Step Five: Read This Book
Come January, the magazine shelves start to host a variety of fantasy baseball magazines. Albert Pujols stares at you with a look of determination; Grady Sizemore flashes a youthful look of optimism.
Fantasy baseball material makes for interesting reading and certainly it satisfies our appetite for baseball numbers after surviving the winter months without any baseball games. As far as fun reading goes, the magazines are nice.
But do any of them help you win your fantasy baseball league? Most of them give you a variation of the same old rankings and a heavy dose of conventional wisdom. More than anything, they jog your memory of the players’ names and positions, and give you a glimpse of rookies on the rise. None of that info necessarily gives you an edge over the competition, though.
Of all the material in your bookstore, the one publication I recommend is not a magazine, but a book, and a thick book at that: Baseball Prospectus.
What you really need to succeed in fantasy baseball, in addition to fantasy strategies, is real prognostication models dealing with the actual baseball players. The one book you can count on is Baseball Prospectus, the book used by general managers themselves.
The BP authors run reams of numbers through their secret formulas to predict the upcoming year and the careers of all major league baseball players and many prospects. They also give a list of names of past players whose careers current players might resemble.
The list of the spot-on predictions is long. Here’s a quick recap. Back in 2006, the book said this about Justin Morneau: After finally earning his long overdue call-up in ’04 and finally forcing Doug Mientkiewicz out of town, much was expected. Unfortunately, 2005 was to be Morneau’s Annus Terribilis. . . . With all that behind him now, barring a bout of bubonic plague or career-ending leprosy, he should take a major step forward this season. He’s capable of being an MVP-caliber slugger.
That year, Morneau won the MVP.
In 2006, BP said Jake Peavy was the best pitcher in the National League. In 2007, after Peavy went 11-14, they stuck with their guns and wrote this: Twenty-two quality starts in 32 is supposed to generate better results in terms of wins and losses, but Peavy was the second-most unlucky starter in baseball when you compare his performance to his actual won-loss record. He pitched well enough for the Padres to have gone 18-14 in his starts, instead they went 15-17. With normal support, Peavy’s record would have been 14-10. Peavy’s better than this, just look at those comparable pitchers above. (Pedro Martinez, Don Sutton, Javier Vazquez, Tom Seaver)
In 2007, Peavy proved BP right and won the Cy Young Award.
Too easy a call, you say? In 2007, BP also said Prince Fielder was a near certainty to improve upon his Rookie of the Year performance (81% chance) and had a good shot of having a breakout season (44% chance, both very high percentages for someone coming off a very good year). The book listed Fielder as comparable to Boog Powell, Kent Hrbek, and David Ortiz. Fielder lived up to the Big Papi comparison and hit 50 home runs at age 23.
The bottom line is if Baseball Prospectus is good enough for Billy Beane and Theo Epstein, it’s good enough for fantasy baseball players. (And to further bolster their reputation, how about BP author Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com, which predicted the presidential election right on?)
Step Six: Test Your Ranking System With a Mock Draft »
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