Fantasy baseball can be an intense commitment for some. It is a long season compared to football, where fantasy rosters are slimmer and fantasy managers only play 18 games. In turn, setting up a fantasy baseball league can be difficult if you have never done it before.
I love baseball in general, so fantasy baseball is a way for me to engage with the sport more. I am a die-hard Nationals fan, but playing fantasy baseball has made me a fan of more players, and has kept me more aware of the happenings around the league.
On another note, fantasy baseball can be especially fun because you can earn bragging rights over your friends. You can even win cash prizes if you choose.
This guide will cover everything from choosing a platform to drafting a winning team. Getting set up right is the key to a fun season.
Choosing Where to Play Fantasy Baseball
Major Platforms
There are many platforms to enjoy playing fantasy baseball. The trick is finding the right one for you.
ESPN has changed their default league type to a head-to-head points league where rosters are constructed like real-life baseball teams. You will play against another manager each weak, and your team will accrue points. You will draft one of each infield position, a designated/utility hitter, and three outfielders. You will draft seven pitchers and three additional players for your bench. Offensive scoring is based on total bases, RBI, runs, steals, walks, and negative points for strikeouts. Pitching scoring is based on wins, losses, saves, holds, earned runs, hits allowed, strikeouts, and walks allowed. Fantasy managers also have three injured list spots to stash injured players.
Yahoo also uses a points system with head-to-head scoring, but default leagues offer more roster spots. Yahoo standard rosters include two utility spots for batters. They also assign your pitching roster spots to two starters, two relievers, and four generic pitcher slots. These rosters allow for five bench spots and four IL spots. Yahoo’s points system includes a few other elements than ESPN’s like singles, doubles, triples, and how many times a batter has been hit by a pitch. Pitcher scores include hit batsmen and outs.
CBS is another platform that uses a head-to-head points scoring system. Their default roster construction is the same as ESPN’s for batters. But for pitchers, the default is five starting pitcher slots and two for relievers. Some differences with CBS’s scoring include points for quality starts, and more points for steals, as well as points deducted for baserunners who have been caught stealing.
Fantrax leagues do not necessarily have one default option, but offer several formats. A Commissioner League allows for full customization. A Classic Draft league allows fantasy managers to choose the format and scoring type. Fantrax also allows for Best Ball and Draft and Hold leagues, which are best reserved for experienced fantasy players.
All of these options are customizable, and offer different types of scoring systems, which I’ll outline more below. You can choose to modify roster sizes, scoring types, and what stats you want to score. So it really comes down to how detailed you want to get.
If you want something simple and straightforward, ESPN is the best option. Its interface is user friendly, and with small roster sizes and simple default scoring, it will probably be the easiest to pick up for people new to fantasy baseball.
For anyone interested in something more customizable, including prospects, or anyone interested in doing a dynasty or keeper league, Fantrax is the way to go. It offers a level of customization that the others simply do not.
Why and how can you use Pitcher List in all of this? We offer advanced metrics that you cannot find on other platforms. Our 2025 Draft Kit is a great place to start to find tons of resources to help you prepare for your first draft. It includes rankings, projections, live pitch tracking, and much more.
If you sign up for PL Pro, you can gain access to our PLV data and projections. PL Pro members have access to the live draft assistant to help you identify targets in your draft based on your own league’s settings, among many other resources.
These are expert insights that are tailored to different league formats, and a major reason why you should bookmark PitcherList as a fantasy baseball resource.
League Formats and Scoring
After you have decided where you want to play fantasy baseball, the next important decision is which scoring system to use.
Points leagues, as mentioned above, can be customized to varying degrees to include certain stats. Points leagues can be head-to-head or not. This means that you can set your leagues to calculate points in weekly head-to-head matchups with the other fantasy managers, or you can have your points calculated as the season goes on, and have an overall winner at the end of the season. If you choose a H2H format, you will end up with a win-loss record depending on how your matchup turns out, and that will determine who ends up in your fantasy league’s playoffs at the end of the season.
Other leagues use head-to-head categories as a scoring system. For most leagues, this means that offenses will accrue runs, RBI, home runs, steals, and batting AVG. Pitchers will accrue wins, strikeouts, saves, ERA, and WHIP. As your players accrue those stats in real life, your fantasy team will accrue them as well. At the end of the week, as all of those stats have added up, your score will end up somewhere between 10-0-0 (W-L-T) and 0-0-10. If you go 10-0-0, it would mean you won all ten categories over your opponent. Other leagues consider winning more categories than your opponent as a single win. So rather than a 5-4-1 record that week, you would simply earn one win.
