How many of you play fantasy baseball? If you don’t, why are you even reading this article? If you’re looking to get started with fantasy baseball, then you’ll need a few lessons on what it is. In the broadest terms, fantasy baseball is managing a roster of real baseball players, based specifically on their stats and performance, regardless of their team winning or losing.
There are different types of fantasy baseball. There is the traditional, season-long fantasy baseball league (FBL), where you draft a team in the spring and you manage them until the fall. You can make trades throughout the season, bench players who are injured or on a cold streak, and numerous other activities in order to try to improve your team and get into the fantasy playoffs. This takes a lot of time, effort, and follow through. If your team starts off bad, it could make for a long, grueling season.
In recent years, a more exciting, short-term FBL has gained more popular. The daily fantasy baseball league, or as I refer to it, ADD FBL. Sites like fanduel.com and victiv.com are raking in the big bucks on these, while also disbursing some of it to their loyal players (the ones lucky enough to select a winning team!). It’s the fantasy baseball for people like me, who have difficulty focusing for an entire season. If I played traditional FBL and started with a bad team, I would sooner give up than try to make the proper trades in order to improve my roster. The daily fantasy baseball leagues are exactly what you would expect, a FBL that lasts one day. You draft a new team every time you want to play. If you end up with a bad team, you only suffer with them for a few hours. If you want to play again tomorrow, you get to start fresh. Sounds perfect to me!
When selecting their team, people will try to pick players on a hot streak, or maybe playing a weak opponent, or maybe just a feeling they have about him having an explosive night. Whatever you do, you had better make sure that all of your players are starting! I can’t tell you how many times I forgot to check tonight’s starting lineups and my player was “resting” or sat out for some undisclosed reason. You also need to make sure you’re checking the weather, because if your pitcher’s game is postponed, you might as well throw in the towel.
If you want a little more assistance, try one of the MLB Lineup Optimizers. There are a few paid versions out there, but the best free one I've found is at rosternerds.com. I paid for two different ones, including roto, and they did not perform any better than Roster Nerds. No need to shell out your hard earned money for those, when the free version is just as good. All of them rely on a little input and sports knowledge from you. Save that $15 per month for more entries!
Now, I have my players all set and the games are starting. What’s next? Now, it’s the exciting part! You sit in front of your TV, computer, cell phone, tablet, radio, or any other way of tracking the games, and you watch your players strike out, pop out, ground out, get caught stealing, or find other ways to ensure you lose another game. Wait, that’s just my teams, I’m sure your team will end up killing it.
Just remember these three things:
- Never pick with your heart. I love the Mets, but last time I picked Matt Harvey, he had his worst outing of his career. I think I jinxed him.
- Always make sure your players are actually playing! I can’t stress this one enough! It’s easy, just go to mlbstartinglineups.com and check it! They also show the weather, injuries, and more.
- Have fun. If you’re playing for money, don’t put up more than you can stand to lose. No matter how good you are, you will lose sometimes. Just make sure that you can still enjoy the game, you’re not going to have to get a second mortgage to cover your losses.
