Diamondbacks off-season prediction contest: The results

Predict the Diamondback off-season

Back in November, we asked readers to wager SnakePit Dollars and bet over or under in a number of categories regarding the Diamondbacks' moves this winter. Here are the categories and where the lines on them ended up falling.

• Number of Aaron Hills on Diamondbacks Opening Day roster = 0.5 - UNDER, 0. Hill traded.
  
• New rotation starters = 1.5 - OVER, 2. Greinke and Miller added.
  
• New players on Opening Day 25-man roster = 3.5.- OVER, 5. Greinke, Miller, Segura, Clippard and Weeks present.
  
• Opening Day payroll = $106.5 million. [per ESPN's page] - UNDER. Not sure of an amount yet, the ESPN page hasn't been updated, but $100 million seems about right.
  
• 2016 salary for most expensive player on D-backs roster: $23.5 million. - OVER, $34 million for Greinke.
  
• Separate trades announced by D-backs during winter meetings = 1.5 - UNDER, 1. Just the Miller one. Greinke signed, but that was not a trade.
  
• Number of Diamondbacks beginning season on DL = 1.5 - OVER, 2. Pollock and Collmenter.
  
• Last year of A.J. Pollock's current contract with Arizona = 2018. - UNDER, 2018. No contract extension. One wonders if there ever will be now.
  
• BONUS ROUND. Pick up to three new players you think will be Diamondbacks on Opening Day 2015. $250 bonus for each one you get right!

The most popular wager was taking the over on the starting pitchers: all but two entrants opting to bet there, with one going under, plus one not wagering, and that came through. The most popular way to lose money was under on the team's most expensive player: one person did get that right, thanks to Greinke, and four abstained, but everyone else lost their bets on this one. However, between the pitchers, the new players and the total payroll, this was a bad contest for the house, who lost a total of S$7,250 on a total of $$22,500 wagered. Adding everything up, here are the final standings.

Congratulations to Lamar Jimmerson, who cleaned up, winning all four of his bets: under on Hill, over on starting pitchers, under on payroll and under on the Pollock extension. Second-place went to ryeandi, who was the only person to bet, correctly, that our most expensive player would earn more than $23.5 million, but just came up short on the Winter Meeting trades line, to miss out on joining Lamar at the top. Further down the chart, a special mention to fangfango, as the only player who picked up the bonus $250, for correctly calling the arrival of Shelby Miller.

Predict the Opening Day roster

As explained in the original post, the 40-man roster at the time was split up into five blocks of eight, depending on how likely they were considered to make the 25-man roster for Opening Day. Entrants had to pick two from each block as their choices. Here's those blocks, with the players who didn't make it crossed out.

Dead-certs

• Welington Castillo (1)
• Patrick Corbin (1)
• Paul Goldschmidt (1)
• Zack Greinke (1)
• Daniel Hudson (1)
• David Peralta (1)
• A.J. Pollock (1)
• Brad Ziegler (1)

Highly-likely

• Andrew Chafin (2)
• Josh Collmenter (2)
• Randall Delgado (2)
• Jake Lamb (2)
• Shelby Miller (2)
• Robbie Ray (2)
• Jean Segura (2)
• Yasmany Tomas (2)

Likely

• Nick Ahmed (3)
• Silvino Bracho (3)
• Socrates Brito (3)
• Enrique Burgos (3)
• Brandon Drury (3)
• Phil Gosselin (3)
• Rubby De La Rosa (3)
• Chris Owings (3)

Possible

• Archie Bradley (4)
• Zack Godley (4)
• Cody Hall (4)
• Oscar Hernandez (4)
• Chris Herrmann (4)
• Evan Marshall (4)
• Peter O'Brien (4)
• Matt Reynolds (4)

Long shots

• Jake Barrett (5)
• Tuffy Gosewisch (5)
• Gabby Guerrero (5)
• Keith Hessler (5)
• Matt Koch (5)
• Dominic Leone (5)
• Will Locante (5)
• Tyler Wagner (5)

There was also a wild-card category, where players could nominate a "wild card" player outside the 40-man roster who would make it on there, for a ten-point bonus. The timing allowed a number of people to take advantage of rumors and nominate Tyler Clippard, scoring big as a result. However, nobody selected the other non-40 player to make it, Rickie Weeks Jr. Needless to say, the absence of Pollock tripped a lot of people up: Matt Reynolds was also a popular failure. After tallying up all the scores, this is what we find.

1. PK Kim - 30
2. SenSurround - 28
3. Lozenge - 27
4. BenSharp - 26
5. fandbacks - 25
   freeland1787
   fsudude
   jmfugate
6. Arizona CardinalBacks - 22
   Xerostomia
7. AzRattler - 20
8. Jacob Elkram - 17
   Steven Burt
9. CharlieArchie16 - 15
   Fangdango
   |noblevillain
   ryeandi
10. preston.salisbury - 14
11. Makakilo - 10

Congratulations to PK Kim, who missed Pollock from Group A, Reynolds from Group D and Gosewisch from Group E, but nailed everything else for a total of 30 out of 40 points. SenSurround was second, the decision to go for Burgos in the "likely" category proving decisive. If he'd picked literally anyone else, he'd have received three points and been the overall winner. At the other end, Makakilo's innovative "Pitcher only" selection proved about as much a success as the Rockies 4-man rotation...

Want to take part? We're still accepting entries for a few more hours in our 2016 Diamondbacks prediction contest, so scurry over there and place your bets now!