Fantasy Baseball enjoys continued success

Fantasy Baseball enjoys continued success

Since Fantasy Baseball originated back in 1980, it has continually gotten more and more popular, especially since the dawn of the internet era. With the help of the internet and all of the resources available on the web, fantasy baseball reached it's peak in the mid 90's and is still going strong.

There are even many online sites which provide fantasy baseball and other fantasy sports leagues and contests. For those of you who are not familiar with how fantasy baseball goes, heres a lowdown...

First off, the fantasy baseball contests online offer certain sets of rules and national or league prizes. The friends or family fantasy baseball leagues, you know, the ones that a group or family you already know about, set up their own rules, draft or prize structure. The rules for fantasy baseball vary a bit. The common scoring systems in fantasy baseball are rotisserie, cumulative and head to head.

In a rotisserie league, fantasy baseball owners are awarded points by league rank. Example: In a league of eight teams, a score of 1 to 8 is applied for each statistic. For instance, if a manager’s team had the most RBI’S (runs driven in by a hitter) out of the eight teams, he or she would receive 8 points for that statistic. The one with the least RBI total would receive just 1 point. The various awarded points for each statistic are then added up on a daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal basis to determine the league’s winner. Rotisserie scoring systems are usually in the leagues you find at popular online baseball sites like Espn, Cdm Sports or Yahoo Sports, but they also provide other scoring systems mentioned below.

In a cumulative scoring system, fantasy baseball owners are awarded points for each statistical category. Example: Let’s say that a league awards 4 points for each RBI. The manager's total RBI’S is multiplied by 4 to arrive at his or her total for RBI’S. The total for each statistic is usually added to the season total for each team on a daily basis. These scoring systems can be found mostly in family draft leagues, but are also found in various online fantasy baseball leagues too.

In a head to head scoring system, fantasy baseball owners take turns competing against each other, usually on a weekly basis. The manager with the most winning statistical categories during the week wins that particular match up and it is reflected as a win or a loss in the league standings. This scoring system is popular on Espn.com and is also used in many friend and family group leagues, home-made leagues. Our family has been playing this way in football, but we use the cumulative scoring system in our fantasy baseball league.

The fact of the matter is that baseball fans all over the country can create their own leagues at home and enjoy playing fantasy baseball with family and friends, using whatever scoring system they desire. There's usually a long awaited draft day where everyone feels like a virtual team owner who can pick and choose their team in a real live draft. It's pure fun! One thing fantasy baseball gives fans is more interest in the whole major league baseball schedule instead of just who their favorite major league team is playing. It expands their enjoyment of baseball to every game on the daily schedule. This gives them an interest in virtually every game being played on a daily basis and broadens their horizons in the sport they love, baseball.

It's because of this increased and competitive involvement in baseball as a whole and the modern internet era and it's information resources which I attribute to fantasy baseball's continued success. Long live fantasy baseball!

Check out my Fantasy Baseball Top 52 players.

Tags: - baseball - Fantasy