Scoring

The basics are simple. By the start of each month, predict the order of each division's season standings at the end of that month. For example, by Opening Day, you'd predict the order of each division after April 30th's games. By May 1st, you'd predict the order after May 31st's games. And so on.

Scores are tallied for each pick month. If you predict a team's place correctly, you get no points. If you're off by one place, you get one point, two places gets two points, and so on. Points are bad. The lowest score at the end of the season is the winner.

Example: this might have been someone's American League East picks for April 2008, and their results for the month:

Team	W	L	Perc	Place	User Pick	Points
Boston Red Sox	17	12	.586	1	1	0
Baltimore Orioles	16	12	.571	2	3	1
Tampa Bay Rays	15	12	.556	3	5	2
New York Yankees	14	15	.483	4	2	2
Toronto Blue Jays	11	17	.393	5	4	1
Total						6

Leaving a pick blank at the deadline is an automatic three points.

There are two wrinkles - the first is ties. For the purposes of this pool, the standings are determined by winning percentage, not game standings. Therefore, while 60-40 and 61-41 are called "tied" in the newspaper, the pool calculates that 60-40 (.600) is better than 61-41 (.598).

However, sometimes teams do have identical records at the end of a month. Say it's a tie for 2nd. In that case, both teams are considered to be in 2nd and 3rd place - whichever benefits you the most. For example, if you picked them 2nd/3rd or 3rd/2nd, you'd get zero. If you picked them 4th/5th, you'd get 1 for the 4th place pick and 2 for the 5th place pick, as though they were both in 3rd. A rare three-way (or more) tie would be handled the same way. Three teams tied for 2nd would treat all three teams as though they were in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places.

As an example, this might have been someone's American League Central picks for the end of July 2008, when the ChiSox and Twins were tied for first:

Team	W	L	Perc	Place	User Pick	Points
Chicago White Sox	60	48	.556	1t	1	0
Minnesota Twins	60	48	.556	1t	2	0
Detroit Tigers	55	53	.509	3	5	2
Kansas City Royals	50	59	.459	4	3	1
Cleveland Indians	47	60	.439	5	4	1
Total						4

Note how you're always picking for cumulative season records, not just how teams fare in a particular month.

The other wrinkle is that you can duplicate picks all you want. You don't have to have 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th. If you wanted, you could pick all teams in a division to finish in the same place, but you probably wouldn't do that. It's more likely that you'd pick two teams to have the same place as part of your strategy (see below). This also helps reduce the risk of ties for the pool, and adds flexibility to your picks.

Strategy

Got two teams battling it out for first, and can't choose between them? Consider picking them both for 2nd place! You're basically admitting that you'll get one point, but reducing the risk of getting two by having the eventual 1st/2nd places switched. Note that picking them both for first is riskier, because one of them might drop to third.

The same strategy works for two teams battling for last place, except you'd pick them both 4th (in a five-team division).

While picking could take a mere five minutes each month, serious players will need to do some research. Who's playing tough teams or cellar dwellers this coming month? Who's coming back from injury? Which team has a long road trip against powerhouses or a homestand versus creampuffs? Which teams historically heat up in the summer or fade under the grind around Labor Day?

April and May are the toughest months to pick. All teams start out tied on Opening Day, whereas by August lots of the standings are pretty firm.

The Future

If enough people wanted to make this a for-money pool next year (2010), I could award winnings to best monthly scores as well as the season winners - or just the season winners. It'd be by majority decision.