Fantasy Baseball with a Statistical Twist

Abstract

Fantasy baseball, a game invented in 1980, allows baseball fans to become managers of pretend baseball teams. In most fantasy baseball leagues, participants choose teams consisting of major league players who they believe will do well in five offensive categories (batting average, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, and runs scored) or in five pitching categories. We bring a fantasy baseball activity into entry-level statistics classes. Each student drafts a team on the basis of nine offensive categories, most of which are statistical twists on the five categories above. The primary goal of this activity is to apply the material in an introductory one-semester, non-calculus-based college course in statistics. This is the type of course that AP Statistics courses are designed to emulate, so this project is appropriate for AP Statistics classes as well. Indeed, this project incorporates exploratory analysis, planning and conducting a study, probability, and statistical inference, the four major themes of an AP Statistics class (The College Board 2004).