Pinstripe Alley’s playoff prediction results

The World Series champion that no one outside of the state of Texas wanted has been crowned, and the MLB offseason is fully upon us. As if that latter point wasn’t hammered home enough, the Mets have already made a nine-figure commitment with a free agent, albeit one of their own.

But at Pinstripe Alley, we still have some accounts to settle from our own words. Throughout the playoffs, I asked members of the PSA staff to offer up their best guesses for outcomes of the upcoming rounds. First, I had them lay out the entire postseason at the beginning of the Wild Card Series, and then after each round was settled, I had them take a stab at new predictions. Because we have nothing left to celebrate from the 2022 team aside our from our vanity (and perhaps Aaron Judge’s MVP), let’s tally up the successful predictions and see who fared the best!

Since the Wild Card Series was only a best-of-three, I only asked for the winner, so that’s one point for each correct outcome. From then on, I asked for the number of games needed in each series. If they nailed both, then they’d get two points; merely getting the victor only resulted in one.

Note: Due to various personal commitments, not all staff members were able to get predictions in for every round.

First off: Kudos to John for being the only staff member to sweep a round! He had the Guardians, Mariners, Phillies, and Padres each beating the Rays, Blue Jays, Cardinals, and Mets. The latter two picks were particularly inspired, as those weren’t popular upsets.

Buoyed by his perfect Wild Card, John had the lead after two rounds with six points, though it was only a share since Dan, our graphic specialist, had six as well. He got half his Wild Card picks correctly, plus three out of four in the Division Series (including an extra point for “Phillies in 4” over the Braves). Both NLDS outcomes were shocking, as two 100-win teams were dispatched by Wild Cards, but both Dan and Kunj had ‘em both right.

Now, on to the revised Championship Series and World Series predictions. The same point rules carried over here, and I awarded two if they got the series MVP correct.

The latter two rounds did not go nearly as well for John and Dan, who only garnered a point apiece. As Josh, Andrés, and Malachi (Hayes) each tied them with seven, a new leader in the clubhouse emerged: Sam, with nine. He had both the Astros and Phillies winning the pennant, and then was one of four writers to nail “Astros in 6.” Too bad no one had Jeremy Peña sweeping the ALCS and World Series MVP honors — let alone garnering even one.

However, we’re not done running through the playoff predictions yet! Remember, I had folks predict the Championship Series and World Series participants (plus champions and MVP) at the start of the postseason, too, when it was even more difficult to gauge who would be there. So let’s take that into consideration, awarding one point for each correct LCS/WS participant with two for both, and three for nailing the overall champion.

Picking Yankees/Astros for the ALCS was the chalk pick, but it was also correct. So we all got at least one point there, though Jesse, Chris, and Esteban had their hopes too high for our neighbors to the north. I was tempted to give John an extra point for his improbable-but-true prediction of the Phillies making the World Series all the way back on October 7th.

But in the end, the scoreboard had our playoff prediction king — someone who wasn’t even on the staff when October began.

Malachi Hayes: 13

Sam Chapman: 11
John Griffin: 11

Dan Brink: 10
Andrés Chávez: 10
Josh Diemert: 10

Estevão Maximo: 8
Kunj Shah: 8

Peter Brody: 7
Jake Devin: 7
Andrew Mearns: 7
Madison Pavich: 7
Kevin Winterhalt: 7

Matt Ferenchick: 6
Joe LoGrippo: 6
Jeff Middleton: 6
Esteban Rivera: 6

Jesse Dorey: 5
Chris Guay: 5

Malachi didn’t even get to make Wild Card Series picks, and he still kicked our asses! What else can we say but congrats to the newbie.

Stay tuned for next week, though. We’ll have our overall season predictions to look back on when the awards are all announced, and the good news is that Malachi can’t beat us there because he wasn’t with us in April. So there! (We just have to look out in 2023, apparently.)