Fantasy baseball began as a solution to one of the most often uttered phrases a sports fan will ever say: “What are the (insert favorite team here) thinking? I’d be a better manager!” Before fantasy baseball, such a proclamation could only lead to drunken bar fights, but in the late 1970s fantasy baseball was born to remedy the problem. The roots of fantasy baseball are fairly well documented in the book Fantasyland by Sam Walker. The details include grown men scampering to the newsstand every day to check box scores from the previous night’s game. One can imagine the pain a New Yorker would feel if his star player was playing on the west coast and his stats weren’t even in the local paper because the game was on past when the paper went to print!

Then, along came the internet—it was a match made in fantasy heaven. Today, the constant stream of information make following baseball, or any other sport, extremely easy. Fantasy sports now attract over 20 million players each year, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. If you’ve never played fantasy baseball before, the easiest way is to join a league online, but before you do there are some basics you should know.

The most basic league format consists of selecting a group of players based on a salary cap and attempting to accumulate the most points based on a standard set of rules (1 point for a single, 2 for a double etc.). Usually, you are competing against thousands of players to win a small set of prizes. More advanced games of this type often consist of an entry fee or fees for transactions. In this case, the winner would receive a larger prize at the end and there may even be weekly prizes for high scores.

If you’re looking for a slightly more advanced version of fantasy baseball, there are two basic league types. You can either grab a group of friends or engage in the frivolity with strangers over the internet. If you’ve never played before, you might want to start with the strangers before putting your reputation on the line with people you actually know.

The second thing you will have to decide is which scoring format you want to use. There are four scoring formats, but the rotisserie format is the traditional method. In the rotisserie format, or “roto” for short, each category is weighted equally. When one of your players contributes in that category (i.e. hits a home run), you get one unit—for lack of a better term—towards that category. If there are 12 teams in your league, the person with the most units in a category receives 12points, the next highest receives 11 and so on. Therefore, there are a finite amount of points actually available, and the amount can be calculated by multiplying the number of teams by the number of categories. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins.

The other three types are less popular but fun nonetheless. If you’ve played fantasy football before, you’ve probably had experience with the points format. In this league type, each category is worth a predetermined amount of points (i.e. hitting a homerun is worth four points, hitting a single is worth 1). The points are cumulative throughout the whole season and the person with the most points at the end of the year wins. The other two formats are head to head. Each week is considered one game. In roto head to head, each category is weighted equally and you are competing against one team in the league. If you beat that team in the category for the week, you receive one point. Points are then tabulated for the entire year and a winner is decided upon. In points head to head, each team has an opponent every week and whichever team has the most points between you and your opponent earns the win. Whichever team has the most wins at the end of the year is the winner, regardless of overall point totals.

After you’ve decided on a scoring format, there are a couple more decisions you have to make. First, you need to decide what categories you will score in. The traditional 5x5 categories are hits, runs, homeruns, stolen bases, and batting average (for the offensive players), and wins, saves, strikeouts, earned run average, and walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP) for the pitchers. Other categories that are often included include holds and on base percentage.

Next, you will need to decide if your league will consist of players from the entire MLB or just the NL or AL. For beginners the entire MLB is preferable, but as you become more advanced, limiting players to only the NL or AL can add a more challenging dimension.

You will then need to decide how many teams there will be in the league and how many players (and what positions) each team will draft. Most leagues have a roster size of 26 to 28 players with three to five reserve players and 23 “active” players who accumulate points on a daily basis. Traditionally, these 23 active players include nine pitchers, two catchers, one of each infield position, one additional middle infielder (2B or SS), one additional corner infielder (1B or 3B), five outfielders, and one utility player (any offensive position).

Next, you will need to make the tedious decision of how many games played at a position it takes to qualify for that position in fantasy baseball. Some leagues choose one game played, but this makes many players eligible at many positions and takes some skill out of the game. Standard rules are twenty games played in the previous year or five in the current year, but rules vary by league.

After those decisions have been made, the fun begins. If you’re in a league with friends, you will need to decide on a commissioner to make sure everything runs smoothly and set up a league homepage online (this can be done for free through various websites). The commissioner will also help settle any trade disputes or any other problems that arise.

Then there is the daunting task of deciding on a draft format. There are three formats available. The simplest, but also least strategic, is a random draft where the computer assigns players to teams. Unless you want your season to be largely determined by luck, don’t use this format. The two more acceptable formats are a Snake Draft and an Auction Draft. Snake drafts consist of a randomly assigned order (1 through the number of teams) where the first team selects a player and then the second team and so on. The order then reverses in the second round with the last team selecting first. An auction draft is exactly what it sounds like—an auction for the players. Each team starts with a certain number of imaginary dollars ($260 is standard) and each team bids on each of the players. High bid wins the player.

After that, you’re set for the season. You can add and drop players through free agency through out the year, and although there are a number of rules you can add to make the game more challenging and complex, simple is best for beginners. Once you have some experience, you can create “keeper leagues” or “dynasty leagues”, but that’s another article. Have fun!