Fantasy baseball is one of the best games you can play if you want a tough challenge while acting as a general manager/owner of your own team, but playing with historic players adds another level of excitement. It involves joining a league, picking a home park for your team, picking the best players from different eras, managing a budget and using sophisticated software algorithms to simulate a season.

It’s a great option for fantasy players. For many, playing with whoever takes the field in 2019 isn’t as exciting as getting a chance to match up players from different eras against each other. It’s the only place where Blake Snell can pitch to Babe Ruth at Ebbets Field.

Historic Fantasy Baseball

Imagine Sports offers that chance through Diamond Mind Online league play that matches your wits against players around the country and the world. Here’s an overview of how it works.

Join a Historic Baseball League

Most people join a Standard League, which can come with or without a DH. Custom League also are available and have unique rules around issues such as salary cap, the era from which you can choose players and trading.

Standard League teams get a $100 million team salary budget. Player minimum salaries are $500,000. Game players pick a 25-man team and a three-man reserve squad – all from a pool of 5,000 players from every era.

Games are simulated six days a week, three times a day. That means it takes about nine weeks to simulate a 162-game schedule. Every statistic for every player and team in your league is tracked and available any time online.

Picking a Park for Historic League Games

The main thing to know – and what makes this the most fun – is that the choice is completely yours. Every current ballpark is available, as well as many historic parks. Keep in mind that this will play a role in how you build your team. A short porch in right field means you want some left-handed power hitters who can pull the ball. A pitcher’s park plays well with a dominant staff.

Choosing Retired Players for Fantasy Baseball

Maybe you want to see what it’s like to run a baseball team with Tinker, Evers and Chance manning in the infield. Or maybe you want to combine the best players of today with those from the 1920s New York Yankees. Whatever the case, you choose your pitching staff, position players and determine who starts for your next games. You also assign bullpen roles to your relief pitchers and choose individual player tactics.

Diamond Mind Online simulates games by using statistics that players accumulated during their career. These stats are “normalized” relative to other players in the league during the time they played. They are adjusted for park factors & effects. Also, statistics created by the players in the simulation league are stored (except in single-season leagues).

Manage a Fantasy Baseball Budget

There’s not a true baseball fan who doesn’t think – at least at times – that they could run their favorite team better than the current management. Now, you can prove it by entering leagues that continue play over multiple seasons.

The first trick is to stay within the $100 million budget. This might require making some trades or loaning money to get a better player – both of which you can do in this online game.

You also must decide where to allocate the big bucks. Great defense and great pitching are one way to go. A power hitting offense that lives off the three-run homer is another. There are endless combinations for how you can approach the game. That’s one of the reasons baseball has been fascinating for more than 100 years.

Playing with retired and historic players is a way to add more fun to fantasy baseball. For those who want to put their skills to the test, it’s a fantastic way to enjoy a season. Or, as is the case with most people who start playing, many seasons!