Comparison of Various League Rostership Rates
Syndication: Tuscaloosa News
With several websites hosting fantasy baseball leagues and analysts reporting rates from different sites, it’s tough to know how a rostership rate compares to the league each person is in. I hope to clarify some of that today by comparing the rostership rates at various websites.
Previously, some shmuck compared rostership rates at various hosting, but that was over eight years ago. A few things have changed since then. I chose to go to 500 players to get a feeling for the rates in 15-team, 30-man rosters. These leagues have 450 players on their active rosters, but there is disagreement on the end guys, so I included an additional 50 players.
Here is a graph and table of the data. The NFBC allows different league types to be set, so different roster rates. The OC stands for the 12-team Online Championship (rostership rate used for our Player Rater), and ME stands for the 15-team Main Event.
| Rank | NFBC OC | Ottoneu | NFBC ME | Fantrax | CBS | ESPN | RTSports | Yahoo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | 100% | 99% |
| 50 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | 99% | 96% | 100% | 98% |
| 75 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 99% | 98% | 91% | 99% | 96% |
| 100 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 98% | 97% | 84% | 96% | 92% |
| 125 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 97% | 95% | 78% | 90% | 90% |
| 150 | 100% | 100% | 100% | 95% | 92% | 65% | 82% | 82% |
| 175 | 100% | 99% | 100% | 93% | 88% | 57% | 68% | 76% |
| 200 | 99% | 99% | 100% | 90% | 84% | 45% | 51% | 64% |
| 225 | 99% | 98% | 100% | 87% | 77% | 40% | 38% | 53% |
| 250 | 96% | 97% | 100% | 82% | 69% | 32% | 28% | 46% |
| 275 | 91% | 94% | 100% | 76% | 61% | 24% | 19% | 40% |
| 300 | 81% | 90% | 100% | 72% | 52% | 17% | 11% | 33% |
| 325 | 66% | 87% | 98% | 66% | 44% | 12% | 7% | 24% |
| 350 | 49% | 81% | 93% | 62% | 37% | 9% | 4% | 18% |
| 375 | 35% | 78% | 88% | 58% | 31% | 7% | 3% | 15% |
| 400 | 26% | 72% | 75% | 55% | 27% | 6% | 2% | 11% |
| 425 | 17% | 65% | 63% | 51% | 23% | 4% | 1% | 9% |
| 450 | 12% | 57% | 47% | 48% | 20% | 3% | 0% | 7% |
| 475 | 8% | 52% | 33% | 44% | 17% | 3% | 0% | 5% |
| 500 | 5% | 46% | 20% | 42% | 14% | 2% | 0% | 4% |
Here are some quick notes on the charts.
- The rostership rates can take advantage of deeper leagues to see who those managers are adding. While I believe the NFBC Main Event gets too much love, it is a great gauge of the future demand for players in shallower leagues.
- For those managers in those deeper NFBC leagues, there is hope for you. The NFBC Main Event rostership rate crosses the Ottoneu and FanTrax rates and nearly the CBS rate. At 50% rostership in the Main Event, it’s also 50% rostership rate at FanTrax and 20% at CBS.
- The data can be used to compare the rostership rates used here on FanGraphs (NFBC Online Championship). The values are in our Player Rater and in our Custom Dashboards.
- I highlighted two rows around 40% because I use that rate to guide my weekly waiver wire column. I can’t/won’t cover everyone, so at and under this rate is where I’ve decided to concentrate my focus. It still looks like the sweet spot. Possibly a bit higher. I’m probably not deep enough for the Main Event and too shallow for ESPN. Can’t make everyone happy. Thoughts?
- It’s obvious that Ottoneu, Fantrax, and CBS host the deep keeper leagues, with their rostership rates not tanking to zero. If you are in a keeper league, they might be the best places to find possible targets.
That’s more than I thought I’d write on a data dump. We’ll see if I’m around in another eight to ten years to do the comparison again.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.