Calling all fantasy baseball players

 A self-proclaimed sports junkie, Scott took a year to develop a series of complex baseball statistics which he used to grade various pitchers and batters. Hoping to offer a solid basis to teams before they negotiated contracts with players, he presented his formula, similar to +/- ratings used in hockey, to all of the professional baseball teams, but only the Seattle Mariners expressed any interest, and that was tepid at best.

 

Somewhat demoralized, Scott refused to give up his dream of developing a business around proprietary baseball statistics. When a friend asked him to co-manage a fantasy baseball team, Scott realized that he couldn’t find the necessary information he needed to draft his team. Instead, he created new complex statistics and formulas he could use to evaluate the players.

 

Given the growing number of fantasy baseball players, Scott recognized a unique business opportunity. Ten million people play fantasy baseball every year and Scott had the complex statistics and information they needed to succeed. In 2005, he became the Fantasy Baseball Sherpa (www.fantasybaseballsherpa.com) guiding fantasy players through their respective drafts and helping them during the season to fine-tune their teams. His services include customized advice to each one of his clients given how their respective leagues score points as well as regular newsletters informing players about injuries and trends.

 

Scott’s service differs greatly from the fantasy baseball magazines. First, each client answers a few questions about how their league works. Given the varied scoring systems, each player is then given a database of players rated from first to last according to how their respective league works. Second, Scott’s service works from the top down. The projections he provides make sense not only for each player, but also for the league as a whole. When magazines offer projected numbers, very often the statistics don’t add up correctly when you tally each player’s projected numbers vs. each team’s projected numbers. Finally, Scott offers a service with daily in-season updates. Most other sites provide weekly and/or monthly updates. Scott’s service is extremely current.

 

Scott is not only a provider of statistical analysis for fantasy players, but he is an excellent fantasy player himself. He won the Sportsbuff.com Industry League championship in 2007 and 2008 and finished third in 2009. He is hoping to regain his crown for 2010.

 

Scott has now expanded his service to fantasy football as well, but does not as of yet have an in-season service for football. Instead, the pre-season service he provides also includes the in-season service. His website for fantasy football is (www.fantasyfootballsherpa.com).

 

Scott Swanay is somebody to keep an eye on in the future. He currently writes a fantasy baseball blog for USA Today and will be appearing soon on various television and radio shows to help fantasy sports players. His services are reasonably-priced so why don’t you take a look at his two websites. If you are a fantasy baseball or football player, you will be glad you did. 

 

Brad Berkowitz is the author of: The 21^st Century Guide to Bachelorhood http://bit.ly/RhEgp He also writes a regular article on the New York Giants on NFL Blog Blitz (http://blogblitz.nfl.com/new-york-giants) as well as a monthly article on Jdate.com (http://bit.ly/cjLUkD)

 

Twitter: BradBerkowitz