Dust off your crystal ball again, it's time for MLBTR's second annual free agent prediction contest! Predict destinations for our top 50 free agents, with the chance to win fantastic prizes and bragging rights over your friends and the MLBTR writing team. Last year's winner had 15 correct; can you beat that?
How To Play
- Click here to make picks for our top 50 free agents. For each player you can choose any of the 30 teams, as well as Retirement or Japan.
- A Facebook account is required to participate in this contest. You can log in with the button up top, or by using the Save Your Picks button at the bottom.
- Feel free to leave your picks incomplete for now, as long as you save them using the button at the bottom. The contest is open now and runs until midnight central time on Wednesday, November 7th. Make sure to have something chosen and saved for all 50 players by the deadline, or else you will not be eligible for the contest.
- Players on our top 50 that sign before the November 7th deadline are considered freebies, although you still need to go in and make the correct pick. It's kind of like getting points for putting your name on the test – seems like a no-brainer, but a few people still won't do it.
- The leaderboard will rank contestants by "batting average" on correct picks, once players start signing. The leaderboard will show everyone's full names and Facebook profile picture.
Rules
- Final picks must be saved by November 7th at midnight central time – no exceptions.
- MLBTR writers are not eligible for prizes.
- One entry per person, please.
- With regard to prizes, ties in batting average will be decided by totaling the ranking number of each correctly-guessed free agent and taking the lowest total, rewarding contestants for being right on better free agents. If people are still tied after that method is applied, prizes will be distributed at MLBTR's discretion by choosing among tied contestants randomly.
- Prize winners must respond to an email message within 48 hours.
Prizes
- $1,000 in cash prizes to be distributed among the top five finishers
- New addition! Three copies of The World Series: History of the Fall Classic Deluxe DVD set from A&E Networks Home Entertainment/MLB Productions
- Baseball America 2013 Prospect Handbook
- One-year digital subscription to Baseball America
- $50 coupon code for American Needle headwear
I’m winning this contest! Yaya!
Is there anyway to sign up if I don’t have facebook?
Lets go Oakland!
im sorta mad cause i got both of the signings so far right before they were announced but now everyone has it… :/
If there was a person that didn’t have Ortiz going back to the Sox, they should not be participating in this contest.
This contest seems pretty easy. (Most likely not though). Only 15 picks from last year won, and we already have two. Does any one else feel that this is an easy contest?
Nope.
More to the point: let’s say you were assigning teams at random (because, pretty much…). That gives you a 1 in 30 chance for any given player. Now, we already have two, so the chances of getting at least 5 total right must be in our favor, right?
Nope: Assuming random assignment, we only have a 0.00083% chance of getting three more players correct.
Maybe we loosen things a little bit and assume three more “obvious” players (which don’t really exist, imo). Chances of getting ten out of 50, given 5 freebies: 0.0000011%
Well its not that random. People can analyze other teams, and they know that for instance, the Phillies will not get Zach Greinke, or the Tigers will not get Adam LaRoche. Then there are more judgemental decisions based on how well you know teams (also if you understand the correct goal of the contest). But yes, it looks a lot easeir than it is
Yeah, obviously the numbers are a little better than what I presented, but even to get 8 correct at this point is something that comes with a very low (less than .01%, for sure) likelihood
I think the odds are better because a player’s old team has much better than a 1 in 30 chance of retaining him, Let’s say it’s 20 percent. Just by picking each player’s old team, on average you would get 10 out of 50 right.