The staff at ESPN generally puts together a solid ratings set, but because they only give us batting average rather than hits and at-bats; it’s hard to gauge the actual batting average value.
I ended up using the ESPN rankings along with the AB that CHONE projects to come up with a value for each batting average category. Ie. ESPN-HITS = CHONE-AB x ESPN-Batting-Average. Same thing went for ERA and WHIP on the pitcher’s side of things.
Each of the 12 teams had a catcher, first basemen, second basemen, shortstop, third basemen, three outfielders, a UTIL spot, and a bench spot on offense. For the UTIL and BENCH spots, the *Best* players were used. On the pitching side of things, the roster was 2xSP, 2xRP and 3xP plus 3 more bench spots. It worked out like 7 SP and 3 RP. I think this is a fair guestimation of the average roster in an active league.
Player Scracity Box Plot Graph
If you don’t know how to read a boxplot, let me take it from the top. Each position has it’s own graph, as you can see at the bottom. In the center, there’s the reference plot containing all of the potential players used in our fantasy universe.
The boxes in the center of the graphs are split up into 3 distinct sections. The line in the middle represents the average or mean. Of all the usable first basemen and this includes an extra 15 players that would be optimally used in a UTIL or BENCH role, the average score you’ll get is 281 Points.
Both above and below the median are two boxes of various sizes. They represent 25% of the population above and below the median, respectively. So the entire box combined, obviously represents 50% of the usable first base population.
The lines ranging up from the boxes have markers at the top and bottom. These markers represent the most and fewest points a position will give you (according to espn.) In certain graphs, there are circles above the graphs that represent values that are outliers. In terms of fantasy, we love outliers because they don’t fit with the normal distribution because they’re that damn good.
Ryan Braun is that much better than the outfielders and Tim Lincecum is that much better than the SP. Albert Pujols, well, he’s a God.
About 25 percent of the population fall between the top of the box and the market at the top (and the same for the bottom.)
Hopefully this helps you visualize player distribution.
