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Fantasy baseball is a game whereby players manage imaginary baseball teams based on the real-life performance of baseball players, and compete against one another using those players' statistics to score points. It is the oldest form of fantasy sports, and arguably one of the most difficult and time-intensive due to the 162-game season of the MLB. This article is about the sport. ...
Statistics are very important to baseball, perhaps as much as they are for cricket, and more than almost any other sport. ...
A Fantasy sport is a game where fantasy owners build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by individual players or teams of a professional sport. ...
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in professional baseball in North America. ...
History
Early forms of fantasy baseball were sometimes called "tabletop baseball". One of the best-known was the Strat-o-Matic, which began publishing in 1963 a game containing customized baseball cards of Major League Baseball players with their stats from recent seasons. Participants could then re-create previous seasons using the game rules and the statistics, or compose fantasy teams from the cards and play against each other. The landmark tabletop game Pursue the Pennant debuted in 1985 and took baseball board games to much more realistic levels of play to incorporate ball park effects, clutch hitting and pitching and many other nuances of the game. Fantasy baseball was the theme of the 1968 darkly comic novel The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., which dealt with themes of creationism and playing god. Strat-O-Matic batter and pitcher cards Strat-O-Matic is a game company based in Glen Head, New York that develops and publishes sports simulation games. ...
Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
An example of a 1915 Cracker Jack Charles Comiskey card. ...
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. ...
Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar). ...
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. ...
The landmark development in fantasy baseball came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. Magazine writer/editor Daniel Okrent is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make. Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ...
Daniel Okrent (born 1948) is an American writer, editor and baseball fan. ...
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league. The 1981 baseball strike was the fifth work stoppage since 1972. ...
Rotisserie league baseball proved to be hugely popular, even in the 1980s when full statistics and accurate reporting were often hard to come by. The traditional statistics used in early Rotisserie leagues were often chosen because they were easy to compile from newspaper box scores and then from weekly information published in USA Today. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.. Local papers soon caught up with USA Today's expanded coverage. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
In competitive sports, games or matches are often summarized in a box score. ...
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. ...
USA Today Sports Weekly is a weekly magazine that covers Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, NCAA baseball and the National Football League. ...
The use of statistics like pitchers' wins and RBI are often scoffed at today by members and followers of the Society for American Baseball Research who prefer to use objective evidence, especially detailed baseball statistics to measure player's performance. Sabermetric thinkers argue wins and RBI often misrepresent the performance of players, since they are largely influenced by "outside" factors like run support and bullpen support (for wins) and runners on base (for RBIs). In Major League Baseball, a win (denoted W) is generally credited to the pitcher for the winning team who was in the game when they last took the lead. ...
In baseball statistics, a run batted in (RBI) is given to a batter for each run scored as the result of a batters plate appearance. ...
SABR redirects here; for Selectable Assault Battle Rifle (S.A.B.R.) see XM29 OICW The Society for American Baseball Research was established in Cooperstown, New York in August of 1971. ...
Statistics are very important to baseball, perhaps as much as they are for cricket, and more than almost any other sport. ...
Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. ...
The advent of powerful computers and the Internet revolutionized fantasy baseball, allowing scoring to be done entirely by computer, and allowing leagues to develop their own scoring system, often based on less popular statistics. In this way, fantasy baseball has become a sort of real-time simulation of baseball, and allowed many fans to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how the real-world game works. Look up simulation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Fantasy baseball has continued to grow [based on recent studies from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA.org)], but has been overtaken by fantasy football as the most popular form of fantasy sports. This is primarily due to the fact that some of those sports, such as Football and Auto Racing, only play once a week, making it easier for a person to make adjustments, since they do not have to check their team every day.
Rotisserie baseball game details
Player selection Rotisserie leagues and their descendants typically draft teams before the season begins (or very shortly thereafter). One approach is to hold an auction, whereby each owner has a fixed amount of money to bid for players, and he must fill his team's roster within his budget. Another approach is to perform a serpentine system draft of available players until all teams are filled. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...
Serpentine Serpentine is a group of common rock-forming hydrous magnesium iron phyllosilicate ((Mg, Fe)3Si2O5(OH)4) minerals; it may contain minor amounts of other elements including chromium, manganese, cobalt and nickel. ...
In either case, the skills of the team managers come into play in the "preseason" by their knowledge of the talent and ability to forecast the performance of Major League Baseball players and prospects for the coming season. Toward that end, they draw on a great variety of sources of information, including tout sheets by various forecasters, who predict the coming season's performance and the likely overall "value" (often in terms of auction dollars) of the Major League players.
Some leagues allow teams to keep some players from one year to the next, allowing savvy owners to build fantasy dynasties. These leagues are oftentimes referred to as "Keeper Leagues." Keeper leagues have the same people in them, and owners keep their players, unless any off-season moves are made.
Many leagues allow teams to trade with each other during the season, as well as to replace players who get hurt or stop performing well with players from the pool of those who are not presently owned. However, some leagues prohibit such in-season "free agent" replacements, feeling that the game is more interesting when teams must live and die by the quality of their draft.
