The Z Files: The Truth About Ratios

That's so wrong-ditty, wrong, wrong, wrong.

There's two reasons why the ratio categories are just as important, if not more so, than the counting stats. First, teams can move in either direction in ratios. In fact, you can gain points overnight without have anyone on your staff throw a single pitch. The second will be demonstrated momentarily. The ratio categories are more tightly bunched than most of the counting stats. So while it is true the growing number of units in the rate denominator temper movement, the reality is they don't have to move much to gain or lose points.

To illustrate the closeness of the ratio categories, the average standings from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) will be employed. Below is the average for each standings place over 30 NFBC Main Event leagues from last season (15 team leagues, standard 5x5 rotisserie scoring).

Here are the above standings presented as normalized standings where the units in each category sum to 100. The reciprocal of ERA and WHIP is used since those ratios are scored higher for the lower mark.

Before going on, it's time to address the elephant in the room. We're looking at average standings. Each league is unique with its own categorical distribution. At the end of the day, all that really matters is where your squad falls within each category. But it stands to reason that if average and WHIP are intrinsically more bunched than the others there will be a spot in your league where several clubs are even more congested, and this is where you make your move. Of course, the same can be said for the counting stats too; the categorical distribution is not linear. In fact, this is something that we'll discuss next spring in terms of roster construction. The point here is, average standings are nice from a general point of view, but ultimately it depends on whether you're lucky enough to be in position to make up points.

OK, let's get mathy. Your team is presently hitting .262, worth six points. Here's what you need to hit for the rest of the season to tack on up to five more points.

11 pts - .284
10 pts. - .280
9 pts. - .276
8 pts. - .271
7 pts. - .266

If you hit .266, you'll pass the next team and pick up a point. Hitting .271 gets you another, and so on.

Is it likely that your squad hits .284 over the final six-plus weeks? No, probably not. But is it plausible? Yeah, if you look at six-week slices of your league, there will be teams sporting an average of that ilk during those stretches.

When you do the same for homers, and prorate for the time left, the current 37 homer gap is really 51. Which is more likely -- your team's batting average spiking to .284 going forward or hitting eight or nine more homers a week than everyone until the end of the season? My vote's for the former.

Let's circle back to the fact that things won't remain status quo. The teams ahead of you may not hit home runs at the same pace so maybe you don't need the full 51 to capture all five points. But they all are still heading north with their totals.

Similarly, the team getting 11 points and hitting .2679 may slump. If they hit .260 the rest of the year, they fall to .266 and now if you hit .276, you gain four points. Some teams will head south.

I could do the same for WHIP and ERA but again, what matters is where you are in your league. To that end, I've created an Excel tool to crunch the numbers for your own league. All you need is your current ratio (hitting or pitching), the target you want to hit and how many weeks are left in the season.

The tool should be self-explanatory, just click the link and enter the above in the appropriate cell. If you need some help, please take advantage of the comments section and I'll do what I can to lend a hand.

Happy number crunching!