METHODOLOGY

In professional baseball it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the best players of all time.  Sure, we all have an idea as to their names, but really, who was better - Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays?  Ask 10 different "experts" for their Top 20 of all time and you will get 10 different answers.  How much does defense count?  Would you rather a player with a .450 on base percentage and a .550 slugging percentage or a .400 OBP and .650 SLG?  What about league quality and the overall era in which the player contributed in?  These questions remain without a definitive answer, even today in the new Sabermetric world.  Now try adding in pitchers - who would you rather have, Pedro Martinez or Albert Pujols and the waters are muddied even further.

The fact that we can't answer all of these has led to interesting choices of induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  Arguments, sometimes vehement ones, erupt each year as the voting results are made public (Sutter before Goose, really?).  In the end nobody is completely satisfied.

Calculation

Fantasy Baseball is a different animal.  We know there are 10 scoring categories (standard 5x5 leagues).  We know there are 14 batters and 9 pitchers.  We know the construction of the roster.  In fact, we can go back and reconstruct each season and identify how much each Run, RBI, Stolen Base, Home Run, and hit is worth.  Ditto with pitchers - each Win, Save, Earned Run, Strike Out, and underlying WHIP calculation has a specific value.  This value is relative to both the year and position.

Without going math geek on you, the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame elects it's members through a rigorous calculation that takes into consideration:

1. How well the player performed relative to the entire league.

2. How well the player performed relative to peers at his position.

3. How difficult it was in the year to accumulate the statistics (the standard deviation of each stat).

Well, some math is required after all:

1. A score for each player season is determined irrespective of position.

2. A second score is determined for each player season based upon the position.

3. These two scores are combined using a weighting process (60% Overall, 40% Position).

4. A Final Score is established for each season of each player.

Induction

What follows next are the qualifications for enshrinement.  Fantasy Baseball is a "what have you done for me lately" enterprise.  A great player for 5 years is considerably more valuable than an above average player for 15 years.  As such, the core metric for induction is a players 5-year peak score.  Simply, the scores for a players best 5 seasons are totaled.

We can't lose sight of longevity however.  Alex Rodriguez's peak score is 81.2.  Barry Bonds has a peak score of 77.6.  However, Bonds has 16 additional seasons were he was "fantasy worthy", this is more than double that of Rodriguez who has 'just' 7.  This is important, and important enough to rank Bonds as the better Fantasy Player over his career.  How do we determine this?  Each season in addition to the 5-peak years that are "fantasy worthy" adds 1% to the players score.  To finalize the example, this results in the following:

             FBHOF Score   Peak Score    Career Total

BONDS           90.0         77.6           232.0

RODRIGUEZ       86.9         81.2           161.4

Of course, Rodriguez is still in his prime and adding to both his peak score and "fantasy worthy" seasons each and every year.

Tiered Levels

The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame also recognizes that not all Hall of Famer's are created equal.  To account for this, each player is elected not only to the Hall, but to one of two tiers within the Hall:  The Greats or the he Elite.  Any player with a FBHOF score of 80 or better is considered part of the Elite.

Eligibility

Finally, while rudimentary versions of fantasy baseball have been around for generations, the true Grandfather of Fantasy Baseball - Dan Okrent - came up with the idea of drafting a team and basing the scoring/standings upon in-season statistics.  In honor and recognition of his brilliance, we'll only be inducting players from the 1980 season onward.

Scoring

For reference purposes and to make it a bit easier to understand the scoring, here are a few small tables of what to expect:

Single Season

19.40 - Highest Batting Score

18.80 - Highest Pitching Score

Final FBHOF Score

90.0 - Highest Batting Score

94.5 - Highest Pitching Score

5 Season Peak

81.2 - Highest Batting Score

86.0 - Highest Pitching Score

Career Score

232.0 - Highest Batting Score

174.3 - Highest Pitching Score

Other Interesting Notes

- All players with a FBHOF score over 70 are in the Hall of Fame.

- A single season score above 15 is considered superb.  There are 39 instances.

- A single season score above 10 is considered very good.

- Any single season score above 0.0 means the player had some, albeit minimal, fantasy value.