In fantasy baseball, groups of 12 league participants conduct a draft in which they can buy any

In fantasy baseball, groups of 12 league participants conduct a draft in which they can €œbuy€ any baseball players from any teams across one of the two Major League Baseball (MLB) leagues (the American League and the National League). These makeshift teams are compared on the basis of the combined statistics of the individual baseball players. For example, statistics about home runs are transformed into points, and each fantasy team receives a total score of all combined points based on its baseball players, regardless of their real-life team. Many in the fantasy and real-life baseball worlds have wondered how success in fantasy leagues maps onto real MLB teams€™ success in terms of winning baseball games. Walker (2006) compared the fantasy league performances of the players for each American League team with their actual American League finishes for the 2004 season, the year the Boston Red Sox broke the legendary €œcurse€ against them and won the World Series. The data, sorted from highest to lowest fantasy league score, are shown in the accompanying table.

a. What are the two variables of interest? For each variable, state whether it€™s scale or ordinal.

b. Calculate the Spearman correlation coefficient for these two variables . Remember to convert any scale variables to ranks.

c. What does the coefficient tell us about the relation between these two variables? 

d. Why couldn€™t we calculate a Pearson correlation coefficient for these data?

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