The holidays are upon us, and while there is plenty of serious business to discuss, it’s also time to sit back, relax, and have some fun. So this week I thought I would try to answer (or at least glance at) a question I’ve wondered for years – what would happen if Major League Baseball scored the AL and NL like fantasy leagues instead of looking at something silly like “winning percentage?”
The question you are asking yourself right now is probably, “He has really wondered this for years?!” but once you get over your shock and my nerdiness, you’ll want to know why I have been wondering this. When we created ottoneu, one of the things we wanted to do was closely replicate the job of a real GM and that meant, in part, picking a scoring system that reflected what really drives teams to win games or lose them. But, of course, we are still just counting stats. If a player only hits his HR in blow outs, you as a fantasy owner do not care, and the chances are this has little or nothing to do with the player’s value, but it certainly could impact his teams post-season chances. So what happens if we just look at the numbers put up by the real teams?
Read the rest of this entry »