# Fant Baseball Analysis: Check My Math?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fant-baseball-analysis-check-my-math/57965>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [March 14, 2001, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fant-baseball-analysis-check-my-math/57965 "2001-03-14T16:13:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fant-baseball-analysis-check-my-math/57965/1 "2001-03-14T16:13:32Z")

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So a friend who’s in a roto league with me told me that “Sosa is for sure going to go for $40 or more this year! And he’s worth every penny!”

I told him that no one is worth $40 in an auction. It forces the owner who pays that much to have to find too many bargains elsewhere to make up the expense. Far better to let others spend the money and try and acquire those guys later with prospects.

He told me to prove it. So off to excel I go!

Here’s my analysis. FTR, $260 draft, 4x4 league, 14 batters and 9 pitchers, and we’re assuming Sosa generates these numbers: HR:50/RBI:130/SB:7/BA:.310.

> [@](#):
>
> _Originally in an email by Jonathan “Geek Boy” Chance_  
> Last year there were 420 total points available in the hitting categories.  
> Each category showed 105 total points.  
> There were 2819 recorded HR last year.  
> Therefore each HR was worth 0.03 points to a team.  
> There were 11227 RBI recorded last year.  
> Therefore each RBI was worth 0.009 points to a team.  
> There were 1531 SB recorded last year.  
> Therefore each SB was worth 0.06 points to a team.  
> There were 38685 BA points recorded last year.  
> Therefore each BAP was worth 0.002 points to a team.
> 
> So, on average, Sosa (at the levels you set) would be worth:
> 
> HR: 1.5 (based on 50 HR)  
> RBI: 1.17 (based on 130 RBIs)  
> SB: 0.42 (based on 7 SB)  
> BA: 0.62 (based on .310 BA)
> 
> So, by himself, Sosa would account for 3.71 points in the standings. Now,  
> I’m not knocking that. That’s very very good. If you have all 14 hitters  
> of Sosa caliber you would get 51.94 points in hitting or an average showing  
> of 12.985 points per category (or 2nd and 3rd place finishes in all  
> categories).
> 
> Given that an average point value of 95 is required to win the game and half  
> of them half to come from hitting, you should generate 47.5 points in the  
> offensive categories. If you spend 60% (that’s the percentage of hitters  
> against the total number of players) of your dollars on offense that comes  
> to $156 dollars on offense.
> 
> Now, if Sosa is worth $40 that means he would need to account for that same  
> percentage of points. $40 is 25.64% of $156. Unfortunately, 3.71 points is  
> only 7.81% of the total offense needed to win. Therefore the percentage  
> doesn’t balance out. At least one member of your offense would have to  
> generate points above their price at a clip of 17.83 percent to make the  
> investment worthwhile. So each of those high-ticket guys places pressure  
> on the owner to generate extra points in the bargain bin.

So help me here. Have I hit upon the secret of the universe or did I blow the math?

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**Author:** ![curious\_george](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b487fb/32.png) [@curious\_george](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curious_george)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2001, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fant-baseball-analysis-check-my-math/57965/2 "2001-03-30T21:55:34Z")

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I think you spend too much time on fantasy bball.