Prior to the offseason we had a free agent prediction contest here at Da Box.
After tallying up the results the winner is Wildrose!
A reminder of the contest:
Predictions were made for each of the following:
* Team player signs with
* Number of years of contract (team and mutual options don't count)
* Average annual salary (guaranteed portion only)
Points were assigned as follows:
* Correctly predict new team - 3 points
* Correctly predict same team - 1 point
* Correctly predict number of years of contract - 1 point
* Correctly predict average annual salary (within 10% of actual) - 2 points
Dmitri Young and Eddie Guardado had options that were picked up and Erubiel Durazo remains unsigned (and sounds like he'll sign a minor league contract) so they were eliminated from the contest.
Here's where the players landed, for how long, and the average annual salary for the remaining 22 players in the contest (option years excluded). No one correctly guessed that the Blue Jays would sign the first three players on the list, and probably not even the Jays front office expected that to happen.
Player Team Years $ A.J. Burnett Jays 5 $11.0 B.J. Ryan Jays 5 $9.4 Bengie Molina Jays 1 $4.5 Billy Wagner Mets 4 $10.0 Braden Looper Cards 3 $4.5 Brian Giles Padres 3 $9.0 Frank Thomas A's 1 $0.5 Hideki Matsui Yankees 4 $13.0 Jarrod Washburn Mariner 4 $9.4 Jeff Weaver Angels 1 $8.5 Johnny Damon Yankees 4 $13.0 Kevin Millwood Rangers 4 $12.0 Kyle Farnsworth Yankees 3 $5.7 Matt LeCroy Nats 1 $0.9 Matt Morris Giants 3 $8.7 Mike Piazza Padres 1 $2.0 N Garciaparra Dodgers 1 $6.0 Paul Byrd Indians 2 $7.0 Paul Konerko W Sox 5 $12.0 Rafael Furcal Dodgers 3 $13.0 Todd Jones Tigers 2 $5.5 Tom Gordon Phils 3 $6.0So how did Bauxites as a whole guess? Below is the actual contract compared to what the average, high, and low guesses were.
Player Actual Ave Diff Hi Lo A.J. Burnett 11.0 11.9 -0.9 13.8 10.0 B.J. Ryan 9.4 8.1 1.3 10.0 5.5 Bengie Molina 4.5 6.2 -1.7 8.5 2.8 Billy Wagner 10.0 9.3 0.7 10.5 8.0 Braden Looper 4.5 3.6 0.9 5.1 1.0 Brian Giles 9.0 10.5 -1.5 13.0 9.0 Frank Thomas 0.5 6.2 -5.7 10.0 2.0 Hideki Matsui 13.0 11.5 1.5 15.0 9.0 Jarrod Washburn 9.4 8.1 1.2 9.5 7.0 Jeff Weaver 8.5 7.7 0.8 10.0 3.5 Johnny Damon 13.0 11.0 2.0 13.3 9.0 Kevin Millwood 12.0 9.5 2.5 12.0 6.0 K Farnsworth 5.7 5.0 0.7 8.0 3.0 Matt LeCroy 0.9 2.0 -1.1 5.0 0.8 Matt Morris 8.7 6.8 1.8 10.0 5.0 Mike Piazza 2.0 5.9 -3.9 8.0 3.0 N Garciaparra 6.0 6.8 -0.8 12.0 4.5 Paul Byrd 7.0 6.0 1.0 12.0 3.5 Paul Konerko 12.0 12.5 -0.5 17.0 8.0 Rafael Furcal 13.0 9.5 3.5 13.0 6.0 Todd Jones 5.5 4.4 1.1 6.0 2.2 Tom Gordon 6.0 5.5 0.5 9.0 3.5The greatest error was with Frank Thomas. Apparently doctors were scared off by his foot problems while Bauxites guessed, on average, $6.2 million. Thomas only signed for a guaranteed $0.5 million. On the other side of things Rafael Furcal exceeded expectations by the most coming in at $3.5 million over Bauxite predictions.
So who were the best individual predictors? Using the point system above here's how each category played out, plus the total.
Points Team Contrct $$ Total Wildrose 15 8 26 49 Pistol 11 11 24 46 Nick 8 8 20 36 Noah 11 7 16 34 smcs 9 8 16 33 R Billie 7 8 16 31 Jim 5 9 16 30 Cristian 11 9 10 30 Ron 3 7 20 30 andrewkw 8 6 16 30 Smaj 8 6 14 28 OntarioMediator 7 7 14 28 koanhead 8 7 12 27 King Ryan 4 8 14 26 Pepper Moffatt 2 9 14 25 Brian 9 8 8 25 VBF 5 8 12 25 Mike Green 8 5 12 25 Steve Birnie 5 7 12 24 groove 6 8 10 24 Anders 2 9 12 23 AWeb 8 7 8 23 Mike Forbes 7 8 8 23 3RunHomer 4 5 12 21 Jonny German 2 7 6 15Wildrose and Pistol (hey, that's me!) led the way, with Wildrose pulling it out by 3 points. Wildrose was particularly adapt at identifying what teams players would end up with, including Piazza with the Pads, Nomar with the Dodgers, and Todd Jones with the Tigers. Nicely done.
As winner of the contest Wildrose wins a free one-year subscription to Batter's Box.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20060216160301163