Also, at the league's discretion, there are only so many free-agent moves that a fantasy team can make per season, and a team may not just "drop" all of their players if they are not progressing well during a season. The free-agent limit is also sometimes used to limit the so-called "pitch-and-ditch" tactic, a method of play in which a manager drafts a free agent pitcher with the intention of using him in only one game before replacing him with a pitcher who is scheduled to start the following day.
The stakes Many fantasy leagues are played for money. Owners ante up an entry fee at the beginning of the season and may also be charged for in-season activity such as trades and "free agent" acquisitions. The pool of money is collected and then distributed to the winner(s) at the end of the season. Most often, however, these are games in which the main reward is bragging rights or the participants' sense that they not only know how to assess baseball talent but also how to play the fantasy game in all of its dimensions including perhaps above all the selection of real baseball talent.
The 'game' is played The statistics compiled by the players from each team are then ranked, and the team with the best statistics at the end of the season is determined to be the winner.
The original Rotisserie League used the following statistics:
This is often called a "4x4" league (4 hitting stats and 4 pitching stats). Many leagues adopt a "5x5" format, with runs and strikeouts added, respectively. Still other leagues are "6x6", most commonly adding OPS (OBP plus SLG), and holds. However, the "6x6" format does not have a standard or consensus set of categories to use. Other modifications to the rules include a minimum number of at-bats and innings pitched; teams that do not make the minimum were awarded last place in the respective categories. Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball measuring the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters, respectively. ...
In baseball, an at bat (AB) is used to calculate certain statistics, including batting average. ...
This article is about the baseball concept. ...
In baseball statistics, a run batted in (RBI) is given to a batter for each run scored as the result of a batters plate appearance. ...
The all-time stolen base leader, Rickey Henderson, swipes third in 1988. ...
In Major League Baseball, a win (denoted W) is generally credited to the pitcher for the winning team who was in the game when they last took the lead. ...
To save in a sport means to stop a goal or to maintain the lead. ...
In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the mean of earned runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched. ...
In baseball, walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) is a sabermetric measurement of how many baserunners a pitcher is responsible for allowing per inning pitched. ...
In Major League Baseball history, Ty Cobb had a record 4,191 hits by 1928; Pete Rose would surpass it 57 years later, and finish with 4,256 career hits. ...
In baseball statistics, a base on balls (BB), also called a walk, is credited to a batter and against a pitcher when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls balls. ...
An innings, or inning, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably baseball and cricket – during which one team attempts to score while the other team attempts to prevent the first from scoring. ...
Bengie Molina of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (in gray and red) scores a run by touching home plate after rounding all the bases. ...
Cincinnati Reds outfielder Adam Dunn strikes out swinging to Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz (not pictured). ...
In baseball statistics, on base percentage (OBP) (sometimes referred to as on base average (OBA)) is a measure of how often a batter gets to first base for any reason other than a fielding error or a fielders choice. ...
In baseball statistics, slugging average (SLG) is a measure of the power of a hitter. ...
A hold is awarded to a relief pitcher if he enters in a save situation, records at least one out, and leaves the game without having reliquished that lead. ...
An alternate head-to-head system states that each team competes against only one team each week. At the end of the week, each team tallies wins and losses based on whatever criteria are set by the league. There are three basic forms of head-to-head leagues (oftentimes referred to as "H2H"):
- Head-to-Head Rotisserie: Wins, losses and ties are based on your team's performance in individual categories.
- Head-to-Head One Win: Just like H2H Rotisserie, but the winner receives just one win, rather than one win for each category the team wins.
- Head-to-Head Points: Stats accumulate points for each team (a Home Run/Stolen Base/etc. is worth a certain number of points), and the team with the most points at the end of the week is awarded a win. These leagues often take advantage of several other stastical categories, from outfield assists to quality starts.
Opponents are dictated by a round-robin system. At the end of the season, the team with the best win-loss record is the victor.
Many head-to-head leagues also feature playoffs over the last 3-4 weeks of the MLB regular season. A set number of teams make the "postseason" and play a single-elimination tournament to decide a victor.
Pop Culture In the 2007 film Knocked Up, Paul Rudd's character is shown participating in a fantasy baseball draft fully dressed in Baltimore Orioles gear. When asked what he was doing by his confused wife, he responds "It's a fantasy baseball draft. I got Matsui!" very enthusiastically.-1...
Paul Stephen Rudd (born April 6, 1969) is an American film, television, and stage actor. ...
Major league affiliations American League (1901–present) East Division (1969–present) Current uniform Retired Numbers 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 33, 42 Name Baltimore Orioles (1954–present) St. ...
Hideki Godzilla Matsui , born June 12, 1974) is a Japanese Major League Baseball left fielder who plays for the New York Yankees. ...
External links - Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball Website
- Sporting News Fantasy Baseball Website
- ESPN Fantasy Baseball Website
- Sportsline Fantasy Baseball Website
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