No matter your opinion on Alex Rodriguezs statistical merits, theres no questioning his place as one of the greatest players in the history of fantasy baseball.Rotisserie Baseball was invented in 1980, with four hitting categories (batting average, home runs, RBIs and stolen bases), and since then, A-Rod -- a nickname fantasy owners helped popularize -- has filled them like few other players could. His totals and rankings in each, compared to all players in that 37-year span:Batting average (minimum 3,000 PAs): .295, 64th Home runs: 696, second to only Barry Bonds (762) RBIs: 2,084, first Stolen bases: 329, 41stA-Rod is one of only three players with at least a .290 batting average, 500 home runs and 250 steals in that time. The others are Bonds and Gary Sheffield.By A-Rods major league debut on July 8, 1994, many Rotisserie baseball leagues had adopted a fifth hitting category, runs scored, in which he has a whopping 2,021. That puts him third in the era, behind Rickey Henderson (2,246) and Bonds (2,227). Whittling that player pool to infielders, Rodriguez ranks 41st, first, first, 13th and first in those five categories during the Rotisserie era.Most importantly, however, A-Rod will be remembered for his year-after-year dominance, his status as a consensus No. 1 pick for the better part of a decade and his consistency in terms of annual fantasy impact. In short, he was to the late 1990s and early 2000s what Mike Trout is to todays game, what Barry Bonds was to the early 1990s and what Rickey Henderson was at Rotisseries dawn.Twice since 2001 -- the 15-year span for which we have data available -- A-Rod topped the ESPN Fantasy Player Rater. That was in 2005 and 2007, not coincidentally the two years he won Most Valuable Player awards while with the New York Yankees (he had another in 2003 as a member of the Texas Rangers). From 2001 to 08, he finished among the top 22 players overall and top 16 hitters, and from 2001-05 as well as in 2007, he was the No. 1 player at his position (shortstop from 2001-03, third base in 2005 and dual-eligible in 2004, as previous year position eligibility carries over).That excludes A-Rods lone 40/40 season, 1998, the only 40/40 campaign by a shortstop in the games history. Using my player valuation system, which closely mimics our Player Rater, Rodriguez was the fourth-most valuable player in fantasy baseball in 1998, behind only Greg Maddux, Sammy Sosa and Kevin Brown.Using this same system, A-Rod finished among the five most valuable players in fantasy baseball five times: 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and 2007. He finished among the 10 most valuable players another three times: 2000, 2002 and 2003. He finished among the 25 most valuable in three others, in 2004, 2006 and 2008, and among the top 50 twice, in 1997 and 1999.From 1996-2010, the 15 most productive seasons of A-Rods career, he produced a total of $458.57 in auction-based fantasy baseball earnings, or an average of $30.57 per year. To put that into perspective, $30 is traditionally regarded as elite in a 12-team standard mixed format, and Rodriguez reached that plateau in eight of those 15 campaigns. Further, he never earned less than $17.70 in a season (2009).Bear in mind that neither the Player Rater nor my system?includes positional-scarcity weighting, which makes A-Rods accomplishments all the more extraordinary. As a shortstop-eligible player for the first nine draft-relevant seasons of his career (1996-2004) and a third baseman until he shifted to DH only in 2016, he was considered the player to get because of the advantage he provided compared to other shortstops.Per Baseball-Reference.com, A-Rods 344 home runs as a shortstop were only one shy of Cal Ripkens 345 for the positional lead in the Rotisserie era. A-Rods .308 batting average as a shortstop was fourth best (minimum 3,000 plate appearances), his 985 RBIs fourth best, his 177 stolen bases 24th best and his 1,003 runs 14th best. He did that in only 1,264 games played at the position during that time, 44th most and more than 1,000 fewer than Ripken. Among third basemen, A-Rod ranked ninth in batting average (.293), 11th in home runs (287), 21st in RBIs (907), 11th in stolen bases (136) and 20th in runs scored (850).Thats why its no surprise that from 2001 to 2010, Rodriguez was the No. 1 pick in fantasy (using average draft position data) on five occasions (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008) and a top-three overall pick in every year except 2009, when his recovery from hip surgery that March caused his ADP to dip to 31st -- still third among third basemen.Rodriguez was fantasys top superstar around the turn of the century. Regardless of how you feel about the influence of PEDs on his statistics, as a numbers-based game, fantasy baseball is one place where Alex Rodriguez would be a guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Famer.Yeezy 700 Saldi . Fellow centre Pavel Datsyuk remains out because of a concussion. Zetterberg has 11 goals and 19 assists for a team-high 30 points, and Datsyuk has a team-high 12 goals and 11 assists. Vapormax Outlet .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. http://www.scontatescarpenikeoutlet.it/italia-balenciaga-offerte.html . The CFLs leading rusher kept adding to his gaudy numbers this season and scored the winning touchdown with just over two minutes to play. The New Westminster, B.C., native plowed three yards into the end zone for the last score of a heated, see-saw battle between the two teams with the best records in the CFL. Vans False . Halifax beat the Saint John Sea Dogs 7-5 on the strength of two goals apiece from Nikolaj Ehlers, Matt Murphy and Brent Andrews. Jonathan Drouin also scored and had three assists while Zachary Fucale made 17 saves for the Mooseheads (16-8-0), who led 6-1 after two periods. Scarpe Nike Offerta Online . He says so-called TRT is only one problem and he wants to go even further than the ban. "Its about time," St-Pierre told reporters at a promotional event in Montreal on Friday. "I think its a good thing.SHENZHEN, China -- Defending champion Tomas Berdych advanced to the quarterfinals of the Shenzhen Open by beating Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 7-6 (7), 7-6 (4) Thursday.The top-seeded Czech is trying to reach his first final of the season.Also, Bernard Tomic defeated Ryan Harrisonn 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, Thomaz Bellucci beat Thomas Fabbiano 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), and eighth-seeded Jiri Vesely eliminated Inigo Cervantes 7-6 (2), 6-3.dddddddddddd ' ' '
