What is Fantasy Baseball?

I've been playing fantasy baseball for about five years now and I've really gotten into it. I was already a huge baseball fan to begin with but since I started playing Fantasy Baseball I started to know about every player in baseball. It led to me having a lot more to write about since I could now write about more people. This year I decided to write up my own Fantasy Baseball rankings for the first time and I published them here at Associated Content.

I was surprised when I got many replies for my Fantasy Baseball articles, not because they were good, but because my subscribers were constantly asking me "What is Fantasy Baseball?" It never donned on me that my readers wouldn't know. So I thought I would explain what Fantasy Baseball is to anybody who doesn't already know.

The shortest possible definition of Fantasy Baseball is this: You own your own team and get to choose what Major League Baseball players play on your team.

Fantasy Baseball starts by getting owners. Once you have a number of owners you are satisfied with the owners give their teams a name. My team name is usually the Evil Midnight Bombers (and if you can tell me what cartoon character my team is named after then brownie points for you).

Once all the owners have their team names you schedule a draft. At the draft your owners will take turns choosing any Major League Baseball they want on their team, just like a normal baseball draft. Once the season begins how your players perform during the actual Major League Baseball season will be recorded and compared to the other teams. Which ever team has the players who perform the best wins.

That sounds pretty simple enough right? Well it's a little more complicated than that because you have some things to take into consideration.

Positions
Just like a real baseball team you have to fill in all the positions on the field. You can't just pick ten outfielders for your team; you have to have three outfielders, a first baseman, a second baseman and so on. So you have to make sure through the course of your draft that you fill in every position.