Fantasy Baseball is a game played among many spectator fans of the sport, in which statistics are tracked and one fan’s knowledge of the game is ideally tested against another. Under the current most popular format of the game, fantasy teams compete against an opponent in a category by category basis, typically spanning 10 categories, including batting average, runs, runs batted in, homeruns, stolen bases, wins, earned run average, walks plus hits per inning and strikeouts. Some leagues may monitor more or less categories, however, most 10 category leagues will feature 5 pitching categories and 5 hitting categories in some capacity. Whichever team tallies the highest total in one category (obviously lower total for statistics such as ERA and WHIP), wins the allotted “game” for that week, with the team taking the highest total number of games winning that week’s matchup. The best possible week under this system is a 10-0-0 sweep. Depending on league settings, there may be a tie breaker, but in most leagues, at least for the regular season, ties are left as is, with any standings questions settled by cumulative winning percentage. Alternative scoring systems assign a point value to each statistic and determine team performance by an accrual of total points. These types of systems have been decreasing in popularity, however, as more and more leagues opt for weekly head-to-head competition. Most leagues feature post season play which whittles down the teams to one victor following a playoff system.Teams are selected via a draft process, prior to which a league will need to establish a fair draft order. This can be done through either past performance, random selection or some other test of skill, truly up to each league’s discretion. After the draft, teams can add or cut players at their own free will following a waiver system, which again is handled on a league by league basis. League size tends to average 10 to 12 members, though 8 and 14 team leagues are not unheard of. ESPN and Yahoo offer two of the more commonly used fantasy baseball host sites, each with their own “standard league” settings to help in the set up process for new fantasy owners. Fantasy baseball is a great way to prove once and for all you are definitively more MLB savvy than your friends and augment your baseball watching experience over the course of the season. Not to mention, fantasy baseball brings new fans to the game each and every season.