Roto scoring is similar to a 5×5 categories league, where the same five categories are tallied for hitters and pitchers. The difference is that these scores are tracked over a full season, typically without a head-to-head component.
Selecting the right scoring type for you is important. If you want a points or categories style head-to-head format, you have to be involved during the week. You must employ a hands-on approach. Season-long points and roto-scoring leagues allow you to be a little more hands-off. Additionally, you can select daily transactions or weekly transactions – meaning when you allow fantasy managers to add and drop players – which can also impact involvement. Weekly leagues mean less oversight, while daily leagues require you to know what is happening every day.
Pitcher List offers advanced analytics like our PLV and Process+ performance metrics for deeper insights, as well as exclusive tools to help you adjust your in-season strategy based on league type.
Setting Up Your League
Draft Type: Snake vs Auction
Auction drafts are best for more experienced managers. You begin with fake money and bid on players. There is a ton of strategy that goes into auction drafts, so snake drafts are best for beginners.
In a 10-team league, a snake draft works like this, in terms of the order of picks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 9, 8… In the NFL draft, teams 1-32 pick, and then generally, it is the same order in the next round. In a snake draft, it wraps around. So team 10 will get back-to-back picks at the end of the first round, and at the end of the second, team 1 will get back-to-back picks.
Knowing your league size and where you pick in the draft is important to planning for your draft. You have to see the runs on different positions before they happen, or at least be able to react quickly. Using the projections, rankings, and other resources at PitcherList can help you plan accordingly.
League Names
What you decide to call your league can add a little fun and make fantasy managers want to compete and win to be the ____ League Champion.
Some league name ideas:
- Roto Rooters
- League of Dreams
- Justice League
- The Show
- Moneyballers
Drafting a Winning Team
Essential Tips for Beginners
This is the hard part, but the key is to build a well-balanced team that you believe fits your scoring the best. If your league type values steals over other types of scoring, that is something to consider in the way you build your team. In roto and category leagues, where everything is valued the same, then it becomes important to be balanced in your approach to drafting.
Many will say that you cannot win your leagues in the draft, and that is true. Most leagues are won by trading and working the waiver wire, adding and dropping players at the right time.
Pitcher List’s player rankings and PLV insights offer you an edge over the other platforms’ rankings and data sets that can help you make those tough decisions both in drafts and in-season. If you are not sure whether to drop someone who is playing poorly, our information can tell you if it is just a slump and he should improve versus if he is just playing poorly.
Our PLV metrics can also help you find hidden gems in drafts, and our ADP trends are a great way to find value in drafting the right players at the right time.
Managing Your Team Throughout the Season
Waiver Wire and Free Agency
Making the most of the waiver wire is essential to winning your league. Not every fantasy manager will be willing to trade, so using the waiver wire as a trade resource is important. Depending on your scoring setting, a player may be available who offers a stat that you need or may play a position where you are weak. Making that switch could be the difference in winning or losing your matchup.
Some leagues offer daily pickups, some are weekly, and some are assigned on certain days of the week. Knowing your league’s settings matters, especially in weekly leagues.
Leagues also may use a waiver system, common with fantasy football. Waivers usually use the reverse order of standings to prioritize fantasy managers that are struggling to allow them dibs on a player. Other leagues use FAAB or free-agent auction budgets. This gives fantasy managers a set amount of dollars to bid on free agents, and that claim goes to the highest bidder. Fantasy managers have to budget out their dollars for the whole season, which can make it tricky when it gets down to the end of the season.
You can use Pitcher List’s real-time waiver wire insights to stay ahead of your league mates.
Trading
Trading can be a bit tricky because nobody wants to give away their best player. However, if it means improving your team, nobody should be off the table in a trade for the right price. You also want to make sure you do not insult a manager by offering them a lopsided trade, so do your research. If you would not take the trade on the other side, then do not offer it. One other rule of thumb in trades is that quantity does not always equal quality. So giving three mediocre players to get one good one may not be the best offer, especially considering that would mean the manager on the other side of the deal would have to drop two players.
Using Pitcher List’s Trade Analyzer can help you assess whether a deal is fair or not.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Setting up a fantasy league is easy with the right tools if you know where to go. Pick a site, roster size, and scoring system you feel comfortable with, and find some friends to enjoy the season.
Decide what style draft you want to employ, and make sure you stay active during the season.
Finally, being a PL Pro subscriber gives you a huge advantage against your opponents. From rankings, to live draft tools, to expert insights, you get what you need to help you win.