Punditocracy

Jim Caple, a man whose disingenuous hatred of the Yankees makes him both the most obvious and the most needed writer in baseball today, was the only ESPN staffer to predict an Astros-White Sox World Series. In fact, he has yet to miss the winner of a postseason series, although the only series that he's gotten the length correct on was the Astros' NLDS victory over the Braves in four.

Steve Phillips, another ESPN soothsayer, who got every first round series correct and nailed three of the four series lengths, didn't do so well in the second round. He got both the victors and the lengths wrong in each League Championship Series. Philips had been notable for being the only human being to best the software used over at Coolstandings--which got all four winners, but only two of the lengths--in the first round.

CoolStandings did about as well as Philips in the second round, however, and missed both World Series reps, although they were able to suss that the NLCS would be over after six.

SI's panel has not come forth at least as of yet with their revised World Series picks, but should mention Jacob Luft, who although tagging the Yankees over the Angels in round one, still was prescient enough to predict a White Sox-Astros World Series.

Which, since I'm mentioning it, is what I had predicted, at least officially. You may remember I picked the Red Sox in round one, but corrected the mistake of going against the Go-Go Sox in round two.

All four CBS Sportsline guys pick Konerko as MVP, so Phil Garner, if you're reading, and hadn't already figured that Konerko might be the guy to focus on, take note. . . .

Wanted to get these posted, although we still may see more from both SI and Beyond the Boxscore. I'll update as needed.