Fantasy baseball

Fantasy baseball is a game consisting of a number of players creating virtual teams made up of major league players and using the statistics they compile during the season to determine a winner. Fantasy baseball can be played for fun or for sometimes significant cash prizes, and the number of players involved can vary from three or four all the way to thousands.

Fantasy baseball began to take off in the 1980s when detailed statistics for players became more widely available, and the development of personal computers made it possible to track virtual teams. The first form to gain popularity was Rotisserie baseball (or roto for short), named by Daniel Okrent after a restaurant in New York, NY, La Rôtisserie Française (the French Roastry) where he and his buddies would hold their league meetings. Players would draft a set number of players and compare their statistics in categories such as batting average, homers, RBIs and stolen bases for hitters, and wins, ERA, strikeouts and saves for pitchers. Players could trade or release members of their fantasy team in order to improve their chances at winning the overall championship.

Fantasy baseball became extremely popular in the 1990s creating a whole industry around it, with software and publications developed for serious players. A number of analysts who became part of the sabermetrics movement got their start in fantasy baseball as they worked to devise methodologies to improve their virtual team's performance. It has now become an ingrained part of the fan experience. It is credited with popularizing certain non-traditional statistics, such as WHIP, which was often used as one of the statistical measures of pitcher performance in fantasy leagues. While fantasy sports largely began with baseball, due to its statistical bent, they are widely played in conjunction with all other major sports.