April 2025 Newsletter
By Gilbert D. Martinez
Fifteen chapter members – including three attending their very first Hornsby Chapter meeting – enjoyed a pleasant spring day and barbecue lunch provided by the family of Nicole Bryan-Hall, Brian Hall and Bailey Hall in Central Austin on Sunday.
We extended a warm welcome to James Navarro, who is new to the Hornsby Chapter, formerly with the Rocky Mountain Chapter; Clayton Hsiung, who is an exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin and from Taiwan; and Jeff Latimer from Martindale.
Co-host Brian Hall spent weeks crafting a trivia quiz for this month’s meeting with a hodgepodge of questions that focused on baseball in recent years and introduced a new statistic that tracks teams’ opening day payrolls divided by wins.
Newcomer Clayton Hsiung took top prize (and a pair of socks, pictured above, featuring his favorite team, the Texas Rangers!) with 28 points, while Ryan Pollack took second with 25 points (winning a Jose Altuve votive candle). They are pictured above (ClaytonWhile they were the only contestants with scores in the 20s, Ira Siegel had 18 points; James Navarro and Jerry Miller had 17; and Gilbert Martinez had 16.
Click here to take your swing at Brian Hall’s baseball quiz.
Click here for the answers: Brian Hall’s baseball quiz — key.
To learn more about his new statistic, click here.
For the list of players that have had Tommy John surgery, click here.
Many thanks to the Halls for their generous hospitality and challenging quiz and to everyone able to join us, especially the new members!
Speaking of trivia…
As you probably know, SABR 53 will be June 25-29 at the Westin DFW Airport in Irving! And the Hornsby Chapter is looking to put together a trivia team. Planning on attending and want to join our trivia team? Please reach out to Chapter Commissioner Gilbert D. Martinez.
Also, make note that early bird registration for SABR 53 ends April 25. Click this link for more details about registration, hotel, scheduled speakers and events: https://sabr.org/convention/
Hopes run high as Predictatron begins anew!
[Note: Jim Baker shared the first Predictatron update of the season with the email list on April 6.]
By Jim Baker
Sunday, April 6, 2025, edition
IT’S ALL TOO REAL NOW!
And so it begins: another season of Predictatron futility, exuberance, frustration and joy. The contest with the impossible mandate of predicting an entire baseball season is underway once more.
Breaking out on top is Team Hall, pacing the field with a score of 291 points. As you would imagine, Team Hall is also our first Player of the Week. They lead the Brian Rogers Division by 29 points over Mr. Wancho after the first go-round. Not too far behind them is Eric Robinson Division leader Mr. Dillon, who comes out of the starting blocks with 289 points. His closest pursuer is Mr. Harrell, who is just 10 points off the mark. Those blessed with keen memories will remember that Mr. Dillon came within three Yankee World Series wins of taking not only this contest, but our postseason tourney as well. If this first week’s performance is any indication, he’s trying to make up for that close loss.
Mr. Rogers, our defending champion, is showing the effects of his offseason spent celebrating his victory and making the rounds of the banquet circuit as a much-sought-after lecturer, stumbling out of the chute 81 points off the leader. As we well know, though, no lead is safe at this early point in the season. In his attempt to defend his own division, Mr. Robinson finds himself in the middle of the pack.
With 25 participants, this is our largest field ever. We are welcoming two new players this year, Mr. Barnes of the Rogers Division and Mr. Windham of the Robinson. In the battle for the mythical Rookie of the Year title, the latter leads the former 245 to 224 for starters. Watch this space for updates on that particular rivalry.
When one submits a ballot to a contest of this sort, one never knows how far removed one is from the collective group think of all the contestants. One way to measure it is to compare this year’s submissions to last year’s standings. Perhaps the safest thing to do would be to simply submit last year’s standings as your ballot for this year. If that were the case, you would have a perfect score of 1,000 in the following chart. This reckoning, known as “Mild or Wild” does just that: gives each player a score comparing their ballot to last year’s standings. The higher your score on this chart, the ”milder” your ballot is; the lowest scores are, therefore, the “Wildest.”
Mild or Wild 2025
Note that the average and median are both around 840. Which approach is best? We shall see…
|
897 |
Gilbert Martinez |
|
894 |
Kevin Barnes |
|
869 |
Jerry Miller |
|
866 |
Scott Gay |
|
864 |
Ira Siegel |
|
860 |
Team Hall |
|
858 |
Mike Dillon |
|
858 |
Bob Windham |
|
853 |
Gary McIntosh |
|
851 |
Jim Baker |
|
851 |
Eric Robinson |
|
842 |
Don Dingee |
|
841 |
Mike Harrell |
|
839 |
John Rechtorovic |
|
839 |
Syd Polk |
|
835 |
Brian Rogers |
|
832 |
Mike McNulty |
|
830 |
Frank Rechtorovic |
|
829 |
Ryan Pollack |
|
822 |
Dan Walsh |
|
818 |
Chris Crombar |
|
815 |
Jan Larson |
|
809 |
Raeanne Martinez |
|
795 |
Tom Wancho |
|
792 |
Michael Bass |
In our next report, we’ll find out which teams we as a group favor for titles, Locks and all that sort of thing.
