Stock photo by Mark Duffel on Unsplash
Registration is now open for the 2024 season of Fantasy Baseball UK, which marks the 20th anniversary of the long-running fantasy league. All the league formats from last season return plus, for the first time, FBUK is offering a head-to-head league!
In last year’s managers survey, there was quite a lot of interest expressed in the head-to-head format. Each fantasy team is matched up against another over the course of a week and the team that scores the most points by the end of the week earns one win in the league’s Win column, while the opponent takes the Loss. Through the season, teams will face each other in a round-robin schedule of weekly matchups, with the league standings based on Win-Loss (or Draw) records. An option in head-to-head leagues is that towards the end of the season it can move into a playoff format based on where teams finished in the league standings.
Check out the guide to how it all works below and then fill in the online registration form if you would like to enter.
Closing date for registrations is Sunday 10 March.
Choice of league formats
Managers can choose to enter fantasy teams into each of the available leagues. Some are free to enter, while for other formats there is an entry fee. Overall, each manager can register two free teams plus up to four purchased teams:
Free leagues
- One team in FBUK League (standard Yahoo draft league) – FREE!
- One team in FBUK LTD (limited trade league) – FREE!
Leagues with entry fees
- Each manager can buy up to four teams:
- One team @ £10
- Two teams @ £18
- Three teams @ £25
- Four teams @ £32
- Teams can be entered into these leagues:
- One team in the Head-to-Head League
- Up to three teams in FBUK Classic / $5m Game (salary cap leagues)
The revenue goes towards covering the costs and time of running Fantasy Baseball UK, including the FBUK website, prizes and using the Fantrax platform for the salary cap leagues.
FBUK League
- Run through Yahoo Sports
- Uses an initial draft for managers to build their rosters and after that you can add/drop players from/to the free agent pool or trade with another fantasy team
- Manage your roster and daily line-ups through the season
- Uses the simple points format where points are awarded to your rostered players based on their daily performance in different categories and fantasy teams accumulate points through the season
- Teams will be split into several leagues of around 10-12 teams. As well as these divisional competitions, the standings are combined to mark as the overall champion the team with the most points across all divisions at the end of the season.
- FREE to play — one team per manager
FBUK LTD (Limited Trade)
- Run through Yahoo Sports
- Uses an initial draft for managers to build their rosters
- There is no bench in this game, meaning you have no substitutes besides your main line-up
- There is a limit to how many trades or free agent acquisitions you can make during the season
- With limited flexibility, your roster decisions are even more important, but it is also great for those fantasy players who don’t want to make constant changes to their line-up
- Scoring uses the points format
- FREE to play — one team per manager
Head-to-Head League
- Run through Yahoo Sports
- Uses an initial draft for managers to build their rosters
- Each fantasy team is matched up against another over the course of a week and the team that scores the most points by the end of the week earns one win in the league’s Win column, while the opponent takes the Loss
- Through the season, teams will face each other in a round-robin schedule of weekly matchups, with the league standings based on Win-Loss (or Draw) records
- Scoring uses the points format
- The current plan is to include playoffs towards the end of the season based on where teams finished in the league standings, which will decide league champion and final positions*
- Prize! A personalised printed FBUK champion baseball will be awarded to the eventual champion
* As the playoffs is a unique feature of the head-to-head format, it would be nice to include it. However, due to league size and structure limits, depending on how many teams are entered, this might require more than one head-to-head league, each with its own separate playoff process and winner. The alternative is to not include playoffs and treat each league as a division, combining them into an overall set of standings like we do in the other formats.
FBUK Classic / $5m Game (Salary Cap)
- Run through Fantrax, this game is based on the classic FBUK format in which managers build a roster within a set budget limit for player salaries
- Each MLB player is assigned a salary value based on previous and projected performance
- Rather than a draft, managers build their roster within a team salary budget cap
- Within the league, the same MLB player could be held by multiple different fantasy teams/managers
- As the season progresses, player salary values are regularly recalculated up or down based on performance
- As you drop and add players through the season you will need to be mindful of your overall team budget cap
- Scoring uses the points format
- As in the Yahoo leagues, teams will be split into divisions. Besides divisional races, the standings will be combined to mark as the overall champion the team with the most points across all divisions at the end of the season.
- Two flavours available: FBUK Classic gives teams a $12m budget; or build a team on a limited $5m budget in the $5m Game
- Prize! A personalised printed FBUK champion baseball will be awarded to the eventual overall champion of each format
More info
To manage your team you will need to create a free Yahoo account or Fantrax account if you don’t already have one (but you don’t need it to complete the FBUK registration form).
Depending on the total number of teams involved, if a manager buys more than one team in the salary cap league, we will aim to put each one into a different division.
The Help section includes more details about how the games work, including the draft process.
Key dates
Some of these might be subject to change but here’s how it should work:
- Closing date for registrations: Sunday 10 March (midnight)
Registered managers will be arranged into divisions and invitations emailed out to create their team on the Yahoo or Fantrax platform.
- Deadline for managers to accept their invitation: TBC
When invitations go out they will request for invitations to be accepted by a certain date. This is to allow for organisation ahead of the draft. If not all managers accept their invitation, some slight re-jigging of division groupings might be done to try to keep divisions roughly the same number of teams. This is a bit of a faff, though, as it requires new invitations, so it is much better if all managers accept their initial invitations!
- Planned draft dates:
- FBUK LTD (Limited Trade): evening of Friday 22 March
- FBUK League: evening of Saturday 23 March
- Head-to-Head League: evening of Sunday 24 March
There are separate online draft sessions for the different leagues as managers might have teams in multiple formats. You can set up auto-draft if you can’t or don’t want to make either of the drafts in real time. No draft is required in the Salary Cap League.
- Fantasy league season start: Thursday 28 March
Forums
If you are taking part in the game, why not join in the discussion in the website forums? This is where you can contribute to the conversation on how the game is run.