Based on the reaction in jays182's "Month By Month Preview" fanpost, I will be running a 2012 Season Prediction Contest, somewhat expanded from what I did last year. By the way, last year's contest only got three entries, including my own.

Details after the jump.

What I am planning is to have "monthly" winners as well as seasonal category winners in addition to the Grand Prize winner.

Seasonal categories:

• Home Record
• Road Record
• Within Division
• Against AL Central
• Against AL West
• Against NL

Monthly Contests:

The monthly contests use modified months in which any series that straddles a month-end will belong to the month in which the majority of the games are played. There is one exception: A series against TBR at the dome August 30-Sepember 2, where I have split the series; two games are in August and two are in September. I left them this way because September games may be viewed a bit differently due to September call-ups, and the even split.

Scoring:

I plan to use Mean Squared Error to rank participants. Suppose you projected the Jays to go 12-10 in April and the are actually 14-8. You April score is (12-14)^2 = 4. If another entrant ties you based on a prediction of 16-6 [(16-14)^2 = 4], I will use the MSE on home games and away games aggregated as the first tie-breaker and series-by-series as the second tie breaker. This ties-breaking system creates a higher risk-reward for predicting months well above or below .500.

For Home, Road, Divisional and Interleague Season categories, the MSE is computed by team and aggregated. The tie-breakers will as done with the monthly contests.

The Grand Prize winner will have the lowest aggregate MSE broken down by team plus the aggregate MSE on the monthly contests.

I plan to close contest entries April 4, the day before opening day and I expect to open it about two weeks before. I don't see a point in opening it too early. To allow you to keep your predictions away from the eyes of others, I think I'll set up a separate gmail account for the entries. I will play, but not be eligible for prizes, since I will see all the entries.

I don't know what prizes we can offer, but it would be nice to try for official swag from the team!

Entry fee: None, unless we want to make it a donation to your local foodbank, the Jays Foundation or other charitable foundation supported by the team or a player, i.e., the JDRF supported by Morrow. (A scanned copy could be attached to your email contest submission.)

Comments are invited. No doubt I have overlooked something and the tie-breakers were off the top of my head.