We will play a simplified version of fantasy baseball that will hopefully be about the right speed for our third graders. This will mean fewer statistics used in scoring, fewer decisions to make as manager, weekly participation rather than daily participation, and more opportunity for the kids to apply a variety of mathematical concepts.
The Yahoo.com fantasy leagues, like the fantasy football league we did last fall, calculate all of the statistics and do all of the scoring automatically, so there is little authentic opportunity for our young mathematicians to do any math. But, I am hoping that this do-it-yourself approach to fantasy baseball, which will leave a lot of the statistical calculation and scoring up to the kids, will work to force some good, rigorous mathematical thinking out of them. Through this fantasy league, I plan to introduce the following mathematical concepts to Tom:
- The meaning and computation of averages (batting average and earned run average).
- Decimal notation, the meaning of tenths to thousandths places, and basic fractional equivalents (.500 = 1/2, .250 = 1/4, .333 = about 1/3, etc.).
- Double and triple checking all calculations!
- Other concepts will probably come up, too.
Each manager (each kid) will draft, from the pool of all real MLB baseball players, a team of four position players, two starting pitchers, and one relief pitcher (closer). Teams will face off against a different opponent each week. Each manager will be responsible for calculating his team's weekly batting average, homerun total, RBI total, stolen base total, earned run average, strikeouts, wins, and saves. At the end of the week, one point will be awarded to the team with the best performance in each of these statistical categories. One point will also be awarded to each team whose manager has calculated all the statistics for his team correctly. So, a total of nine points are possible each week for each team. The team with the highest score at the end of the week wins the match-up that week. In the case of a tie, the tie-breaker will be an extra-inning challenge of some sort (yet to be determined).
So, at the end of a certain week (let's say Week 9), the matchup between Frank's Team and Gary's Team might look like this:
Week 9 Matchups
Frank's Team vs. Gary's Team
AVG | HR | RBI | SB | ERA | K/9 | W | SV | MATH | Total | |||||||||||
.331 | 17 | 31 | 9 | 2.07 | 7.8 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 6 | |||||||||||
.297 | 22 | 43 | 4 | 1.96 | 6.1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
Frank's Team wins this week, 6 to 4. If you click on Box Score above, you will see the raw data for each team -- the total hits and at-bats per player for the week, the total innings pitched and earned runs, etc. I will compile these numbers every Sunday. Each manager will have until the end of Monday (or some other reasonable deadline) to compute his team's statistics for the week. Once a manager has submitted his team's statistics to me (probably via email), I will check his math and post the official final score for that week's matchup.
Below you will see a display of the current standings, with the two fake example teams. If you choose to join this league, your fantasy team will appear in place of Frank's Team and Gary's Team. If you click on Frank's Team or Gary's Team below you will be able to view the rosters for each team. Frank and Gary would have participated in a draft and selected these players from the pool of active 2011 Major League Baseball players. I'm not sure yet how we will conduct our draft, but I vote for a live, face-to-face draft at someone's house with pizza and beer (for the assistant managers).
Current Standings
Through Week 8
Team | Wins | Losses | GamesBack | |||||
1 | 7 | 1 | -- | |||||
2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | |||||
3 | ||||||||
4 | ||||||||
5 | ||||||||
6 | ||||||||
7 | ||||||||
8 |
Transactions
Frank and Gary could improve their draft-day rosters as the season unfolds by trading or acquiring players. Any player who is not claimed in our league will be considered a free agent. A manager may choose to drop one of his current players and fill his vacated roster spot with a free agent. A list of free agents with their current statistics will not appear on this website, but there are plenty of other sites that post such lists. I will provide links to some of these sites.
Trades may be proposed and require the consent of all managers involved. Once this is achieved, I will approve the trade and it will be final. I still need to work out the details, but there will be a process in place for proposing a trade.
