Quick Fantasy Baseball

Alright lets face it, America loves fantasy baseball. I would have to say almost 40% of Americans play fantasy sports. This number is astronomical when you compare it to other past times. There are many people who play for fun, some that play in competitive leagues and some that play for money. Fantasy baseball is a great way to pass the time and still watch your favorite sport all at the same time. However many people shy away from the ultimate competitive leagues or the money leagues simply because the amount of time that it takes for you to play is substantial. If you want to be competitive it is safe to say that it is in your best interest to put aside about 3 hours each week into doing research and changing your roster. Also looking for trades, and looking for waiver wire steals can take up quite a bit of time as well. Who has this kind of time? Some people do however some do not. If you are one of those people that just don't have the time then may i introduce to you the "quick fantasy baseball league."

This league is something that a few buddies of mine started in college. I went to a college that took up a lot of my time so we didn't have as much time to dedicate to our fantasy sports as we did in high school. Still wanting to play we created quick fantasy baseball. This will be our 4th year of running quick fantasy baseball leagues.

The idea behind quick fantasy baseball or as we have come to call it "quick ball" is to have a league were the competition is fierce however the amount of time it takes to be competitive is far less than a standard fantasy baseball league. We usually also charge were all of the money goes to the top 3 finishers. Having a pool keeps the league ultra competitive throughout the season.

Here are the basic stats we use for each quick ball league. It has to be head to head with 5x5 scoring. you can add categories but we like less is more. we usually have 12-16 teams, any less just doesn't seem to work. You can have more than 16 but we have not tried this. We have always run the leagues on Yahoo. Yahoo has the easiest interface. The draft is always live online snake style. Our roster size and simplicity is what sets this league apart from otter leagues. Here is what our rosters look like in a quick ball league.

Offense: 5 spots
1 - C (catcher)
1 - CI (corner infielder either first base or third base)
1 - MI (Middle infielder either 2nd base or short stop)
1 - OF (Out fielder)
1 - UTIL (utility)

Pitching:
1 - SP (starting pitcher just like a real team each day)
2 - RP (Relief pitcher)

Bench:
5 - B
1 - DL

With only 14 total roster spots the amount of research required to make a team is minimal, however paying attention for a few minutes each day will help you win your league.

Some additional rules that we have added are:
Max moves per week we have set to 2. This keeps people from churning through pitchers
Minimum innings pitched we have set to 21 innings. This is because the first year we did this someone figured that they could just start two closers and win saves, ERA, and whip without worrying about SP. but increasing the maximum innings to 21 this makes someone have a starter for almost every day.

That's the basics. Look back here in a few days to find some great strategies for this kind of Fantasy baseball. And remember that when you are looking for a quicker way to play fantasy baseball try out quick ball.