I turned to my friend Derek, and I said, “Well, our first call has to be Ron.” And my friend turned to me and said, “Ron who?” Ron Shandler. And he goes, “Who’s Ron Shandler?”
Who is Ron Shandler? Hold that thought.
This conversation happened in 2004. I was sitting with Derek, who was the co-founder of this company I had called RotoPass. It was supposed to be a bundle site where, for one price, you could access a bunch of premium fantasy content websites. Derek was the business guy. I was the fantasy guy. So forgive Derek if he didn’t recognize the name.
So, I answered him, “Who is Ron Shandler?” He’s a freaking legend, that’s who he is.
(Through this Game Changer Award), I believe my most important job is to leave this industry a better place than I found it. I’ve tried my best to pay it forward. And one of the ways I’ve tried to do that, through this award, is to highlight people, moments and companies that have truly changed the game for our industry. And that is what we’re doing here today. We are honoring the incomparable Ron Shandler.
I have one issue with Ron. There are too many things you can point to! Usually, with this award, there is one thing, one moment in time that changed things. But with Ron Shandler, there are way too many to choose from.
Like, is it First Pitch Arizona? There was this conference at the Arizona Fall League that tried but had fallen on tough financial times – because, of course, it did! Like, who in the hell is going to make money convincing people to come to the Arizona Fall League to talk about baseball players they’re not going to draft for another six months, in a hotel conference room? Well, no one. It’s no wonder that business failed.
But Ron Shandler came in and said, “I can do this. I’m going to do this and call it First Pitch Arizona.” When he took it over, people came. Year after year, Ron, through First Pitch Arizona, created the first annual consumer fantasy sports conference, which continues to this day. Honestly, Ron could receive the award just for that.
Or, he could get the award for the Baseball Forecaster. Ron formed Shandler Enterprises in 1986 – remember, this was well before the internet existed – and he started publishing the Baseball Forecaster. Now, there were other books and newsletters around that time – few lasted more than a year or two – but the Baseball Forecaster, which has become a behemoth and the bible for anyone who takes fantasy baseball seriously, celebrates its 40th year next season. Forty years! Ron could win it just for the Baseball Forecaster.
Or, honestly, Ron could win this award just for BaseballHQ.com. It was started by Ron in 1996. It was a fantasy baseball website – just fantasy baseball, no other sports. And they charged $99 a year for this thing. And for $125 per year, you could get Baseball HQ and the Baseball Forecaster. This was back in (the 1990s), way before people fully trusted the internet or would put their credit cards online, and somehow, Ron was able to get people to pay 125 bucks a year just to read his analysis about fantasy baseball. This was a time when there was a ton of free information on the internet. Ron proved that people would pay – and honestly, pay a lot – for quality fantasy sports information.
Baseball HQ started a lot of careers. Long before politics, Nate Silver got his start there. Derek McKamey, Ron’s minor league guy, was hired as a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals. By the way, Ron also consulted for the Cardinals. Imagine that – being so good at fake baseball that an MLB team said, “Help us with real baseball.” That’s Ron Shandler. That’s who he is.
He was, and remains, incredibly kind and generous with his time. His expertise, his encouraging of young people trying to get into the industry, his knowledge and experience…
Going back to 2004, when I approached him about the Rotopass idea, he took the call. I mean, back in 2004, no one knew who I was. I was doing some writing for Rotoworld and certainly didn’t have any kind of stature in this industry, but Ron took the call. And more importantly, he took it seriously. He listened to it with open eyes and open ears. He considered it seriously at a time when he didn’t have to. But he did. And he was like that, not only with me but with everyone in the industry. A lot of people wanted to and still want to do business with Ron Shandler. He takes all comers; he listens to everyone no matter how dumb the idea is. I can speak to that. That’s who Ron Shandler is.
So, many, many things you can point to as to why Ron Shandler is a game-changer. But for me, it’s this: It’s Ron’s ground-breaking use of sabermetrics to predict future player performance through the lens of fantasy baseball – to me, that’s why. Look, prior to Ron, pretty much every fantasy sports analyst would just read the boxscores and recite the stats. But Ron used analytics that were not mainstream to show, for example, that a pitcher with a high ERA for three straight years might actually not be pitching poorly but just might have been very unlucky, and a turnaround will happen soon. Shout out to Jose Lima, wherever you are.
These days, every fantasy sports analyst, including me, uses advanced metrics for their analysis, and we all have Ron Shandler to thank for that.
So, when you see Ron and his family walking around today, say congratulations for sure, but also say Thank you. Because, without him, fantasy sports analysis looks a lot different today and a lot worse.
It gives me incredible pleasure to award the 2025 Matthew Berry Game Changer Award to Ron Shandler.
