In fantasy sports baseball, participants “own” imaginary baseball teams based on the actual performance of real-life baseball players. It is through the use of the actual baseball player’s statistics that the “owners” receive points that will determine the winner at the end of the season. This has to be the most intense game of all the fantasy sports games since baseball has a 162-game season and the fact that the players are rather inconsistent in their performance.
The origins of fantasy baseball is quite interesting considering that through the publication of baseball cards, participants were able to re-create previous seasons via the stats printed on the back of the cards. With these stats, players were able to play against each other in a type of tabletop game. From there, other forms of tabletop baseball were born such as “Pursue the Pennant” in 1980.
Player selection is done before the season begins or even shortly after it has begun. This selection is done by holding an auction where the team owners bid money just like a regular auction (virtual, but some clubs bid real cash). Each owner must fill his team’s roster and stay within his budget. Another way to do this is through a serpentine draft where all available players are drafted until all rosters are full.
It is through the strategy of the team owners in the choice of players, trading, and dropping of players that will help determine the winner at the end of the season. Some leagues, on the other hand, find that it is not feasible to do any free agent replacements, that the true strategy lies in the original choice of players and that if someone picked poor players they must live with it until the end of the season. This, in a way, reduces the all around strategy of the game, but each league decides on their own rules to preserve the quality of their personal game.