A few weeks ago we solicited entries for the first annual Amazin' Avenue Offseason Plan Contest, or 'AAOP'. We received 43 entries and astonishingly few of those were truly awful. One was disqualified because it was actually a 2002 offseason plan, which itself isn't a problem except that most of the players mentioned are no longer playing.
The original plan was to select the five-or-so best plans and put them to a community vote, but we scrapped that idea because it would have required a lot of reading on your part and the voting process would have been a trainwreck. Instead, the four of us each slogged through all forty-three entries and rated them on a scale from one to ten, sorted by the average score, and ultimately arrived at a consensus top-three. There were a lot of really great submissions: first and third places were separated by just a half-point. The winner will receive a chunk of Shea Stadium, which is one of the more popular items at Uncommon Goods and is actually backordered as we speak.
To heighten the drama just a bit, we're going to roll out the top three AAOPs in reverse order beginning with the third-best entry today at noon. The runner-up will be posted at noon tomorrow (Tuesday) with the winner being announced at noon on Wednesday.
Thanks again to everyone who participated.