Fantasy Baseball Basics
What is 'fantasy baseball'?
Fantasy baseball is a game where you, as an owner, play against the rest of a league of owners, maybe twelve owners. You draft major league baseball players onto your fantasy team. How you win is that you go against these other owners, and whoever has the best players on their team ends up having the best fantasy baseball team. You keep track of who's best with different stat categories, whether it's some wins or ERA in pitching or homers, RBI runs, stolen bases and hitting.
How do you 'play' fantasy baseball?
You get a baseball team, and you can either draft it or get it with an auction, but either way, you're going to have a team, and go against about 11 other owners in your fantasy baseball league. Then you end up playing out the whole season, from April all the way to October. How you play is that you basically have a set line-up, and the players in your line-up accumulate stats and points for you, depending on what stats you've used. You can also trade baseball players, and drop players on waivers, pick up players as free agents, and put players in the line-up or out of the line-up throughout the fantasy baseball season.
What are the origins of fantasy baseball?
The most popular story for how fantasy baseball started goes back to a guy named Daniel Okrent in the 80s. He and a bunch of his friends in the publishing industry met at this restaurant called the Rotisserie Franchise, and that's why it's called Rotisserie League baseball in a lot of places, not fantasy league baseball. Basically, they were huge baseball fans and wanted to come up with a new way to enjoy the game and be general managers, so they all selected their own teams and kept track of the stats throughout the season. That's pretty much how fantasy baseball got started.
How many people 'play' fantasy baseball?
The numbers vary. At least fifteen million people play fantasy sports. It's tough to break it down into each sport, but at least six or seven million people play fantasy baseball every year.
What is a 'manager' of a fantasy baseball team?
The manager is the owner of the fantasy baseball team. You're the manager, I'm the manager. You own the team and you make all the decisions that have to do with that team. You draft the team, you trade the players on the team, you pick up players, you get rid of players. Basically, anything that has to do with the fantasy baseball team, you make all the decisions, just like a general manager would in real life.
What is a 'league' in fantasy baseball?
A league is a group of fantasy baseball owners, basically. It depends what league you're in for how many owners it could be. It could be ten owners, it could be twelve, fourteen or eight. It's good to get an even number of owners in the league. A league is just a group of people that get together to play the sport - whether it's people you know, or people you don't know (if you're joining a fantasy baseball league online).
What is the 'commissioner' of a fantasy baseball league?
The commissioner is the person who sets the rules at the beginning of the season. Rules can vary a lot in fantasy baseball, depending on what type of scoring system you want to use and what type of position requirements you want to use. The commissioner decides all that; he gets all the owners together for the fantasy baseball league, makes sure that they join the league and that they show up at the time of the draft. He disputes any problems or any interpretations of the rules that happen to come up during the year, whether it's a trade dispute or someone is confused about the free agency rules, something like that: it's up to the commissioner to make that decision.
What is a 'draft' in fantasy baseball?
A fantasy baseball draft is before the season starts - sometime in spring training, probably in March - when owners from the fantasy league get together and choose all their players for the fantasy league. They do it in a serpentine draft style. What that means is, if you have the first pick of the first round, you're going to have the last pick of the second round. Then you'll have the first pick of the third round. You just go all the way through the draft, back and forth. Let's say there are ten teams, there are ten picks per round, until your entire fantasy baseball roster is filled.
What is a 'trade' in fantasy baseball?
A trade is when two owners from the fantasy baseball league decide to trade one player for another. There are a lot of reasons to make a trade. Let's say you're really good at one category, like power, home-runs and RBIs, maybe you'll trade your slugger to another team who has a speedster, a guy who gets a lot of stolen bases. Maybe you don't have a lot of stolen bases, so that is one reason to make a trade. Basically, you're making a trade to help your fantasy baseball team. You're not worried if it helps the other team or not. You're trying to win that trade.
What does it mean to 'acquire a free agent off waivers' in fantasy baseball?
Every league is different in terms of how they handle waivers. But a free agent is a player that wasn't drafted in your league. Once you start the season, he is not on anyone's team but he is eligible to be picked up. A lot of times, rookies will come up in a year or guys are coming up from injuries: those are some people that might be good free agent pick-ups. It just means that every week or day, depending on the fantasy baseball league, you have the options to pick-up these players out of the big player pool of available players. You can put them on your team and when do that, you also will have to drop one player off your team back into the pool.
How many roster spots are there on a typical fantasy baseball team?
The number of roster spots can vary in fantasy baseball; the most common one I see is 23 players. 22 or 21 also can happen, depending on what sort of structure that you want. A lot of times you have 14 position players and 9 pitchers on the roster. That's the breakdown that I've done since I was a kid. Rotisserie League Baseball, when it was invented, had that as their official way to do it, so you have 13 positions, 9 pitchers, and then one other position player that can be any position.
How do I score points in fantasy baseball?
How you score points depends on what categories you use in fantasy baseball. The most common categories are five hitting categories. You score points by accumulating those categories. For hitting, it's runs, RBI, stolen bases, batting average, and home runs. For pitching there are five scoring categories, one of which is base runners per inning - which is a little complicated -along with wins, saves, strike outs, and ERA. Basically, you accumulate points by being in first place in that particular category or, if you use a point scoring system, each home run will be worth a certain amount of points in the fantasy baseball league.
How do I win my league in fantasy baseball?
You win a fantasy baseball league by scoring more points than the other teams; you do better in all of the categories of your league; you score the most points in home runs, ERA, and then you add up all the categories. Whoever has the most points is the champ.
How much does it cost to play fantasy baseball?
It depends; you can play fantasy baseball for free. There are plenty of free sites, like ESPN, Yahoo, Sandbox, and FOX. All these places will offer fantasy baseball leagues for free. You can also pay a service to keep track of your stats or to have live scoring. That might be anywhere from thirty dollars to a couple hundred dollars for your entire league. You can also bet with your friends and put up some money per team; that's up to you. There are also some high stakes fantasy baseball leagues. Once you get a little advanced, you want to put up a lot of money for a national competition. There are some competitions that cost thousands of dollars - that's another option. I think, most commonly, fantasy baseball is either free or each person throws in twenty or thirty bucks.
How much of my time will be consumed by playing fantasy baseball?
How much time you spend playing fantasy baseball is up to you. You can put very little time into fantasy baseball. You probably won't do very well, though. If you happen to be someone that plays fantasy football, fantasy baseball takes more time. That's just a fact, because everyday people are playing. The games change every day, injuries happen every day. It's a lot more intense. There are also a lot more players to know. It depends on how often you want to do play fantasy baseball. I know some people spend hours every day. I know some people probably spend an hour every week. I think you can probably get by with ten or fifteen minutes a day, and then once a week you do want to go look for a waiver wire, and maybe that will take half an hour of your time.
