An Announcement Regarding Hot Stove Coverage

As was the case last year, free agency begins this season a mere five days after the end of the World Series. Accordingly — and even though it might seem premature at the moment — it’s necessary that we begin our coverage of the Hot Stove League without hesitation.

Over the course of the next week-plus, we’ll be looking at this year’s free-agent market — both the available players and the teams most likely to sign them. In addition to that, we’ll continue a practice started by Dave Cameron last year (an example of which you can see here) — namely, of utilizing the Wisdom of the Crowds to get the best sense possible of what sort of contracts (in terms of years and overall cash money) the members of this season’s free-agent class are likely to receive.

Each day (more or less) we’ll have at least two posts dedicated to examining the free-agent market. The first post will serve as both a summary of the free agents at a particular position and each of those free agents’ likely future value. The second post will ask readers to vote on what they feel is the most likely arrangement of years and dollars for each free agent to receive.

We’ll start in earnest on Thursday, looking at catchers, but to make sure our polling utility is functional, I’ve included the following poll. Please take it very, very, very, very, very seriously.