Fish Stripes 2014 Marlins Season Preview: Ichthyomancy!

The Miami Marlins are going to have a difficult 2014 season, but that does not mean us Fish Stripes readers cannot have a little fun and competition this year. One of the ways that Fish Stripes provides some in-season entertainment is via the premier Marlins prediction game, Ichthyomancy! Yes, Ichthyomancy is back, and while this preview comes a little later than I'd like, I hope it will still serve to tell everyone about the game and get you all to play again in 2014!

Last Season's Winners

The offseason got carried away and I failed to declare the winners from last year in a big way, but let me reiterate those winners The winner for last year was Jigokusabre by a landslide victory.

Rules

The rules are essentially the same as last season and similar to years before. Here is the article on the rules from last season, for reference. There are, however, a few significant tweaks for this year.

The basic premise is that you will each make three picks for the game.

Attendance: One pick will be your selection for attendance. You write in your thought on how many people will attend the game. The person with the closest guess gets two points.

Hero of the Game: Your next pick is going to be for hero of the game. This will be the Marlins player with the most WPA in the game. However, this season, we will accept up to the top three WPA, provided they are all above 0.100. If no Marlin gets more than 0.100 WPA, no one will be called the hero of the game.

Above and Beyond: This is a wild card selection of your choice. Essentially, you can guess anything that might happen during the game, though preferably something that is trackable via the box score. Think Giancarlo Stanton is going to hit a home run? Put it down! Think Donovan Solano is going to hit three home runs? Put it down! Each player makes a pick, and at the end of the game, we determine how many points a correct guess is worth. This season, AAB picks can be worth up to four points now, so if you are certain Jose Fernandez is going to throw a no-hitter, that will be four points in the books for you. The AAB winner often ends up being at the top of the season's list, so the category is very important.

Format/p>

Here's what you have to do to play. Everyday, we are going to post a game thread a few hours early before the game. Go ahead and put up your Ichthy picks in the comments as follows:

- The title of the comment should be your attendance pick

- The first line of the comment should be your hero of the game

- The second line of the comment should be your AAB pick

If you did it right, it should look something like this:

22,000

Giancarlo Stanton

Donovan Solano 3 home runs

It is as simple as that! We will tabulate the rest and keep everyone posted with weekly updates to the scores. At the end of the season, we will award two winners: a second half and overall season winner!

What's the best way to be in the winner's circle? You have to keep playing! Put in your picks every day and you too have a chance to win Ichthyomancy like the winners before you! So get started today and go to the game thread in a few hours and place your Ichthyomancy picks! And if you have time, join the rest of the Fish Stripers in the game thread!