I think sometimes as fantasy players, we think of these guys as names instead of people. Sometimes I'll turn on a game and see a player who has been on my team all year and say to myself "Oh, that's what he looks like?"
Indeed these names are real people and the best of the best aren't exactly spread out in the real world. There are 69 hitters who are >90 percent owned in Yahoo leagues. These are the star hitters of fantasy. The ones who are nearly must own in every format. The Pujols's, the Tulo's, the Ichiro's. (Make that the Ichiro, as there can only be one)
I look at these 69 names and counted on which team they resided to see who had the most and who had the least. The results were interesting, but not surprising.
The top 4 Fantasy Lineups are in the American League: Texas, the Chicago White Sox, Boston, and the Yankees. The Rangers lead the way with a whopping six hitters that are owned in 90% of leagues. What is surprising is that the 6 next highest teams are in the National League. While the AL is top-heavy in the fantasy lineups, the NL keeps pace.
The full results after the jump.
Texas - 6
CWS - 5
Boston - 5
NYY - 5
Philadelphia - 4
Cincinnati - 4
Atlanta - 4
Arizona - 3
St Louis - 3
Milwaukee - 3
Chicago Cubs, Minnesota, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, NYM, LAD, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, Colorado - 2
Florida, LAA, KC, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Toronto - 1
Baltimore, Oakland, San Diego - 0
Some fun bullet-points!
- 30% of the top fantasy hitters reside in those top 4 teams.
- However, almost 53% are in the National League.
- The Royals only have 1 player on the list (Billy Butler) but have scored the third most runs in the majors.
- The Rangers have scored 10 less runs than first place Cincinnati.
- The Padres, Orioles, and A's don't have a single fantasy stud hitter. And indeed their offenses are bad. The Padres are hitting .214 this year and scored 62 runs in 21 games. They are however 2nd in the majors in stolen bases.
- If you referred to them as the O's, the A's, and the P's you could combined that to come with OPA (On-base plus average) The OPA of the Padres would .514. The O's would be .521 , and the A's would be .549. The Cards lead the majors with an OPA of .654.
- The highest ranked player who is not 90% owned is Kendrys Morales. This is either because he is on the DL, or because he added that stupid S to his name.
- Mike Stanton is knocking on the door at 89%. So far that "80 power" has produced 1 home run and 4 RBI's.
- Sam Fuld is ranked 13th in the game and still just 68% owned. I'm sure there is a pun in the name Fuld somewhere.
- The Diamondbacks could have had 4 players on the list but someone in the clubhouse accidentally told Kelly Johnson it was an odd-numbered year.
So that's what we've found out about how great fantasy players are dispersed in the major leagues, and surprisingly a large percentage are in the AL East! Shocker!