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Fantasy Baseball - Why Traditional 5x5 leagues are outdated.
Author : Sam Neff
The "fantasy" in fantasy baseball stands for what a team would
be like with a collection of stars gathered together, not for an
alternate universe where value has no relation to reality.
Fantasy baseball is all about capturing players' performance on
the field and translating it into a competition. To capture the
offensive and defensive sides of play, both hitters' and
pitchers' statistics are monitored. Runs, RBIs, battting
average, home runs and stolen bases comprise the typical hitting
categories, while ERA, strikeouts, wins, WHIP (walks and hits
allowed per inning pitched), and saves are the usual pitching
categories. At first glance these categories (noted as the
traditional 5x5 categories) seem fair enough.
The first two pitchers most commonly drafted are Johann Santana
and Randy Johnson. It is hard to argue that these two are not
the premier pitchers in baseball. The batters most commonly
drafted in the top three are Albert Pujols, Carlos Beltran, and
A-Rod. Here again are guys with high name recognition, and great
stats, and all in the upswing of their careers. But here is
where the traditional 5x5 goes off track.
By far the best current hitter in baseball, steroids controversy
notwithstanding, is Barry Bonds. Historically, one could point
to Joe DiMaggio, Ty Cobb, or Ted Williams, but presently, there
is no argument. Bonds makes the greatest impact in the game.
Last year he reached base over 60 percent of the time, thanks to
both his high walk rate and .362 batting average. The next
closest in on-base percentage was Todd Helton at a mere 47
percent. Before you think, "big deal - that's a difference of 13
percent," know that a similar 13 percent reduction from Helton's
number would give you Mark Grudelzniak, or Miguel Cairo. Quite a
difference. And that doesn't even bring in Barry's slugging
percentage, which is also incredible. The man hit 45 homers in
373 at-bats last year!
What Bonds has been doing to the game is historic in every sense
of the word. That his accomplishments have not translated into
fantasy sports strips any claim of realism. In a normal 5x5
league, Bonds is usually drafted late in the first round or
early in the second. Yahoo has him ranked as number 12. Number
12 for a man who is arguably one of the best hitters ever, and
who, as a hitter, dominates the game on a day-to-day basis.
The steals category should also be rethought. In a traditional
5x5 league, the number of steal attempts a player successfully
converts gives him his value. This leads to fairly obvious cases
of a player being valued much higher in fantasy terms then in
real life, even if you do subscribe to the belief that the
number of steals a player gets is in fact as telling as his
batting average in determining his overall value. For example,
Player A steals 20 bases in 40 attempts, as his coach believes
strongly in the run. Player B steals only 18 bases, but out of
20 attempts, for a stellar success percentage. Player B
obviously helps his team more, and had a more positive impact on
the field, but the owner of player A is the more successful
fantasy owner.
Why does it matter? So what if fantasy baseball is detached from
the reality of baseball? That's why it is called fantasy, right?
And everyone hates Bonds anyway. Unfortunately, the vastly
divergent criteria used by the fantasy sports world and the real
world to evaluate players drives a wedge between the hobby and
mainstream sports fandom. Fantasy players become more geeky as
the hobby (some would rather call it an obsession) drives itself
away from real baseball. The 5x5 system demands that
participants learn a new set of rules, and each new rule drives
the hobby further away from acceptance and relevance. Bonds is
not the best player in baseball. He's actually the twelfth. Alex
Sanchez of the Detroit Tigers, a prominent starter on many
fantasy teams last year with his 19 stolen bases, was cut from
the Tigers this spring. The list goes on, but the point is,
fantasy baseball is a reflection of baseball, and derives its
legitimacy (if it has any) from its place as an extension of a
real-life activity. Fine, a traditional 5x5 player argues, "then
why was 5x5 created with these stats to begin with?"
The answer is simple. Fantasy baseball didn't start with the
computer age. People actually went through box scores to
accumulate the data necessary to play fantasy sports. Imagine
the effort taken after each and every game, scanning newspapers,
adding hits, then dividing by the total at bats, noting the
stolen bases for each and every player on your team. That would
take a lot of work. It's obvious why the traditional 5x5 stats
were chosen. They were in fact the stats given by the box scores!
Thanks to computers, we are no longer limited by the constraints
of newspaper box scores and division on scratch paper. Yahoo!
alone offers 54 total categories with which to customize your
league. This gives you the power to organize your league in
whatever way you believe players in real baseball are really
valued.
The most popular version of this is the SABR ("saber") leagues.
The popular categories are: runs, RBIs, OBP (on base percentage)
and slugging percentage for hitting, and wins, saves, ERA, and
WHIP for pitching. This doesn't even begin to touch the value of
a team's defense, but since there is no objective or standard
way to measure defense, that problem has not been effectively
tackled yet. The home team's scorer gives out errors, while
defensive range is difficult to pin down as a measurable
statistic game to game. It may be some time before Torii
Hunter's spectacular home run-saving catch is a part of fantasy
baseball, but undoubtedly the statisticians will come up with
some method.
However you plan to do it meanwhile, if Bonds isn't the clear
first pick in your draft, then your league is long on the
fantasy, short on the baseball.
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