FanGraphs: The Game: Washington Nationals DL Edition

The following comes to us from NotGraphs reader Brian Reinhart — a gentleman’s gentleman, and a nerd’s nerd. By now, I trust you’re all familiar with FanGraphs: The Game. If you’re not, I’ll wait. Brian will, too; he’s polite like that. Anyway, Mr. Reinhart is reporting — and our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has confirmed this — that a “grittily rebooted edition” of The Game is about to be released. And, well, he had us at “grittily.” Inspiring work, Mr. Reinhart. Thank you.

We are pleased to announce that, following the success of FanGraphs: The Game, beta testing has completed on a grittily rebooted edition, and FanGraphs: The Game: Washington Nationals DL Edition is ready for the fantasy-sporting, slightly-too-macabre public. The rules, as ever, are simple:

1. Every week, participants choose one member of the Washington Nationals whom they believe will make a trip to the disabled list, and specify the injury type.
2. Participants earn 10 points for every accurate prediction, as well as 5 points for specifying the correct injury type but the incorrect player, and 3 points for identifying an injured player but forecasting the wrong affliction.
3. It is possible to earn 5 points for accurately predicting a setback to a previously-DLed player.

The game is simple and sweet. Every Monday, before first pitch, use our handy player-selection interface to play the Game Reaper (if you will), and then use the text box to enter your expected injury. Responses within these text boxes will be hand-verified against a team medical report at the end of the week by a group of infallible disciplinarian matrons wearing bifocals.

To illustrate how FanGraphs: The Game: Nationals DL Edition works, let’s look at the last week of beta-testing ballots. There were five ways to earn points this week: Jayson Werth broke his wrist, Mark DeRosa aggravated a previous injury while high-fiving Bryce Harper, Wilson Ramos tore his ACL, Chris Marrero endured a setback to his torn hamstring, and, additionally, a point was made available for anyone forecasting a non-DL self-inflicted injury by and to Bryce Harper. Here were the testers’ ballots:

David Appelman: Ryan Zimmerman (3B), broken wrist (+5 points for broken wrist)
Dave Cameron: Ian Desmond (SS), strained plausibility
Carson Cistulli: Jayson Werth (RF), ingrown facial hair (+3 for Werth)
Jeremy Blachman: Gio Gonzalez (LHP), tripping over first base
Marc Hulet: every pitcher who hasn’t had Tommy John surgery, Tommy John surgery
Navin Vaswani: Bryce Harper (RF), strained hamstring while climbing into his truck
Dayn Perry: Rick Ankiel (CF), his shoulder, like a pornographic actress consigned in her twilight to assisted living, no longer fit to yield up for us the visual manifestations of beauteous primal human energy to which we had grown, as is the American wont in this era of consumerist pleasure, accustomed
Alex Remington: Adam LaRoche (1B), accidentally injured by Bryce Harper (+5 for accidental Harper-induced injury)
Bill Petti: Roger Bernadina (LF), Ebola

Thus our beta round concluded with Alex Remington in the lead with 24 points in just six weeks. Scoring opportunities are so common that we had to tweak the rules to limit players to just one injury forecast per week. If you’d like to participate in FanGraphs: The Game: Washington Nationals DL Edition, let us know quickly. Space in the league is not that limited, but frankly, at this point there aren’t many Nationals left.

Follow Brian on Twitter: @bgreinhart.