Major League Baseball's free-agent market is officially open. That can mean only one thing: it's time to predict the eventual contracts the 10 best players in the class will sign.

Although baseball contracts often feel like they materialize from the ethers, you can do a reasonable job of predicting terms by combining precedent with inflation and some adjustments based on things like age and skill-set profile. There are some exceptions, of course -- human beings are fun and unpredictable like that -- but you needn't take my word for it. This is my third year doing this exercise at the onset of free agency: in my first attempt, I came within $4.5 million average annual value on seven of the 10 players; last year, I fared better, landing within $2 million AAV on five of the 10. Let's try to

See Full Page