Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy Baseball is a game that allows you to call the shots as an owner, general manager, and manager of your own team without having to spend a dime. Owners have the ability to draft their own team, make trades with other owners, and add free agents all in efforts to win.

Fantasy baseball is a relatively new phenomenon. Even though baseball was invented in 1864, the idea of Fantasy baseball was originated in 1979. The original idea of fantasy baseball was formulated by Dan Okrent. A businessman from New York City, Okrent was an avid baseball fan and along with 7 of his friends, they decided to build a "Rotisserie" Baseball League that used the daily flow of statistical results from baseball games. The 8 owners would meet every Sunday night and add up the statistics of the week by scouring newspapers and using calculators to determine the standings. The original idea was to have 8 teams, 10 hitters and 5 pitchers per team, and scores would be calculated. As years have gone by and the Internet has taken the world by storm. It has become much more advanced but the initial idea still remains.

The way they calculated scoring was to take each individual match up in every given baseball game, and take account of it. Although there are 9 men on each side playing at a time, baseball is more or less a game of one-on-one. Pitcher vs. Hitter. In fantasy baseball, in the simplest terms, you want the players who win the most one-on-one battles. The scoring every week is a compilation of all your players stats and the better your players do, the higher you will place in your league. The stats most generally used in leagues around the world are the basic 5 major hitting stats (Batting Average, Runs Scored, Home Runs, Runs Batted In, and Stolen Bases) and the 5 major pitching stats (Wins, Earned Run Average, Strikeouts, Saves, and Innings Pitched). These stats are the most commonly used but there are many different stats available that can be a factor if they are used in your league.

Every day of the season, each team owner makes decisions of who to play and who to leave on the bench. This can be a simple task or it can be a process of much scrutiny. Maybe you start your hottest hitter over a player who has better stats but is cold at the time. You might not start your best pitcher because he will be pitching in a stadium that gives the advantage to hitters or he has a bad track record against the team he will be facing. Take into consideration also that right-handed hitters generally do better against left-handed pitching and left-handed hitters often do quite poorly against southpaws but hit right-handed pitchers well. Weather can also be a factor. In April, hitting a baseball in Detroit , Chicago or Philadelphia is hard to do because of the frigid weather. Also keep in mind that places like Cincinnati can get deathly humid in July and August and the Reds often tail off in those 2 months. Not every owner goes to such extremes but it is not uncommon for serious owners to spend about two hours a day monitoring their teams and checking scores and stats throughout the day.

Fantasy baseball, along with all other sports, is easy to find and sign up for. Last season, over 15 million people participated in some form of Fantasy Baseball and that number will only continue to grow. The most renowned sites for fantasy baseball over the years have been Yahoo, ESPN, CBS.Sportsline, and Sandbox Sports. You can choose to sign up for a free public league or create your league with your friends and setup an entry fee for prize money.