Live Q&A: Talking baseball with Eno Sarris on Friday 6/21 at 11:30 a.m. ET

Since the San Francisco Giants announced Willie Mays’ death on Tuesday, we’ve seen many tributes describing a five-tool player who served as a manager on the field. Many touched on his showmanship and how he played with joy, but we didn’t see much — if anything — about what a pleasure it would’ve been to have Mays on a fantasy team.

From the time he got back from military service, Mays had a stretch from 1954-1966 that doesn’t seem possible. He averaged 40 homers per season and led the league in steals for three straight seasons. His lowest batting average during that stretch was .288, and the fewest number of games he played in a season was 151 (back when a full season was 154 games). He scored 100-plus runs in each of those 13 seasons, except when he notched 99 in 1966 as a 35-year-old.

Fantasy baseball seems to have originated in 1980, seven years after Mays retired. Perhaps if people played fantasy baseball when he was in his absurdly long prime, there might’ve been a greater appreciation for his consistent dominance. Despite leading baseball in bWAR eight times during that stretch, he only won two MVPs.

With that, we’ll pivot to what’s happening now in Major League Baseball and what we can expect in the future, and Eno Sarris is here to answer your questions. He’ll participate in a Friday Q&A, exclusively for The Athletic subscribers, so please submit them below.