Pitching could be analyzed in much the same way

But it was fantasy baseball that shaped a lot of how we now think about the actual sport. What people want to know, however, are the "what if" scenarios: What would likely have happened if a manager had replaced Player A in the batting order with Player B. Or even, what is likely to happen if Player A is traded for Player C. Or should pitcher X have been "lifted" for a reliever, and if so, which oneFollowing the development of high speed computers, "quants" have long wondered whether baseball teams can be managed analytically. This was a new twist, because most of the similar talents seem to end up in places like hedge funds (although yours truly spans both worlds).The "professionals" had their own long-established ways of doing things, based on established practice, rather than "science," and "amateurs" like James were regarded as unhelpful at best, heretical at worst.Sabermetrics was, instead, "adopted" by the newpast time of fantasy baseball, which provided an outlet for answering these questions.

It allowed amateur "managers" to use real players to create fictitious teams in combinations that usually differ from real life ones.The results of the fantasy teams are an aggregate of the real-life players on the team, more or less, but some judgments will have to be made. Suppose the members of your fantasy team collectively produced ten hits, two of them home runs; how many runs would that translate toIt could be as few as two, if the home runs were solo, and the other hitters were stranded. On the other hand, eight runs is a possibility if the bases were loaded both times. (And let's say that the other hits produced no runs).Realistically, four or five runs might be produced by the homers, with the other hits producing one or two runs more. Do runs scored correlate with wins Or should managers concentrate on getting "clutch" hits and runs Apparently, the answer is a bit of both. As I discussed in a previous piece, the Los Angeles Dodgers got enough hits (and runs) to be a World Series contender. Except that they weren't.While they didn't, in large part because of "unlucky" games, a fantasy team that was a facsimile of it would earn more wins by "formula" would do well in fantasy.

The least common denominator was total bases (the number of walks and singles plus one additional base for each double, two for each triple, and three for each home run).One result was that walks, hitherto relegated to the role of "pitchers' errors," were reinstated as a legitimate batting tool. This was particularly true if you had sluggers behind the walkers to drive them home.Suddenly, people realized that batters like the Toronto Blue Jays' (formerly the Pittsburgh Pirates) Jose Bautista (pictured above), who had a mediocre batting average, but drew an inordinate number of walks, and thus got on base frequently, had real value to a team.Pitching could be analyzed in much the same way. About a decade ago, an amateur analyst named Voros McCracken hypothesized that pitchers' "contributions" to the game could be reckoned by the number of home runs, strikeouts, and base on balls given up.This was because they were the only plays where the interaction was solely between pitcher and batter. Everything else, specifically batting average on balls in play (BABIP) could be attributed to luck or defense.McCracken's backtests on historical pitching data showed that this was at least a plausible hypothesis, and if there is any otherrelationship that better describes pitching, no one has found it. Bill James described these findings as "very significant, very useful."Their hobbyhorse came of age with the arrival of a new generation of young Ivy League educated General Managers like the Los Angeles Dodgers' Paul DePodesta or the Boston Red Sox' Theo Epstein. Either of whom could have parleyed their talents into MBA programs and careers on Wall St., but chose instead to focus on baseball.Also noteworthy is DePodesta's former boss, Billy Beane of the Oakland A's, who was eager to adopt this "collegiate" way of thinking because he was a major league ball player who didn't go to college.Fantasy leagues can also test the effect of hypothetical new gameparameters by imposing team restrictions not found in the sport itself.