Daily Notes: Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
2. Table: Top-Five Remaining Crowdsourced Contracts
3. Potentially Irrelevant Video: Michael Bourn, Diving Catch

Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
Before the end of the season, FanGraphs asked readers to project what sort of contracts the league’s free agents would receive, both in terms of years (Yrs) and average annual value (AAV). Now, as we approach the middle of February, the largest portion of those same free agents have received actual, real-live contracts.

Below are the (sortable) results for those same players who’ve received contracts. The headings preceded by a lower-case c designate the crowdsourced results. The headings preceded by a lower-case a designate the actual results. Finally, headings with a lower-case d designate the difference between the crowdsourced and actual results, wherein a positive result represents those instances where the crowd was particularly optimistic about a player. (All data courtesy MLB Trade Rumors’ Free Agent Tracker.)

***As reader TKDC notes — and as the author should have done, as well — the terms of Mike Napoli’s contract have changed, following a physical which revealed that he (i.e. Napoli) no longer has hips. The restructured deal is for one-year and $5 million guaranteed, with various bonuses for time on active roster.

On average, to this point, the crowd has been remarkably accurate, overprojecting both years and average annual value by a slim margin — less than 10%, in each case. If one were interested in making said margins even slimmer, he could modify the terms of the Francisco Liriano contract listed here to reflect the (numerous) stipulations included in his deal with the Pirates — most of which concern an injury Liriano suffered to his non-throwing arm this winter.

As noted in early December, readers have perhaps been a little conservative this offseason so far as the league’s biggest contracts — i.e. those concerning Zack Greinke and Josh Hamilton — are concerned. Otherwise, precision has largely been the rule.

Table: Top-Five Remaining Crowdsourced Contracts
Of the free agents whose possible contract terms were crowdsourced this offseason, here are the five remaining largest overall crowdsourced values:

Potentially Irrelevant Video: Michael Bourn, Diving Catch
Here’s footage that probably doesn’t matter of Michael Bourn making a diving catch off a Cameron Maybin liner: