How to Play Fantasy Baseball

Playing fantasy baseball is easy. Players just have to create a roster of baseball players, earn points based on their real performance, compete with other teams, and win real money prizes. At the same time, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Creating the winning roster requires a great deal of time and research on the part of players.

But beginners don’t have to worry about the tougher aspects of playing the game. They just need to get started, and in order to get started, there are just a few things they need to know.

Formats

Fantasy baseball is played in several formats, but three of these formats are the most common.

• In the Season ROTO format, fantasy baseball leagues select certain categories and they will be awarded points only for those categories. Your team will receive points based on its ranking in the league, and the team with the largest number of points wins.
• In case of ROTO Head to Head, your team competes against another team on a weekly basis.
• The Points format awards points for runs, home runs, triple threes, and so on. If your team scores the highest number of points at the end of the week, you will be declared the winner.

League Types

You can join any of the following types of leagues.

• Standard – These leagues allow you to draft National League and American League players.
• AL Only – You can draft only American League players. The biggest disadvantage is that you cannot touch players traded from the American League to the National League.
• NL Only – This is the opposite of the AL Only type of league. You can only draft players from the NL.
• Keeper – This variety of league allows you to retain certain players every season although you can retain them only for a specific number of seasons.

Draft Types

You can draft your team in person or online. Irrespective of how you choose to do it, there are several ways to draft your team.

• Auction Draft – You will get a pre-determined amount, which you must use to purchase as many players as possible in an auction.
• Snake – In snake drafting, draft orders are reversed every round to give all team owners equal opportunities to pick their players.
• Keeper – This is a variety of snake drafting, except that there are some new rules to follow.

After Drafting Your Team

You cannot take a break from playing fantasy baseball and you will not want to. You may have to change your lineup on a daily or weekly basis depending on the type of fantasy baseball game you are playing. You may consider adding free agents to your roster or trading some of your players later in the season. You also have a lot of research to do, in order to stay updated on the latest baseball stats.

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