Fantasy baseball typically involves creating teams with current baseball players. Historical fantasy baseball involves creating teams by choosing players from the past, sometimes in combination with current players. Using statistics from their careers, sophisticated software projects how they will perform in leagues that feature only historical players and leagues that combine players of all eras.

Diamond Mind Online provides an excellent example of what the best historical fantasy baseball games can do.

Fantasy Baseball Overview

In fantasy baseball, players create leagues in which they build a team from current Major League Baseball rosters to compete against each other.

Teams typically compete in one of two ways. In the most popular method, players draft a team from the current rosters of baseball teams and then compete based on the accumulation of statistics throughout the current baseball year.

In some leagues, teams compete head-to-head each day, based on the performance of players on one given day.

The type of statistics used to compete can vary from league to league. However, teams typically compete in categories such as batting average, home runs, runs batted in, and stolen bases for hitting. For pitching, categories typically can include wins minus losses, earned run average, strikeouts, and WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched).

Historical Fantasy Baseball

In historical fantasy baseball, all the above applies in terms of how the competition is scored. The difference is that you can use players from throughout baseball history. Additionally, you can choose players from the Negro Leagues – at least, in the case of Diamond Mind Online.

It’s also possible to replay seasons from the past, using players only from that season. Diamond Mind Online makes that possible by having more than 5,000 players from throughout the history of baseball.

Diamond Mind also offers historical baseball parks, and player’s statistics are adjusted based on the “park effect,” such as a hitter’s park or a pitcher’s park.

Getting Players

In both regular and historical fantasy baseball, team owners must manage a budget. In the case of Diamond Mind, each team has $100 million to spend, and player’s prices are based on their relative ability.

Players are acquired through either an auction or a draft. In an auction, players are brought up and bid on, with the highest bid winning. In the case of a draft, the more popular method, teams draft in order for the first round, and then in reverse order for the second round, and so on until the draft is complete.

Whatever you choose to play, fantasy baseball is a challenging game that requires insights into baseball as well as a little luck. It’s a competitive game that will lead you to appreciate baseball even more, as well as create lasting memories for you and your competitors.