The Business of Baseball vs. Fantasy Baseball
by Josh Hermsmeyer
So this is interesting.
I’ve become increasingly aware of the split between fantasy analysts and pure sabermetricians since I began actively developing and marketing Rotobase to the public. I haven’t personally had any negative experiences with either camp, indeed my experience so far has been universally positive, but I have noted that there is a definite “credibility gap” between the two worlds.
If an analyst uses advanced metrics to shed insight on how to play the former game (fantasy) better, he will, on average, accrue less respect from the community than if he had applied his analysis to the latter game (real baseball). There are a couple of likely reasons for this, none of which hold up under much scrutiny, as I’ll explore below.
First, some context. I make wine and run a vineyard. Why does this matter? It matters because as passionate as I am about baseball and as much fun as I have playing with numbers, I’m twice as passionate about crafting great pinot. And I am not alone. Not by a long shot. There are many, many talented and passionate individuals just like me who make, or want to make wine. Sound familiar?
While doing something you love is a blessing, there are certainly trade-offs. To continue to do the thing I love I’ve had to become adept at marketing, selling, and managing a business. In fact, those three things now constitute my core competency, not making wine.
The reality is, the hardest thing isn’t making a great wine. In fact it’s not even close. The hardest thing, by far, is selling it.
On to baseball.
It seems that one of the main drivers of the credibility gap between fantasy analysts and “real baseball” analysts is something to do with the fact that one is considered frivolous (fantasy) and the other is considered important and “impactful” on real world business (real baseball).
Besides the fact that I loathe biz speak like impactful, I submit the the converse of the above is generally more true.
How many sabermetricians will ever go on to to actually work for one of the 30 major league baseball teams? Answer: very few. How many make a living providing analysis solely on real life baseball for a media company, or pay information site? Again, very few.
The vast, commodious majority do the work they do out of a passion for the game, and the folks who are fortunate enough to be paid for their work often do so at a steep discount or work at it only part time (again, much like wine).
Against this gloomy monetary backdrop are the trade-offs inherent in making your passion your work. You lose autonomy in choosing your projects. Business politics become a factor. Marketing yourself well, and developing the skill, becomes the highest value endeavor you can engage in. All of this comes at the expense of baseball research, which is ostensibly the reason you were attracted to the job in the first place.
And, again, we’re talking about a vanishingly small percentage of saberists here. Most do it for free, out of love. And while that is a beautiful thing, it doesn’t really justify holding a pure baseball analyst in higher regard than a fantasy analyst who is also motivated by the same love of the game.
The real kicker however, is this: while there are only 30 possible places of employment for someone bent on working in the business of major league baseball, there is unlimited potential for the entrepreneur to parlay his or her baseball passion into the business of fantasy. Fantasy Sports Ventures pegs the market at something like 2 billion. I think that overstates the case, as it includes things like internet connection speed upgrades and other ancillary expenditures, but it does illustrate that demand for fantasy products is there, and growing.
You stand a much, much greater shot at turning your passion into a viable business via fantasy than you do in real baseball. In fact, I would submit that you stand to earn more at every level of success in the fantasy sphere verses real baseball, with the exception of general manager. And there are only 30 of those spots to go around.
So a credibility gap that is based on money or real world relevance doesn’t wash, at least from my point of view.
Strangely, there is another reason for the credibility gap that is the polar opposite of the above. Many fantasy business people are seen as hucksters by the community, shilling their snake oil to the uninformed; motivated solely by profit. You’ll get no argument from me that there are aspects of fantasy that reek of sleaze. But I think the same is true for the hot dog and beer vendors at “McAffee” coliseum, especially on Bank of America souvenir blanket day.
Again, I don’t see why the folks who devote their efforts to helping billionaire owners run their clubs full of millionaire players more effectively should have any kind of moral or intellectual high ground compared to folks who devote their efforts to helping Joe six-pack win his fantasy league.
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I’m a big believer in the sharing of data. Analysis, now that you should pay for.
Too often folks on both sides (fantasy and saberiests) hoard data, formulae, and processes (this of course doesn’t apply to the awesome folks who have helped supply data to the community for years – Retrosheet, Lahman, Tango, Smith, Szymborski and companies like Roto Sports Inc. who generously share their data). But the thinking elsewhere is that it will provide them a defensible moat. It never works. A dedicated analyst will find ways to achieve a similar result.
The only way to succeed in any business is to consistently delight your readers/customers and add value by communicating knowledge (or providing a great product) in a frictionless manner. Much better to take the lead in the sharing, earn goodwill through cooperation, and gain customers and brand advocates through genuine affection.
Your true moat is how you treat people, your personality and your passion. Your true moat is your writing style, your insights, and your aesthetic sense.
Data is not your moat.
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Frankly, I would never want to work in real baseball. I just don’t care that much about franchises and their machinations. I don’t get fired up at the prospect of joining a large company that is unable to treat its customers to the type of hands-on, high-touch attention they deserve. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my autonomy, or my roots. I’m attached to the land on which I live and work. It is one of the true joys of my chosen profession.
