What is Fantasy Baseball?

I've been playing fantasy baseball for about five years now and I've really gotten into it. I was already a huge baseball fan to begin with but since I started playing Fantasy Baseball I started to know about every player in baseball. It led to me having a lot more to write about since I could now write about more people. This year I decided to write up my own Fantasy Baseball rankings for the first time and I published them here at Associated Content.

I was surprised when I got many replies for my Fantasy Baseball articles, not because they were good, but because my subscribers were constantly asking me "What is Fantasy Baseball?" It never donned on me that my readers wouldn't know. So I thought I would explain what Fantasy Baseball is to anybody who doesn't already know.

The shortest possible definition of Fantasy Baseball is this: You own your own team and get to choose what Major League Baseball players play on your team.

Fantasy Baseball starts by getting owners. Once you have a number of owners you are satisfied with the owners give their teams a name. My team name is usually the Evil Midnight Bombers (and if you can tell me what cartoon character my team is named after then brownie points for you).

Once all the owners have their team names you schedule a draft. At the draft your owners will take turns choosing any Major League Baseball they want on their team, just like a normal baseball draft. Once the season begins how your players perform during the actual Major League Baseball season will be recorded and compared to the other teams. Which ever team has the players who perform the best wins.

That sounds pretty simple enough right? Well it's a little more complicated than that because you have some things to take into consideration.

Positions
Just like a real baseball team you have to fill in all the positions on the field. You can't just pick ten outfielders for your team; you have to have three outfielders, a first baseman, a second baseman and so on. So you have to make sure through the course of your draft that you fill in every position.

Having to fill each position also adds strategy because some positions are weaker than others. There is tons of great hitting first baseman so you can pass up on a good first baseman early and still be able to get a good one later on in the draft. On the other hand the second base position is very weak. Chase Utley is far and away the best second base man so that raises his value because if you don't get him you'll have to settle for a much worse second baseman.

Balance
Your players will be tracked in many different categories through out the season so it's important to find a player that has a good balance of many stats. Adam Dunn of the Cincinnati Reds hits a lot of homeruns so he'll help your homerun category but he won't help in many other places. Somebody like Alfonso Soriano on the other hand will hit homeruns, RBI, score runs and even steal bases. So Alfonso Soriano is much more valuable than Adam Dunn.

Negative Stat Categories
It's up to the commissioner of your league what stats are recorded during the season but many commissioners will make sure your league has negative categories too, not just positives categories. For example the pitching categories in your league won't be just Wins, Strikeouts and Saves, which are all positive categories for a pitcher. The pitching categories could also include walks, runs, and losses, which are all negatives stats for a pitcher. Negative categories add a whole new dimension because it might be easy to find someone who will win games and strike out a lot of batters but it's not easy to find someone who does both of those but also walks very few batters, loses very few games and gives up few runs.

Drafting your players isn't the only part of Fantasy Baseball though. Much like a real baseball general manager if you feel a player isn't doing well you can always trade him to another team. If nobody on another team wants him you can release that player and you can search the free agency list, or the players that nobody drafted. Both of these aspects of the game can be very fun and can help build a good ball club.

Trading is a good way to have fun because you communicate with the other team owners. You can go about it however you want. You can be a shroud trader who will refuse to budge on trades or you can be more like a free wheeling car salesman negotiating type. Trades of course can also be helpful because it can help you get a more balanced team. If you see that your team is always ahead in homeruns but always behind in steals then you might go and trade someone on your team who hits homeruns for a player on another team that steals bases. The homeruns you are going to lose are expendable since you are good at that stat and the player who steals bases is going to help improve a weakness.

Choosing free agents is also fun. One of the best aspects of Fantasy Baseball is guessing correctly on how somebody is going to perform. Two years ago I didn't have a shortstop when my draft was over. I decided to get one off of free agency and picked up a guy that nobody had heard of, Clint Barmes. Barmes started off the season hot as he hit .410 for the first two months of the season. Barmes was one of the surprises of the baseball season and I got to brag that I knew he was going to play well. Last season I was searching for some pitching to bolster my awful staff and picked up this kid I liked by the name of Anibal Sanchez. Two weeks later Sanchez pitched the first, and only, no-hitter of the 2006 season. I always say if you can't win your Fantasy Baseball league the next best thing is bragging that you discovered some new player before anybody else did.

That's pretty much the basic ideas of Fantasy Baseball in general. I actually play in a league with some different and very interesting rules; maybe I'll write another article about them later. Or maybe I'll even write some kind of Fantasy Baseball diary this season.