Welcome to the 1st Annual Tampa Bay Rays Trade Pool where we determine who is the best at predicting which members of the Rays organization will be traded this season (this contest is based loosely on the “Dead Pool“).

We have invited all members of the Tampa Bay Rays Blogosphere as as well as a couple of outside bloggers.

The Rules:

  • Each blogger submitted a list of 5 players they believe have the greatest chance to be traded this season. All players in the organization are eligible.
  • The bloggers ranked those 5 players, giving the highest rank (#1) to the player they think is most likely to be traded.
  • If one of the players they chose is traded prior to the end of the season, that blogger will receive points based on where the blogger ranked the player. If Aki Iwamura is traded and a blogger has Aki ranked first, they will receive 5 points. If they have Aki ranked second, they will receive 4 points and so on.
  • The blogger with the most points at the end of the season wins.
  • We also want YOUR lists in the comments. Let’s see if you guys can beat the experts. And by “experts” we of course mean 11 people with too much free time on their hands.

Notes on the rankings can be found after the tables…

Notes on the rankings

  • We have invited the individual bloggers to provide comments on their individual rankings in either the comments section here or on their own blogs. We will provide those links as they happen.
  • The difficulty in these rankings is predicting whether the Rays will be “buyers” or “sellers” this season. If they are in the playoff hunt, they are more likely to trade prospects. If they fall off the pace they are more likely to try and move expensive veterans.
  • Below we gave each player an MVP-style point total. That is, every time a player was given a rank of 1, we gave them 5 points. Every time a player was ranked 2nd, we gave them 4 points, and so on. This gives us a sense of which players the Blogosphere thinks is most likely to be traded.
  • As we can see, Reid Brignac and Chad Bradford lead the way with the most first-place rankings (3), but Gabe Gross leads the way with 24 points total and is deemed the most likely to be traded by the group as a whole.
  • Gabe Gross appeared on the most lists (7).
  • 10 different players appeared on more than one list.

Thanks to all who chose to participate including…

Also, you might be asking “What does the winner receive?” We have no idea. Any suggestions?

Related posts:

  1. Second Annual Tampa Bay Rays Trade Pool
  2. The Elias Free Agency Rankings And The Rays
  3. 2008 Tampa Bay Rays Trade Value Index