Fantasy Baseball: When Fantasy Value Exceeds Real-Life Value

Sometimes fantasy and reality don’t perfectly mesh. Here are players with more value in fantasy baseball circles than in their on-field performance.

I love fantasy baseball. I first discovered the game after a flirtation with fantasy football in Fall 1998. That was okay and all, but fantasy baseball took a sport I loved and turned it into an obsession. I participated in my first draft in 1999 and haven’t looked back.

I remember parts of my first team. Of course Alex Rodriguez, coming off a 40-40 season, was my first pick. Later on I took another power-speed threat in Raul Mondesi. When Mondesi hit two home runs, including a walk-off in extra innings, on opening day, I felt vindicated and was completely hooked.

Fantasy sports is at least partially responsible for the continued popularity and growth of sports. Fantasy football is the most basic and easily accessible, so naturally that is the most popular. The trend started with fantasy baseball, though. In fact, one of the first ESPN 30 for 30 films focused on the birth of the modern concept more than 35 years ago.

While there are some new fantasy games out there that try to incorporate sabermetrics, the original rotisserie fantasy league used only four hitting categories (batting average, home runs, RBI, stolen bases) and four pitching categories (wins, saves, ERA, WHIP). The game evolved to add runs scored for hitters and strikeouts for pitchers, and not much has changed since then. My main fantasy league is still an old-fashioned 4×4 league using only players in the American League.

The simplicity of the categories used makes the game easy enough to pick up and play, but does not necessarily align with reality. The best players in fantasy baseball are not always the best players in real life. Raul Mondesi in 1999 was a great fantasy player. He only hit for a .253 average, but he racked up 33 home runs, 99 RBI, 98 runs and 36 steals: career-highs in those four categories!

Nowadays, we know that a .332 on-base percentage and a below average glove in right field would correspond to a pretty average player. Sure enough, Mondesi put up right around two wins above replacement across 680 plate appearances in 1999. The best pitchers in real life tend to be the best fantasy pitchers, but that’s not always the case for hitters. Here is a lineup of players who are better in fantasy than they are in real life.