We've had a lot of contests over the past couple of months. I'm going to run down the winners in a minute, but first I'd like to touch on an exciting new one, thanks to author Lee Panas.
We're going to predict which Astros player will post the highest wOBA in at least 10 plate appearances over the next week. We'll take entries through Tuesday at 5 p.m. As a way of breaking any ties, also predict how many runs the Astros will score through the next week of games. The winner gets a free paperback copy of Beyond Batting Average, which is Panas' excellent new book. Here's an excerpt of it.
Over the past few decades, a multitude of advanced hitting, pitching, fielding and base running measures have been introduced to the baseball world. This comprehensive sabermetrics primer will introduce you to these new statistics with easy to understand explanations and examples. It will illustrate the evolution of statistics from simple traditional measures to the more complex metrics of today. You will learn how all the statistics are connected to winning and losing games, how to interpret them, and how to apply them to performance on the field. By the end of this book, you will be able to evaluate players and teams through statistics more thoroughly and accurately than you could before.
Fill out the form after the jump with your answers. We'll tabulate the results next Monday and announce the winner at that time. Good luck everyone!
Now, for the winners from some other contests we've had recently. Anyone mentioned here, please send me your name and mailing address so I can hook you up with a prize:
- Don't think I hadn't forgotten about our long-ago t-shirt contest. My favorite was timmy's idea of Bud Norris Facts. He'll get a t-shirt of his choice from our online store.
- The winning FanPost from a couple weeks ago is this one from Nitroberg. Made for some interesting dialogue, which is exactly what we like to see. He'll get the sweet Jim DeShaies card.
- On the draft predictions, hunterpencefan, Snake Diggity and hayzer13 each hit two draft picks, though no one got th round right. So, all three will get cool Astros baseball cards from the past. If you have requests, let me know and I'll try to hook you up. Remember, most of these cards are from 1990-92.
- We are getting closer to that 1,000th FanPost milestone. Winner of that will get a Kenny Lofton card.