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Welcome to the Ding Dong Challenge, a game were we try and correctly predict who will hit the most home runs in a given week, keep score throughout the entire season and win a free, awesome t-shirt. Here’s last week’s report card and this week’s list of “elites”. If you want to play, just pick one player from the “elites” and two players from the “everyone else” category (which is just everyone who’s not elite), then list your team in the comments. The sooner you create your team, the better as you only get the homers from when your team is posted till the end of the week.
Week 1 report card
| Name | Week 1 Total | Elite | Everyone Else 1 | Everyone Else 2 | Total Ding Dongs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Week 1 Total | Elite | Everyone Else 1 | Everyone Else 2 | Total Ding Dongs |
| Salti Cracker | 6 | Mike Trout (3) | Giancarlo Stanton (1) | Aaron Judge (2) | 6 |
| Mark Abell | 3 | Joey Gallo (1) | Edwin Encarnación (1) | Nicholas Castellanos (1) | 3 |
| Pete Rogers | 1 | Bryce Harper (0) | J.D. Martinez (1) | Kris Bryant (0) | 1 |
Salti Cracker started the challenge with the best strategy: pick the best home run hitters and trust that they will get you dingers. And they did. Stanton is still struggling to go yard but both Trout and Judge were wildly productive this week. Lucky for Salti, Trout knocked all three of his homers later in the week so they call counted to his team. He missed out on one Judge homer early in the week. Good start from Mark too who got production from all three of his picks (he missed out on an early Gallo homer).
Meanwhile the dumb “you don’t get points for homers hit on days before you make your team” rule that I created really effed me over last week as Harper’s only homer came on Monday, before I’d even created this game. This game sucks.
Actually, what really upsets me is that I picked J.D. Martinez instead of Mookie Betts as my honorary Red Sox member. I quite literally spent twenty minutes debating between which one to pick and of course I get ONE home run from J.D. instead of the FOUR DINGERS that Mookie hit last week. Just my luck.
Just for fun, here’s what the perfect lineup from last week could’ve looked like:
Elite: Javier Baez (3)
Everyone Else 1: Manny Machado (5)
Everyone Else 2: Mookie Betts (4)
On to Week 2!
Week 2 Elites
| Name | Team | G | PA | HR | ISO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | G | PA | HR | ISO |
| Javier Baez | Cubs | 19 | 80 | 7 | 0.444 |
| Christian Villanueva | Padres | 19 | 72 | 7 | 0.419 |
| Didi Gregorius | Yankees | 20 | 86 | 6 | 0.409 |
| Charlie Blackmon | Rockies | 18 | 79 | 8 | 0.391 |
| Mike Trout | Angels | 22 | 101 | 9 | 0.376 |
| Mookie Betts | Red Sox | 19 | 85 | 6 | 0.366 |
| Bryce Harper | Nationals | 22 | 100 | 8 | 0.362 |
| Mitch Haniger | Mariners | 20 | 82 | 7 | 0.357 |
| Manny Machado | Orioles | 22 | 99 | 8 | 0.356 |
| A.J. Pollock | Diamondbacks | 20 | 82 | 5 | 0.338 |
| Ozzie Albies | Braves | 20 | 93 | 6 | 0.337 |
| Paul DeJong | Cardinals | 21 | 83 | 7 | 0.312 |
| Max Kepler | Twins | 16 | 60 | 4 | 0.308 |
| Josh Reddick | Astros | 19 | 76 | 6 | 0.297 |
| Mike Moustakas | Royals | 20 | 88 | 6 | 0.294 |
| Matt Davidson | White Sox | 16 | 71 | 5 | 0.293 |
| Jose Ramirez | Indians | 19 | 85 | 7 | 0.292 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | Diamondbacks | 21 | 91 | 4 | 0.292 |
| Rhys Hoskins | Phillies | 21 | 87 | 4 | 0.292 |
| Brandon Belt | Giants | 17 | 70 | 5 | 0.288 |
| Aaron Judge | Yankees | 20 | 93 | 6 | 0.284 |
| Joey Gallo | Rangers | 23 | 95 | 7 | 0.279 |
| Yadier Molina | Cardinals | 20 | 81 | 6 | 0.276 |
| Khris Davis | Athletics | 22 | 101 | 6 | 0.27 |
| Yangervis Solarte | Blue Jays | 19 | 83 | 5 | 0.265 |
Anyone not on this list is an Everyone Else. Reminder: you pick one Elite and two Everyone Else each week so choose wisely! Leave your team in the comments if you want to play this week (and feel free to leave your twitter handle as we’ll give a shoutout each week to the previous week’s winner).