The Draft is a Blast

Join alone or with just a few friends and we will put you in a league with other individual owners. Because we feel part of the fun of managing and trading is having realistic teams, the leagues we form are 10-team leagues drafting American League players, or 12-team leagues using National League players only. Leagues are split into divisions. At the end of the season we hold playoffs involving the division winners, along with one wild card team.

You can also join with a larger group of friends and form your own complete league. With your own complete league, you can have any number of teams, and can choose to draft just AL or NL players, or can draft from both leagues if you like. With your own league, you can also choose to either hold your own draft, or you can send in player ranking lists and we will run your draft for you.

If you join alone or with a couple of friends and thus are in a league which we run the draft for then you will start the draft process by ranking players in whatever order you value them. In each round of the draft, as your turn comes up, you will get the highest-ranked available (undrafted) player on your list. Unlike Pools, this is a real draft. For instance, ARod can only be on one team in each league. The picking order in the first round will be determined randomly, and the last to pick in round one will pick first in round two.

We do have roster-balancing rules which have you pick all your starters before any backups, ensuring you will receive a balanced team. Draft lists can be created from our web site by simply clicking on players¹ names, and all draft results are posted on the web as the draft is run. We also offer a web based draft system where you can change your ranking list between every round of the draft, giving you the same control over the draft as if you were doing a live in-person draft. A full explanation of our drafting system is included in the drafting packet that we send you, and you can read more about our web draft at: Web Drafting

As soon as we receive your order form we will send you a complete drafting packet, including player lists, and the full drafting rules. The drafting packet includes almost everyone on the AL or NL 40 man major league rosters, along with various top prospects. Players are grouped by position, and we print each player's major league team, which side he bats or pitches from, and his fielding range. We even include players' ages.

The draft is your opportunity to put together the kind of team you want to manage. Would you rather have a top pitcher such as Johan Santana, or the power of a slugger like Manny Ramirez? Will you spend a top pick on a dominant closer, or settle for a bullpen by committee? These are the kind of tough decisions you'll be making as you put together your winning team.

Because your Scoresheet team plays actual ball games, there is an element of realism that is lost in other fantasy systems. Having a fast leadoff guy to score from second on a single, solid middle relievers to get to your closer, and speedy fielders to close off the gaps - all are important in real baseball, and are just as important in Scoresheet Baseball. There is more to a Scoresheet draft than just picking the guys who will have the most home runs or stolen bases!

Many other draft systems make you rank the positions first, and then you rank the players within each position. In our drafts, your ranking list can mix individual players from different positions, giving you the greatest possible choice of who you want on your team. We have also found that our customers greatly prefer our draft to the complicated auction systems used by some other companies, as our draft emphasizes baseball knowledge rather than salary management. We also run perpetual leagues that allow owners to keep players from year to year. But we do suggest that you play Scoresheet for at least one season before committing to such a league.