How to Decide on a Fantasy Baseball Starting Lineup

When playing fantasy baseball, deciding on the best starting lineup for your team is crucial to your success, but deciding on a starting lineup can be somewhat tricky. Here's how to decide on a starting lineup for your fantasy baseball team.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Check your fantasy baseball league's rules for how often you can change your starting lineup. For some leagues, this will be daily, and in other leagues, you can only make weekly changes. This information may influence how you decide on your fantasy baseball starting lineups.
2. Look up the status of your fantasy baseball players. If a player is on the disabled list (DL) or suspended for your scoring period, you will not want that player in your fantasy baseball starting lineup because they can't play any games and get you points.
3. Remove players that are suspended or on the DL from your starting lineup only if you can replace them with other players that can fill their positions on your team.
4. Take a look at the game schedules for the players on your fantasy baseball team. In most cases, you will want players that are playing the most to be in your starting lineup. For leagues where you can make daily changes, if a player is not playing on a given day and you have another player for that position that is playing, put that player in your starting lineup. For weekly leagues, use players in your starting lineup that are playing the most games in that particular week.
5. Determine when the starting pitchers on your fantasy baseball team will start games. You always want to have pitchers that are starting games in your fantasy baseball starting lineup, as they can be a source of many points for your team. If a starting pitcher will not be starting any games in a scoring period, don't have them in your starting lineup.
6. Examine the recent stats for your fantasy baseball players. If a player on your fantasy baseball team is in the middle of a hot streak or is doing otherwise very well, you will likely want to keep that player active in your starting lineup. If a player on your team is not doing well or is in the middle of a cold streak, you may want to bench that him, only if you have a suitable backup.
7. Analyze match ups for both your hitters and your pitchers. If you have players who have favorable match ups for the coming scoring period (weekly or daily), you may want to activate them. If you have players who have less than favorable match ups, you may want to remove those players from your starting lineup.

Tips & Warnings

• You can find recent stats and information about match ups, suspensions and injured players online or in your local newspaper's sports section. If you are playing fantasy baseball online, it is likely that your fantasy baseball site will have this information.
• Always make sure that you have the correct number of players activated for your league at any given time. If you don't, your lineup will not be active for that scoring period. Check your league's rules to see how many players you need to have activated