Updated: voting for the 2021 APBA Blog Pitching Grade Challenge has now concluded. Good luck!
Hey APBA Fans!
The 2021 MLB regular season is over and I am so happy it was a full one. With its conclusion, The APBA Blog is excited to announce the 2021 APBA Blog Pitching Grade Challenge! I am excited to do this for the fourth year in a row.
What is the APBA Blog Pitching Grade Challenge?
Quite simply, the Pitching Grade Challenge is your chance to enter a contest and see how good you are at guessing what grade APBA will give the pitchers of 2021. I have chosen twenty starting pitchers from this season and you will vote on what grade each one will receive on their 2021 APBA card.
Pitching Grade Challenge history
This is the fourth Pitching Grade Challenge in four years. Each year, the involvement by APBA fans has increased.
In the initial year in 2018, 121 readers participated, Jesse Elicker was the clear winner, guessing 19 of the 20 pitchers. You can see the results here. In 2019, it was a tight race. Two APBA fans, Joe Deauseault and Darren Schulz were correct on 19 of 20 while nine more got 18 right.
Last year, we had a record 141 entrants and of those, Gordon Titchener won by correctly guessing all 20 pitchers. He was the first in the first entrant to score a perfect 100% score.
Gordon sets a high bar for 2021!
So, let’s move on to this year’s APBA Blog Pitching Grade Challenge…
Here’s how the Pitching Grade Challenge works
As in past Challenges, I have chosen 20 starting pitchers from 2021. Via a web form, you will be able to guess which grade (A, B, C or D) each pitcher will receive in the upcoming set which will soon be released from the Company.
Here are some rules and clarifications:
- The Challenge is scheduled to end on November 22nd at 11:59pm.
- One entry per person, please.
- I am only looking for the letter grade for each pitcher and not strikeout or control ratings.
- If a pitcher receives a grade as a starter and reliever (split grade) or is graded strictly as a reliever, that pitcher will be dropped from the contest results.
- If a pitcher receives an A&C or an A&B grade, he will be considered an A for the sake of this Challenge.
- If there is a tie for the most correct guesses, I will place the names of those top entrants in a ball cap and pick the winner.
- While I will eventually post an analysis of the aggregate data, I will not publicly post your guesses without your permission. Your email address remains private and is only used to contact you in case you are the winner.
- Employees of the APBA Games Company are ineligible (for obvious reasons).
While I am not officially entering the contest, I will be making my own guesses for fun. I’ll post my ballot publicly once the deadline has passed.
A few changes this year
In the past couple of years after I released the final results, a few APBA fans asked me how they voted (I mean, it had been a few weeks by then). This year when you receive the email notification of the successful submission, you will also receive your ballot in that email for future reference. If you don’t see the email, check your spam filter.
In addition, I have added a text field in the ballot. If anyone has suggestions to improve the Challenge (or The APBA Blog itself) please feel free to let me know. Or just take the time to say “hi!”.
In a different vein, I’ve added a bit of a twist for the 2021 Pitching Grade Challenge. Among the twenty pitchers I chose, there are four who played for multiple teams. Will APBA grade the pitcher on the total stats or on their last team’s stats? That decision is up to you.
Either way, some research will be in order!
Grand Prize!
The person who has the most correct guesses will receive a free prize from the APBA Game Company. Thanks to John Herson and the APBA Company for donating the Grand Prize for the winner. This has always been a fun event in the fall and I appreciate this contribution by the Company!
Thanks also to those responsible for the APBA Journal Pitching Grade Contest in the past. It was an inspiration for this effort.
Don’t wait! Click the red button to enter the 2021 APBA Blog Pitching Grade Challenge! Good luck to everyone!!