No, if I were to try and make a buck in baseball, it would be in fantasy. And there’s no shame in that game.
What do you think? Did I miss something in my analysis. Think I’m full of it? Leave a comment and let’s have a conversation.
Comments
[...] analysts and pure sabermetricians since I began actively developing and. See original here: The Business of Baseball vs. Fantasy Baseball | Rotoblog Share and [...]
I've also noticed this subtle air of superiority of 'real baseball' analysts (although excepting Christina Kahrl, it's hard to think up many concrete examples), but i also think we can identify a few of the reasons why this attitude might be fostered. And since, as you say, said analysts generally treat each other with appropriate respect, i don't think this credibility gap is all that damaging.
First, i think that there has been a distinct gap in the quality of analysis from the fantasy and saberist camps. Not that a) some fantasy analysts don't do great work, b) this necessarily has to be the case, or c) the credibility gap would vanish without this quality gap, but if you took a random sample (or an elite selection) from fantasy and sabermetric pieces, the sabermetric pieces will almost assuredly be of more general interest, deeper, more rigorous, and (most importantly) unique and novel. For the most part (thus far), research between the groups has flown in one direction; perhaps this is my ignorance of fantasy history, but there are a number of sabermetric innovations i can think of (DIPS theory, component aging curves / objective projection systems, replacement level thinking) that have made major waves in the fantasy waters, with few if any effective return volleys (maybe the LIMA approach sped up the acceptance of DIPS theory). Sure to some degree this is just the nature of the disciplines, but it does form a foundation for a credibility gap. You see the same thing with Mathematics and other quantitative academic fields.
I think this quality gap can also magnify any contempt for fantasy shills. You correctly point out that fantasy analysis is a more lucrative business, but greater earning potential is not exactly going to endure fantasy analysts to a group of highly-educated, under-paid fans devoting considerable amounts of their time and technical skills to help support this industry. I think you'd find a similar sense of self-righteousness in any group of hobbyists who dedicate themselves to a passion while watching others profit off their offshoots.
But i actually think the biggest issue that sub-consciously turns saberists away from fantasy analysis stems from their frustration with their appearance in the greater baseball community. Even while sabermetric research entrenches itself in the front offices of the game, the community struggles to find acceptance with the broad swath of people who follow the game; one of the recurring objections to their work is numerophobe claims that sabermetrics treats players as numbers and ignores the human aspect of the game. Being lumped in with fantasy analysts — as the external sports world is predisposed to do — seriously harms saberists appearance in this context. For better or worse, treating players as numbers is exactly what fantasy sports does. You could technically 'play' fantasy baseball with levers that spit out random variables and rich sets of vaguely correlated observables. No it wouldn't have any of the same fun and is clearly nonsensical, but the point is that when we play fantasy baseball we are trying to predict the stats the players put up, not truly study the game. Sabermetrics, on the other hand, is concerned with not only how each player will do, but how talents combine to enable a team to score or prevent runs, how this capability translates to wins for each team, how these wins translate into revenue for the industry, and how this revenue is converted into wages for the labor-talent; in short, they are concerned about baseball as an industry. Sabermetricians want to be accepted by the MSM as working towards this goal, but their associations, as objective fan-students, with fantasy analysts blur this line for many outsiders.
That all said, i do whole-heartedly agree with your point that there's no theoretical reason to hold true saberists in higher regard than fantasy analysts, and think it's an important one for more people to remember. I'm just not too surprised that people do anyway. In any event, this was another great article. Can already tell you've got a fantastic moat.
I don't find fantasy baseball very compelling. That's my own personal taste, btw. I don't get excited about poker or other fantasy sports either. But I'm also turned off by the way fantasy baseball embraces irrelevant statistics – in the standard 5×5 league, RBIs, batting average and saves come to mind. To me, that is, as the previous poster put it, no more interesting than playing with levers that spit out random variables. Sabermetric analysis, on the other hand, has given us a lot of insights into the game.
An incredibly insightful post. You've understood my points and add some very thoughtful comments. I don't disagree with a thing you've written.
I suppose the only thing I can say is: Thank you for the comment and the conversation. Much appreciated
I don't disagree with you points. But consider the following.
Person A uses novel methods and advanced metrics to uncover a way to better predict SB in y+1, and presents his findings within the context of fantasy baseball.
Person B uses novel methods and advanced metrics to uncover managerial tendencies to send runners in high leverage situations, and presents his findings in the context of real baseball.
Both analysts use sophisticated analysis, insightful applied knowledge of the game and write with wit and verve.
Person B wines 9 out of 10 times in the area of sabermetric ideas.
My point isn't that Person A is more deserving, or Player B less. It's simply to point out that both are using the same tool box, inspired by the same passion. They are simply interested in different slices of the game, and for different reasons.
And from my point of view, the unpaid saber community is a little too concerned with currying favor from billionaires, millionaires and media types who really don't much care about their talent, effort or passion.
Better to just do what makes you happy.