Through games of Sunday, April 6, or 5.9 percent of the 2025 season:
Brian Rogers Division
|
|
PLAYER |
Points |
PB |
|
1 |
Team Hall* |
291 |
|
|
2 |
Tom Wancho |
262 |
29 |
|
3 |
Scott Gay |
257 |
34 |
|
4 |
Mike McNulty |
243 |
58 |
|
5 |
Kevin Barnes |
224 |
67 |
|
6 |
John Rechtorovic |
211 |
80 |
|
6 |
Syd Polk |
211 |
80 |
|
6 |
Jim Baker |
211 |
80 |
|
9 |
Brian Rogers |
210 |
81 |
|
9 |
Gilbert Martinez |
210 |
81 |
|
11 |
Ryan Pollack |
208 |
83 |
|
12 |
Don Dingee |
197 |
94 |
|
*Player of the Week |
|||
Eric Robinson Division
|
|
PLAYER |
Points |
PB |
|
1 |
Mike Dillon |
289 |
|
|
2 |
Mike Harrell |
279 |
10 |
|
3 |
Jerry Miller |
259 |
30 |
|
4 |
Frank Rechtorovic |
257 |
32 |
|
5 |
Bob Windham |
245 |
44 |
|
6 |
Jan Larson |
244 |
45 |
|
7 |
Eric Robinson |
241 |
48 |
|
8 |
Ira Siegel |
237 |
52 |
|
9 |
Chris Crombar |
225 |
64 |
|
10 |
Gary McIntosh |
222 |
67 |
|
11 |
Dan Walsh |
217 |
72 |
|
12 |
Raeanne Martinez |
208 |
81 |
|
13 |
Michael Bass |
127 |
162 |
A new season of Awardatron underway!
[Note: Ryan Pollack shared the following on the group email list on March 27, shortly after the start of the season.]
By Ryan Pollack
Happy baseball, y’all! The ballots are in and the season has begun. Yes, I know it began in Japan a couple weeks ago. You know what I mean.
This is the fourth year of the contest and we have a record-high 20 players. Including myself! Yes, I have no special knowledge, no crystal ball, no inside scoop that y’all don’t have. So I’m in the mix as well.
For scoring purposes, I will split us into two divisions. This year we are going with 1950 RoY winners. Yes, you guessed it, that means we will have the Walt Dropo division and the Sam Jethroe division. I have assigned you to these divisions randomly.
Let’s take a look at whom we think will take home the hardware this year:
As a group we are pretty sure BWJ will take home the hardware. I waffled between him and Judge but decided to bet on youth. The rest of the field is split between some familiar faces and names — guys who have flashed excellence and at times finished in high spots but have never won the award itself. (Yordan is on my fantasy team so I would love to see him win the award as well!)
I do so dearly hope that Gunnar wins the MVP. He was the frontrunner for much of last year but, like many of the O’s, tailed off too much to get close in the end.
Here we have another clear favorite! Can you blame folks? I predict fewer stolen bases for Ohtani, but he has shown dominance on the mound in the past, so it’s fair to expect the same from him again this year. (Side note — I’m sorry, but can we just take a moment and recognize that the first 50/50 player in major league history is also a starting pitcher, and a pretty good (at times borderline ace) one at that?!?!!? I … I need a moment to wrap my head around this. Sorry. Talk amongst yourselves. Sheesh).
Scoobs (say that in Shaggy’s voice, please) is the favorite to repeat here. I see no reason why he can’t, which is why I picked him. He’s at peak age and was absurdly dominant last year, by which I mean, did not rely on that much batted ball luck or sequencing to achieve his results. The rest of the field is pretty mixed, with some thinking that Gilbert and Ragans will take the leap, as well as recent extendee Bibee (yes, I made that joke on purpose).
Phenom Skenes is the clear favorite here amongst the group. The young fireballer impressed everyone last year en route to NL ROY hardware. He is projected by many systems and pundits to be the best pitcher in the NL this year. Perennial also-ran Wheeler comes in (naturally!) 2nd place. After that you have a pair of previous award winners in Sale and Snell, and the very-good-but-never-quite-dominant Cease.
The AL ROY field seems wide open. In my opinion nearly all of these guys have some kind of shot, with the exception being, err, Skubal. (Yes, I gave that contestant plenty of time to change their submission. No, they did not.) The two Red Sox prospects — Anthony and Campbell — are why many think the team will do much better this year than in the last couple of years.
The NL ROY predictions are more heavily concentrated around two players — Sasaki and Crews, in this case. Also, someone is clearly hoping the Orioles trade Mayo to the NL prior for an early-season callup. (That someone is not me, not unless we get some amazing haul for him.)
Continuing the Red Sox theme, many here think Alex Cora will win AL MOY. The Red Sox had a very good offseason, so if they make the playoffs convincingly, he might. The next cluster of votes went to Dan Wilson, newly minted skipper of the Mariners. Will he succeed where Scott Servais could not? In my opinion the Mariners still lack the offense to make a run at the division; although, the Astros are probably the most vulnerable they have been in a long time, and the Rangers have holes as well.
Finally, we land on NL MOY predictions. It’s never wise to bet against Terry Francona, as he is an awesome manager and has won the hardware several times before. Can he do it again but this time in a different Ohio city? I’m not personally sure the Reds have enough talent to make a run, but hey, what do I know?
====
Stick around y’all, it’s going to be a fun season — especially in the AL, as there are a significant number of teams with a reasonable shot at the playoffs. I plan to provide updates & commentary towards the end of each month.
Thanks for playing and see ya in about a month!
Next meeting
Our next meeting will be a Round Rock Express game at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 17, for Star Wars Night! More details to come early next month about a pre-game barbecue dinner at Salt Lick and where we’ll be sitting.