOOSE! Mel finished in 26th with 3.9784 runs per game and Goose finished in 93rd with 3.9220 runs per game. To boot, she beat out her brother and brother-in-law! Tony finished in 87th with 3.9223 runs per game while Adrian finished in 123rd with 3.7772 runs per game. I am glad to be an accomplice in providing you with something to hold over their heads!
The "Where's Your Wand" Award
The 2021 Wizard of White Sox Twitter, Sam Reeves, continues to tumble down the leaderboard! In 2021 he finished 2nd overall (don’t mind the small sample size) and last year he finished in 72nd. This year he’s tied for 102nd place with 3.9073 runs per game! Come on man! Better study those spells for next year!
The "Golden Goose" Award
Well, this one isn’t entirely fair because I twisted your arm for your submission, but this year’s Golden Goose is Maggie Y. I’m guessing you chose your lineup by throwing darts at a spring training team picture of the White Sox because this one was a bit creative! Better luck next year!
Prizes
This year, prizes will go to the top five performing lineups! I will be in contact about how I can get the gift cards to you.
@regionrat14: $30
@ajaypatell8: $25
@ghastlie: $20
Justin Schlender: $15
@richwp01 and @FantasyBaseShow (tied): $10 each
To wrap things up, I want to once again thank everyone for participating. This year was a huge success and we hope to see you back next year!
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