How to Play Free Fantasy Baseball for Beginners

With baseball season approaching, fans of all ages will be drafting and managing their own teams in an attempt at fantasy greatness. Imagine having the chance to assemble a team using any active major league player, compete with other teams throughout baseball's regular season and earn a spot in the playoffs. You can with fantasy baseball. You draft the players, you set the line up, you decide if it's better to play with your head or your heart.

The first thing you'll want to do is choose a fantasy baseball site to subscribe to. There are several sites that offer free leagues but many beginners prefer Yahoo. Yahoo Sports Fantasy Baseball has great free leagues and offers some upgrades if you don't mind spending a little money. The upgrades, such as Stat Tracker, are not necessary making the free leagues all the more attractive. Stat Tracker gives you live up to the minute statistical updates for all active players and free fantasy baseball updates player stats nightly. It's not a very big difference.

Once you've chosen a fantasy site to subscribe to you'll need to set up an account, name your team and choose your league preferences. These range from draft type to scoring and must be selected before you start ranking players. For beginners, an auto pick draft may be easier than a live draft as the latter can take hours. Drafting live does give you better opportunities to adjust picks on the fly and can be very exciting but it may be a better idea to keep it simple at first.

If you choose to have an auto pick draft you'll probably want to rank players before setting your draft status to ready. All active players are given a rank based on last year's performance and are listed in order from best to worst. You may edit these default rankings to reflect which players you'd like to pick first (if they are available during your draft turn) and exclude players you absolutely do not want on your team. When you are happy with your player rankings, set your draft status to ready and within a couple of days your team will be assigned to a league and drafted. There's nothing like taking the first look at your freshly formed ball team, assessing their strengths and weaknesses and preparing to set lineups. You may even want to offer a trade for your favorite player that you were unable to draft or to shore up any potential holes in your offense, pitching rotation or relievers.

Regardless of the scoring system that you choose (rotisserie or head-to-head) the points are derived equally from offense and pitching. In rotisserie scoring you play against everyone in your league for the best overall stats in each scoring category. In head-to-head scoring you are pitted against one other team each week and you receive one point for each scoring category that you best your opponent in. The offensive scoring categories are runs, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases and batting average while the pitching categories are wins, strike outs, saves, earned run average and WHIP (walks to hits per inning pitched). A good balance of offense and pitching is the cornerstone to a successful fantasy baseball season.

It is quite easy to draft a squad of your favorite players and end up with a sub par fantasy team. While it is infinitely easier and more fun to keep track of players on your favorite team it is important to field a good mix of players. Acquiring as many well rounded, high ranking players as possible is a good idea but there are a few staples you may not want to be without.

There are an abundance of good home run hitters but outstanding home run hitters are much harder to come by. It's not a bad idea to have someone who will hit thirty five or more home runs in your top five. Another hot commodity is a dominant closer. Since most teams relegate the closing duties to one man they can go fast. Having at least one dominant closer is crucial. Starting pitching is an area not to be ignored but it seems easier to find decent fantasy pitching than any other position. Still, having an ace starter is very important. If those areas have been addressed it's time to fill out your lineup.

Each day your lineup has slots for a catcher, a first baseman, a second baseman, a shortstop, a third baseman, three outfielders (from any spot), a utility man, two starters, two relievers and three additional pitchers of any type. Your roster also has five available bench spots. You may use them for batters or pitchers, it's up to you.

Fantasy baseball gives you the control of a major league manager with the added freedom to draft active players from any team in baseball. Find out if your baseball decisions yield positive results or if you need to rethink your inks. It's never to late to drop players and pick up free agents or propose that blockbuster trade. One thing is certain, the fantasy fun isn't finished until the World Series. Play ball!