Dust off your crystal ball again, it’s time for MLBTR’s fourth 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 13 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 11:59pm central time tonight. 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. We suggest you save periodically after every 5-10 picks in case it times out.
- 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 11:59pm 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
- More prizes to come
Cubs don’t sign a big 3 starter, but get Hamels.
Are you saying that they won’t sign them because they won’t have interest or because they prefer to sign elsewhere?
I’d be surprised if Lester did not go to the Cubs or Red Sox. Maybe it’s been reported already, but I have no clue what Scherzer or Shields prefer.
Sherzer, Harang and Brett Anderson were the toughest of my picks and maybe Bonafacio.. not that I am correct, but trying to figure them out was the toughest of my choices..
Some of us old schoolers don’t have Facebook. We should still be allowed to participate.
I created a facebook account just for this last year. It really didn’t take long. And I don’t use it at all otherwise.
I’m not going to join facebook for this or anything else. still don’t think its right to force someone to join. Do you get a kickback?
What difference does it make if MLBTR gets a kickback? And no one is forcing you to do anything, if you don’t want to create an account, then you don’t get to play in the contest, it’s really rather straightforward. Generally, contests where prizes are given away for free, they have rules and regulations. And I’m among those that does not use Facebook, but when this contest came out 3(?) years ago, I created one with an email address that I no longer use. Never had any issues with it.
So … don’t join then? I have no personal financial stake in whether or not a handful of MLBTR readers join facebook just to participate in this contest. Was just trying to encourage it to someone who doesn’t want to use facebook but wants to participate (as I did).
I also don’t know whether the contest has some kind of particular revenue element, but obviously MLBTR is a business. Should I be accused of seeking a kickback if I encourage someone to click a link and read something I wrote on the site? This is just how the internet works.
Here’s the deal.
1. The contest doesn’t make us money…we lose money on it (the prize money). It’s for fun, engagement, and bragging rights.
2. You have to be able to save some picks and go back later and retrieve them, so you need to log into something. Facebook has an infrastructure in place already and probably 2/3 of our readers are on it. So we don’t have to spend money creating our own proprietary thing when I don’t generally have plans or a reason to make people log into MLBTR otherwise.
3. Most people on FB use their real name or something resembling it, resulting in a real-looking leaderboard instead of a thing loaded with handles (that I’d probably have to moderate for foul language and the like).
4. There’s not some kind of mandate that you have to become an actual committed FB user or something. It’s just a tool for logging in and saving picks. I only have access to email addresses, so I can email the winners and send them checks. You might be opposed to the concept of FB and social media, and that’s fine, but it’s being employed here as a login tool. To me you’re mostly saying you want to play in this contest without logging into anything, and I don’t see how that’s possible. If that is your goal, just play the contest offline with a pencil and paper and the same top 50 and deadline, and you can see how you stack up that way.
Tim and jeff,
thanks for the info…good luck to all! Yankees420, nobody was talking to you. Get a life!
I asked around a bit, and the driving force behind the facebook function is basically the practicality of running this fun, free contest without having to create a whole infrastructure, moderate everyone’s handles, etc.
FWIW
I can vouch for this. My friend request to Jeff has been pending for about 11 months. The man has willpower. Either that or he just doesn’t like me. It’s probably the latter.
Who are you and why are you so insistent about being pretend “friends” on some dumb web thingy? Is facebook the same as myspace?
How much does it cost to participate? might make a facebook to play.
$0
A little too rich for my blood.
Can I participate from Spain??
Por supuesto.
Are you a Spaniard or of a different nationality? There can’t be all that many MLB followers in Spain!
Jajajajaja born and raised. And no, Im starting to think that Im the only follower in the whole country. Started to see some baseball in the 2008 ALCS and absolutely fallen in love with the game. Its hard because of the time zone. Also a big fan of this website, accidentaly found it a couple years ago and now I visit at least four or five times per day. Keep up the hard work!
Started to see some baseball in the 2008 ALCS and absolutely fallen in love with the game.
That is great, but definitely you are not completely alone. There is a fan around here called “Dave In Spain” or something like that.
Do you have any favorite teams?
Yeah, I meant spaniards. Im guessing “Dave in Spain” is not from around here
And answering to your question….yes, I do have a favourite, of course, the Red Sox, to the point that if Im able, I follow Pawtucket games on the internet too.
Im guessing “Dave in Spain” is not from around here”
Quite possibly, but you never know (people often take nicknames trying to fit in).
As for your Sox, you have interesting times ahead, rebuilding. However a lot of teams are in that situation.
I follow Pawtucket games on the internet too.
Thanks goodness for the internet, no? It may not always be convenient but at least it makes watching baseball in other countries and time zones possible.
That’s awesome! Glad to count you as a reader.
How do we see the standings?
There’s a “Leaderboard” link on the bottom right corner of where you make your picks. Going there will allow you to sort by overall rankings, your ranking among the people you’re friends with who have also participated in the contest and also sort to see how the MLBTR staff has fared in our predictions as well.
That will be linked to once the contest is finalized.