Fantasy baseball is the original fantasy sport. You can find its roots back in the 1960s, but it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s when modern fantasy baseball, as we know it today, was popularized by a group of journalists in a New York City restaurant, when they created Rotisserie League Baseball to track stats of players across an MLB season and try to determine who assembled the best roster.
Fantasy baseball offers something that every baseball fan wants: More baseball and a deeper way to interact with the game. It also allows the casual baseball fan to follow the sport more closely than they have might otherwise by putting stakes on the game and allowing them to learn the players and teams as they try to beat their friends and coworkers in their fantasy league.
If you’re familiar with other fantasy sports, you’ve got a leg up, but fantasy baseball is unique in its duration. It spans almost half the year versus just a few months in football or basketball. And the rosters are much bigger. Every single player on an MLB roster has a chance to make a difference for your fantasy team, whereas the third string tackle on an NFL team is relegated to fantasy irrelevance.
Let’s look at the elements of fantasy baseball as you prepare for the upcoming season.
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Types of Fantasy Baseball Leagues
There are a few popular fantasy baseball league formats: rotisserie league, head-to-head points and head-to-head categories.
Rotisserie (Roto) League
In rotisserie or roto, the league compares teams’ season-long totals in select stat categories. Most often, that’s batting average, home runs, RBIs, stolen bases and runs for hitters and wins, saves, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts for pitchers.
In a 10-team league, the leader of each category amasses 10 points at the end of the season, second place gets nine, third place gets eight and on down. Whoever has the most total amount of points or finishes best across all categories is the ultimate champion.
This is one of the most popular methods because it forces you to think far more critically about each player’s contributions, strengths and weaknesses, as well as the value of certain categories. For instance, players don’t steal bases very often, but there are a lot of players who hit home runs. So, if you can find a player that steals a lot of bases and hits home runs, their value is much higher than your traditional power hitter. Even someone who is a stolen base fiend versus a home run hitter can have more value.
The same can be said for saves. There’s usually only one position, the closer, that is going to carry saves, versus strikeouts that can happen from any pitcher. So there’s much more strategy that goes into compiling your team than simply amassing the biggest stars, best power hitters or best power pitchers.
Head-to-Head Points
The head-to-head points fantasy baseball format is very familiar for those who play fantasy football. It breaks the season down into a series of head-to-head matchups each week. In baseball, it’s usually about 25 to 27 weeks, depending on how the league is constructed. The goal is to try to amass more points than your opponent in each matchup.
This will include points gained for home runs and stolen bases, but it can also include negative points, like strikeouts for hitters and losses or blown saves for pitchers. This system is a little easier for a newer fantasy baseball player to wrap their head around and make the marathon length of the season a little more palatable.
Like in fantasy football, the best record at the end of the season is the champ.
Head-to-Head Categories
A combination of the two formats, head-to-head categories pit two teams against one another in a competition to see who can win the most statistical categories for that week.
For instance, for hitting, there is usually RBIs, runs, stolen bases and home runs. In pitching, there’s wins, saves, earned runs, strikeouts and WHIP. If your pitchers yield more strikeouts than your opponent, you get a point for that category.
Let’s say you win six categories, your opponent wins three and you tie one. Your record of 6-3-1 will be added to your total record. That continues on for the rest of the season and at the end of the season, the player with the best overall record is the champion.
Head-to-head categories scratches the itch of the traditional fantasy league that folks are accustomed to with fantasy football, while also including some of the deeper strategy that is required for roto leagues.
Season Points
Like with roto, in a season points league, you are just amassing stats over the course of a season. However, you’re not getting hung up in head-to-head matchups that could instill some unlucky outcomes. With season points, it is truly just about putting the best roster together for 162 games and trying to yield the best points, not necessarily adding and dropping players to win certain categories in certain weeks.
Like with roto league and actual Major League Baseball, you are taking a long view of the entire season.
How Big Are Fantasy Baseball Leagues?
Most fantasy leagues are 10 to 12 players. This is especially helpful for folks that are new without a deep knowledge of Major League Baseball rosters that would require you to have at least a cursory knowledge of who the fourth reliever for the Arizona Diamondbacks might be so that you can lower your WHIP on a weekly basis.
For those that are really in-depth, 14 or even 16-player leagues add even more excitement and strategy. But the cap is usually around 20. That is to keep rosters mainly featuring active players on a roster versus needing to dive deep into depth charts or, in some cases, even the minor leagues.
Roster Spots and Position Eligibility
In baseball, there are some players that are going to trot out to the same position on the diamond every single time they take the field. However, there are others that are more utility, sometimes playing both corner infielder positions, sometimes serving as DH and sometimes playing a little bit of everywhere.
