It's Just a Fantasy

With opening day night less than 24 hours away, the added excitement of rotisserie/fantasy baseball has the baseball juices flowing.

This is the 15th year of the Field of Rotisserie Dreams (FORD) league, the last about 11 of which I have been the comish. We had our draft this past Monday night- the first night time draft in league history. We usually do a Sunday morning thing, but schedules didn't allow this time around. Unfortunately, one person had to phone it in because they couldn't make it from out of state.

The league started with 8 teams, expanded to 10, and is now back to 8. We're American League only, and rotisserie points rather than head to head. Last year we expanded from a 4 x 4 league to 5 x 5.

The top 3 spots get money. I've won the whole league 4 times, including a 3-peat. I've also finished in 3rd place 3 times.

When drafted each player has a 3 year contract. You can extend it after 2 years and of course you can cut the player at any time (there are more specific rules about all that).

What I really like about our league is that is an auction rather than a round by round selection that is used in leagues like those Yahoo and CBS Sportsline. Minimum bid is a quarter. It's not a true auction in the sense that people are yelling bids out, but we go around the table and you increment the bid by whatever you'd like or drop out on that player.

Position eligibility is 18 games at the position in the prior season or the player will be a regular at a new position (e.g. Chone Figgins at 2nd Base this year). Your roster contains 23 players - 14 hitters, 9 pitchers. There's a 1,000 total minimum innings pitched to ensure you don't use a bunch of relievers to win WHIP and ERA.

So here's my team going in:

Keepers from last year:
C Matt Wieters
1B Mark Teixeira
CO Justin Morneau
2B Ian Kinsler
SS Elvis Andrus
OF Jacoby Ellsbury
OF Nick Swisher
OF Ryan Rayburn
OF Carlos Quentin
DH Hideki Matsui
P Justin Verlander
P David Aardsma
P Jason Frasor

And this year I drafted:
C Adam Moore
3B Kevin Kouzamanoff
MI Sean Rodriguez
OF Rick Ankiel
P Jeff Niemann
P Rafael Soriano
P Zack Greinke
P Scott Downs
P Tommy Hunter
P Nick Blackburn

Good luck in your leagues and happy fantasies.