2021 MLB Database First Impressions
When I build the yearly Fantasy Astrology lineups for the Gallery Section, I only consider players who had significant playing time that year: 200 plate appearances for hitters or 40 innings for pitchers. But for this year, I went all out and created a database with every player who had an appearance in the major leagues in 2021. This took an obscene amount of time, and it didn’t do my carpal tunnel any favors. But the larger sample allows me to perform more comprehensive analysis than what I normally have access to.
First, let’s take a look at the big picture regarding the signs. Normally, when I rank the signs each year, I calculate the total points of their “starting lineups” – one batter for each position, five starting pitchers, and three relievers – to make sure that the comparisons are on a level playing field. But with a complete list of all MLB players, I can determine which signs were best represented in 2021. It turns out the short answer to that question is Virgo with 149, although Scorpio (144) and Leo (143) were close behind. So an Earth sign, a Water sign, and a Fire sign… not sure what that signifies cosmically.
Those three were the only signs with more than 140 players each, with Libra (137) and Aries (134) following behind in the 130 club. While Aquarius is frequently the butt of jokes on this site, it’s notable that they were the only sign with fewer than 100 total players in the majors in 2021. As far as positional breakdown is concerned, Scorpio had the most pitchers (95) while Leo sent the most batters to the plate (70). Of course, having more players doesn’t mean they’re all going to be good players, but it’s important to keep these numbers in mind as context for the calculations that come next.
It is with great pride and pleasure that I announce that the sign with the most overall fantasy points in 2021 was my very own “home” sign, the Cancer Crabs! And what’s all the more impressive about this accomplishment is that the Decapods had a below-average 126 total players – just two players below the mean, but still, below average. (And that’s even counting Shohei Ohtani twice, once as a pitcher and once as a batter.) Cancer’s success was immensely one-sided: their batters had the most points in the majors by a wide margin (7,757 points over second-place Virgo), but their pitchers came in dead last (by a more manageable 642 points behind Scorpio, but dead last all the same).
Cancer’s league-leading fantasy point tally works out to an average of 587.4 points per player, a rate that comes in third overall among the 12 signs. The leader in this category is Cancer’s Water Division rival Pisces (607.3), whose middle of the pack points total (they placed sixth overall) was accrued by the second-smallest player pool in the game. The Fish only fielded 116 players in 2021, just one behind Capricorn, and ahead of only Aquarius. But the small group of Water Bearers actually works to the sign’s advantage, as their points-per-player average of 601.1 is the second best in the league.
I generally try to steer clear of corporeal concerns such as money in my analysis – after all, this is a blog about the stars. But my database does have a column for salary, since it’s included in each Baseball-Reference.com player page. As it happens, the sign with the most overall players (Virgo) is also the sign with the highest total dollar value committed to their players. In fact, Virgo’s batters alone made more money than the entire player pools of the bottom three teams: Pisces, Taurus, and Aquarius.
Keep in mind, bbref only lists guaranteed contracts (meaning any minimum salary players will be counted as zero), so all of these totals will be lower than the real life figures. I included a column for average salary per player, by which I mean per TOTAL players, not just players with listed salaries. Virgo predictably leads the league in that figure, but it might surprise you that in last place we have their fellow Earth sign Taurus. Remember, in the 2021 weekly fantasy astrology league, Taurus just barely edged Virgo for the Earth Division lead in the last matchup of the season, and then went on to win the title. I guess that goes to show that the highest-paid players don’t always lead to the most wins.
The last category I’ll go over in this post is place of birth, which is also important to keep track of for astrological purposes. The US state that the relative majority of all 2021 major leaguers call home is also the state with the most major league teams: California, with 239 and five, respectively. CA’s total is 69 (nice!) higher than the most commonly hailed-from foreign country, which is the Dominican Republic, with 170. Rounding out the top five are Florida (114), Venezuela (102), and Texas (98), which concludes the single states/territories that would have their own rosters, were I ever to revive the Hometown Tournament that I simulated way back in 2014 for my Old Blog.
We will still be in the midst of the Championship Serieses on Friday, so I might return to the 1990’s for a post before continuing to analyze the real-life 2021 postseason.