As you build your team, allowing yourself more positional flexibility allows you to put together more roster combinations.
Setting Lineups
In fantasy baseball, there are two primary ways to set your lineup: on a weekly basis or, for the real diehards, on a daily basis.
Weekly Lineups
On a weekly basis, like in fantasy football, you’re setting your team once for the week, swapping out anybody who is injured and letting the chips fall where they may. This makes it much more manageable for newer fantasy players because it is a grind to need to set your lineup each day. With weekly lineups, you’re setting your lineup 22 to 25 times versus 140 to 160 times.
Daily Lineups
But if you really want to get in there like you’re the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, you can opt for daily roster setting, which allows you ultimate roster flexibility in adding, dropping or substituting out players on your roster in an effort to put the best possible team together for each day.
Types of Drafts
This is where the real fun begins: Draft day. Like in fantasy football, there are two major draft strategies for putting together your fantasy baseball powerhouse: snake drafts and auction drafts.
Snake Draft
In a snake draft, a draft order is pre-determined and inverts each round, so in a 10-person league, for instance, picks will go one through 10, then 10 through one, then one through 10 and so on until all rosters are filled. This is to create equity among draft positions so that the person with the first overall pick is not getting the first overall pick in every round and allowing some balance between players who are picking 10th.
Auction or Salary Cap Draft
This is for people who really know baseball and are looking for the most intense strategic game. Normally, in a salary-capped draft, there is a budget set at $260 imaginary dollars. This is your budget for constructing your team.
Rather than missing out on Shohei Ohtani in a snake draft because you didn’t have the number one overall pick, now everyone has a chance at Shohei Ohtani, so long as they are willing to be the highest bidder.
It’s rare to find anyone who’s really into fantasy baseball that would opt for anything other than salary cap, as it provides the most strategy, the most challenge and the most fun.
Fantasy Baseball Waivers and Free Agency
In fantasy baseball, there are two primary ways to add free agent players to your team: waivers and free agent acquisition budget.
Waiver System
In a waiver system, each member of your fantasy league is given a predetermined order of priority, which is usually in reverse order of the league’s standings. Anyone can make a claim on a player, but if two teams make a claim on the same player, the team with the higher priority will win that player and then move to the back of the line. The person who had the worse priority and missed out on the player moves up in line and takes the next pick.
Free Agent Budget (FAAB)
In FAAB leagues, each team is given a budget at the beginning of the season, typically $100 imaginary dollars. They can use that to sign free agents whenever they want as long as they put together the highest bid.
For a lesser-known player that is flying under the radar, you might be able to get by with a dollar or even $0 if no one really knows about them. But for a high prospect or a starting pitcher that is emerging out of nowhere, you’re likely going to have to spend much more if you want to win them. This offers a heightened level of strategy to determine how much of your budget you want to use on a single player.
If you find yourself in a free agent budget waiver system, it’s always important to remember that the higher the number gets, the more assured you should be that this player is here to help your team in the long term.
Trades
In roto and head-to-head category leagues especially, trades are important to provide a give and take to make your team more competitive.
Say your starting pitching rotation is flat out dominant through the first half of the year. They’re leading your fantasy league in strikeouts by a huge margin, but you are really low in RBIs. One thing you may want to consider is trading one of those pitchers that is striking out a lot of batters and trying to trade for a hitter that is doing a good job of batting runners in.
Trying to find trading partners with complementary needs can be a great way to be mutually beneficial to you both, but hopefully just you in the long run.
In some leagues, like keeper leagues that allow you to keep players for multiple years, you might even be able to trade draft picks like they do in the major leagues. This allows front runners to trade future assets in an effort to win the league now while allowing teams with little chance this season to start planning for the future and make plans to eventually take over the league next year.
Other Settings: Games Played Limits
Some leagues introduce games played or innings pitched limits. This is to keep teams from stacking too much.
Typically they set the restrictions at 162 games per offensive position or 1,400 total innings for pitchers. This is to ensure that fantasy team managers don’t exploit rule loopholes to win their title and keep everyone on the same level.
Where to Play Fantasy Baseball: Popular Platforms
So, where can you actually play fantasy baseball? You could do it the old-fashioned way and keep your league’s records manually, but technology has made this amazing game so much easier.
Some of the top platforms for fantasy baseball include:
- ESPN Fantasy Baseball
- Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball
- CBS Fantasy Baseball
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common types of fantasy baseball leagues?
The most common types of fantasy baseball leagues are Roto League, Head-to-Head Points and Head-to-Head Categories.
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