How To Play Fantasy Baseball? Rules, Formats, Scoring, Roster Management and More

March 24, 2024

Dan explains how to play fantasy baseball. This primer helps understand the basics - various fantasy baseball formats, how to draft a team, and manage rosters.

The 2024 Major League Baseball season is almost here. Technically, it’s already underway with the Dodgers and Padres having played the two-game “Seoul Series.” It’s not too late to join a fantasy baseball league, though. If you are new to fantasy baseball, or trying to figure out if it’s your cup of tea, this is the perfect time to learn more about the game.

Perhaps you’ve been caught up in the increasing fantasy baseball traffic on social media or seeing more content crop up on RotoBaller. Or maybe you got an invite from a friend or colleague to help fill out a league. Whatever the reason that piqued your interest in the game, the following guide will prime you for your first foray into fantasy baseball.

Fantasy baseball, like all fantasy games, is endlessly customizable. Scoring methods, player selection, and in-season management can vary quite a bit. Below we will cover the more popular options you will encounter when starting out in fantasy baseball. Be sure to bookmark the RotoBaller MLB page for more advice and analysis to help you throughout the season.

Fantasy Baseball League Formats And Scoring

Before starting any game that’s new to you, it is necessary to learn the rules and the objective so you can compete and have a good time. Getting started in fantasy baseball is no different. Your first step should be to nail down which type of league you are playing in as that will dictate how the game is played and won.

Rotisserie Leagues

Rotisserie (or “roto”) baseball is the game in its original form. As a team’s players accumulate stats, like home runs, the teams are ranked in each statistical category. So in a 12-team league, the team with the most combined home runs gets 12 points and the team with the fewest would get 1 point. Points are added across the leaderboard and the totals dictate the league’s standings.

Typically, roto leagues use five hitting categories (runs, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, and batting average) and five pitching categories (wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP). It is virtually impossible to score a perfect 12 in each category, so the best strategy is to build a balanced team that can stay competitive in each. The league winner is the team with the highest total at the end of the last day of the season.

Head-To-Head Leagues

An alternative to roto is the head-to-head (H2H) format. This league type will seem familiar to players of fantasy football. Teams are paired off weekly and compete only against each other, with the results contributing to overall standings. The final weeks of the season serve as the playoffs and championship rounds to determine the league winner.

H2H leagues usually keep score in one of two ways. In H2H “category” leagues, a win, loss, or (depending on league scoring rules) tie is granted depending on the resulting outcome in each category. In the example below Team A finished with a 2-7 record at the end of the week as they came out on top in only the saves and strikeouts categories.

Note that the 12-12 tie in the home run category resulted in the category going unscored for this league’s setup. The H/AB and IP categories are not scored and are simply a means of tracking what went into producing the teams’ resulting totals.

An alternative in the H2H format is the “points” system. As in fantasy football, statistics are assigned a point value. As the week plays out and players accumulate stats, their resulting points are added up into a team total which dictates if a team wins, loses, or ties that week. In this format, it is very important to take note of the point values at the start of the season as they will cause substantial discrepancies in player valuations as compared to the category formats.

Building A Fantasy Baseball Team

So now that you know the different formats available and have an idea about how scoring is kept, you are probably wondering how to build your team in the first place. Players of other fantasy sports are no doubt familiar with this stage at the start of the season but newcomers will have to acquaint themselves with the two options at hand – a draft or an auction.

Standard Draft

The draft process is fairly straightforward and the more popularly used between the two. Teams are placed in a random order prior to the draft and one by one each manager selects a player to their team, thus removing him from the player pool. Most of the time drafts are “snaked” which is to say that at the end of the first round, the draft order reverses and the pattern repeats until the draft is done.

Auction Draft

In an auction (also known as a “salary cap draft”) teams are allotted an equal amount of fake money to begin with and then bid against each other to select players. The team that makes the highest unchallenged bid gets the player. This format comes with the added challenge of managing the team budget. A manager can secure the services of a few elite players with big bids but then be left with almost nothing to fill out the rest of the roster.

Roster Settings

Whichever format your league uses, you will want to pay attention to the roster positions used. Fantasy baseball rosters are split into hitters and pitchers. Knowing the specifics of each side of things will influence how you choose to construct your roster from the start.

On the hitter side, teams typically start a catcher (sometimes two), a player at each infield position, and three to five outfielders. Most leagues will include a utility or DH position (you fantasy footballers can think of this as your “flex” spot) and some include slots for an additional middle infielder (for second basemen or shortstops) and corner infielder (for first or third basemen).

Pitchers are sometimes split between starters and relievers, with specific roster slots for each, or lumped together under a catchall “pitcher” label leaving it up to managers to decide how to fill the slots. Oftentimes a league will use a combination of slots. In standard Yahoo leagues, for example, there are two SP slots (for starting pitchers), two RP slots (relievers), and four P slots which either type of pitcher can fill according to the preferences of the manager.

Fantasy Baseball In-Season Management

Once the season begins, there is plenty to do. The baseball season is six months long and in that time there won’t be a week that goes by where your team can be left alone.

As a manager, it will be your job to set your team’s active roster. Leagues will vary in that they will either allow for daily changes or limit managers to a weekly or semi-weekly lineup submission, after which point rosters are locked and can only be adjusted for future periods.

Waiver Wire Pickups

After building your team via the initial draft, you are free to make changes to the composition of your roster by adding available players off the waiver wire. Non-rostered players are kept in a player pool (the waiver wire) and can be selected to a team so long as the team has a free space to add them. A team can free a roster space by moving an injured player to an IL slot (if the league uses them) or by dropping a player. Once a player is dropped, he is eligible to be added to another team’s roster after a predetermined amount of time.

FAAB Waiver Wire Bidding

It is fairly common these days for fantasy baseball leagues to employ a FAAB (Free Agent Auction Budget) system to handle these transactions. In this system, teams start the season with an equal (and entirely fake) dollar amount which can be used to blindly bid on free agents. The highest bidder wins the player. Check league rules to ascertain whether waiver claims run overnight or every week.

Trades

It is also possible for teams to trade players. The most straightforward type of trade is simply one player for another but teams can offer imbalanced trades (i.e. a 2-for-1 deal) so long as the team receiving more players clears enough roster space to accommodate the incoming players. While the principle is easy enough to understand, it can be challenging to pull off as managers have different mindsets and valuations of players involved.

Play Ball!

In sum, there is a lot to know before jumping into fantasy baseball. Before joining a league remember to check league settings or ask the commissioner about the league format. Is it a roto league or H2H, and if it’s the latter is it a category or points league? Are players selected via a standard draft or an auction process? What roster settings does the league employ, when do active rosters lock, and when do waiver claims run?

With the answers to these questions in hand you have a solid understanding of what you will be getting into. Many sites offer the ability to draft a team even once the regular season has started so don’t be discouraged if you are finding this information after Opening Day. Popular websites like Yahoo and ESPN offer free leagues if you are hesitant to ante up for a cash prize league. Explore some sites, read the rules, register your team, and most of all have fun!

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