Ron Shandler

Ron Shandler is the author of "Baseball Forecaster", an annual publication focused on applying sabermetrics to fantasy baseball, and founder of [http://baseballhq.com Baseball HQ] , a website with the same focus.

Shandler is seen as a revolutionary thinker in both sabermetrics and fantasy baseball. Among his innovations in fantasy baseball are:

• LIMA Plan - Which stands for Low Investment Mound Aces, is a draft strategy for traditional 4x4 Rotisserie leagues. LIMA is named after pitcher Jose Lima, who was exemplified by the strategy. The strategy includes spending a maximum of $60 out of your $260 budget on pitching. No more than $30 on saves. Have your pitchers use as few innings as your league rules allow. Look to buy pitchers with strong strikeout-to-walk ratios, high strikeout per inning ratios and low home run per inning ratios. Spend the rest of your budget on hitting.

• Strand Rate - The percentage of baserunners a pitcher allows who fail to score (Baseball Prospectus has a similar statistic, [http://www.baseballprospectus.com/glossary/index.php?mode=viewstat&stat=231 Bequeathed Runs Prevented] ). Shandler discovered that 72 percent of baserunners on average never cross the plate, so if a pitcher has a higher or lower strand rate there's a chance it will affect his ERA in the opposite direction in the future. [cite news | first=Sam | last=Walker | coauthors= | title=Fantasyland | date=2006 | publisher=Viking | url =http://www.fantasyland.com | work = | pages =54 | accessdate = 2007-07-17 | language = ] It should be noted, however, that the very idea of runners being stranded on base was likely not first conceived of by Shandler. Sabermetrician Keith Woolner has been researching support-neutral statistics since at least [http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/snwl/snwlart/ 1993] , and has often discussed concepts similar to Strand Rate (e.g., Bequeathed Runners inherited/stranded). [http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3032] [http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2705]

Shandler created Tout Wars in 1997 after being fed up with the lack of promotion USA Today gave its annual LABR fantasy baseball experts league. [cite news | first=Sam | last=Walker | coauthors= | title=Fantasyland | date=2006 | publisher=Viking | url =http://www.fantasyland.com | work = | pages =145 | accessdate = 2007-07-17 | language = ]

Shandler's success as a fantasy player includes the most wins in major fantasy baseball expert leagues.Fact|date=May 2008 He won both the NL and AL Tout Wars competitions in 1998, AL Tout Wars in 2000, NL LABR in 2001.

ee also

* Fantasy baseball
* Fantasy sport

References