How to Start a Fantasy Baseball League

Fantasy baseball can be a great sideshow for enjoying the baseball season, as friends can engage in some friendly competition around the sport. When starting a new fantasy baseball league, you can make it as detailed and competitive as you want it to be.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Determine how you plan to operate the league. Most fantasy leagues are run via online services, as the stat-keeping and scoring is done automatically. If you want to run the league manually, you'll have to make sure you have the time and the resources to calculate scores daily.
2. Decide if you are going to use the traditional Rotisserie form of scoring. In Rotisserie scoring, teams accumulate points based on where they rank in the league in certain categories, and the team with the most points at the end of the season wins.
3. Choose the type of Head-to-Head scoring you would like to use if you're not going to go with Rotisserie. In Head-to-Head, teams play against each other in weekly matchups, to accumulate either points, category wins, or weekly wins, depending on which way you'd like to set up your league's scoring. Head-to-Head leagues often end with a 3 or 4-week playoff during the month of September to determine the league's winner.
4. Establish which stat categories you would like to use. Common practice in fantasy baseball is to use the same number of hitting categories as pitching categories. A standard league uses batting average, home runs, RBI, runs scored, stolen bases, wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA and WHIP. There are many other categories to add or subtract if you'd like to customize your league.
5. Set up a draft style. The most popular types to use are an auction draft and a serpentine draft. In an action draft, each person is given an amount of "money" or points, and auctions are held for each player. The draft ends when everyone is out of money or all the rosters are full. In a serpentine draft, a draft order is chosen at random and teams take turns picking a player. It is called a serpentine draft because the draft order snakes from round to round--the draft order is reversed each round so that the person who picks first in the first round picks last in the second round.
6. Finalize other aspects of your league, such as whether you would like the league's draft to reflect just one season or be a keeper league that carries over into future seasons. Other things to decide include rules regarding trading, picking up free agents, playoff structure and whether or not you want to have an entry fee and a cash prize for the winner.
7. Invite people to join your league. It's best to start early so you have plenty of time to fill up your league. A good rule of thumb is to use the Super Bowl as a starting point to begin recruiting friends for fantasy baseball. Major League Baseball begins in April and most leagues conduct their drafts in March, so make sure you start inviting friends well in advance.