This marks the first of a series of posts focused on the history of The Game (baseball, for you non-purists). Thanks to our friends (actually in no way are they my friends, just good people that provide free access to every player’s stats from every season since 1871) over at baseball1.com, I have more stats than Excel 2003 could handle. Luckily Microsoft foresaw this problem I was going to encounter and brought out Excel 2007.
Casual fans and talking heads alike, everyone loves comparing seasons. From everyone’s worst nemesis, Skip Bayless, to our good friends over at BaseballProspectus (again, not really friends, but they do amazing work) and their WARP1, WARP2, and WARP3, people must know who had the best season ever, how seasons compare, and whether Wade Boggs 1986 season was really better than Carlos Beltran’s 2003 season. Most (calling you Skip Bayless) simply play the homer card and rant and rant, albeit founded on nothing substantial. My completely imperfect, yet numerically-based solution: apply standard points league fantasy scoring to every season since 1871, and see where the dust settles.
