Fantasy baseball is back for the 2021 season and you can sign up for a team or a league for free today! Play head-to-head or rotisserie style, be a league manager and invite your friends and family, or jump into a live draft and be picking your players within minutes. Pick one of our pre-formatted game settings or customize a league just the way you want it. Draft on your phone from anywhere in the Fantasy App or use our full-featured web-based draft rooms. The choices are yours.
New in 2021
Start a league any time you want, even after Opening Day, and start keeping score from that point on (using the next available scoring period). Can't get the gang together until after Opening Day? No problem, you can have your draft the following weekend. Or the one after that. Want to start a second-half league after Memorial Day, or the All-Star break? We got you covered.
Default roster size expanded to 26
With Major League Baseball having adopted permanent 26-man rosters, we have expanded our default roster setting to include an additional bench spot, providing managers additional day-to-day and week-to-week flexibility. This is in addition to the 2020 expansion from one IL slot to three. All new leagues will have these settings to begin with, but custom leagues are free to set their own roster parameters.
Additional roster flexibility for custom leagues
In custom leagues, Commissioners can add additional bench slots or IL slots to their leagues at any time, even after their drafts.. COVID-19 has thrown us more than a few curve balls, so we've given you the tools to maximize your roster flexibility. Note that if you are reactivating a league, you will be carrying over your 2020 settings, so your league manager would have to make all changes manually if your league chooses to adopt more bench spaces or IR slots.
Watch your players live in the Fantasy App
If a baseball game is on the ESPN family of networks, you can stream it in the ESPN Fantasy App! All that you need to do is sign in with your TV provider and you can watch the games as you follow your fantasy matchups. Are you an ESPN+ or MLB At Bat subscriber? Great! You can watch those games in the Fantasy App too!
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the shortened 2020 season affect player eligibility?
For 2021 only, we have reduced the previous season's games played threshold to 10 from 20 games. That means any position player who played at least 10 games at a defensive position in 2020 will have that eligibility in 2021, whether he plays a game there this season or not. If a player has not played 10 games at any one position, he will be given eligibility at the position(s) he played the most. Note that designated hitters (DH) are treated as a position, so players who do not qualify at a position in the field but played their most game at DH will be DH-only.
Additional position eligibility will be earned by any player who plays 10 games at a position during the 2021 season. For leagues who use Starting Pitcher (SP) and Relief Pitcher (RP) positions, that threshold is three (3) starts or five (5) relief appearances.
See position eligibility rules for more details.
Will players who are on the MLB COVID-19 list be eligible for IR slot?
Yes. Any player who is listed as having tested positive for, or is being placed in COVID protocol, will be designated as "Out" and eligible for IR slots even if the length of time the player will be out is unknown.
However, postponed, suspended or cancelled games will be treated as such regardless of if the cause is COVID-19-related or not. Players affected by these schedule changes will not be eligible for IR slots even if faced with an extended stretch of postponed or cancelled games, unless they qualify based on the previously stated condition of being in a COVID-19 protocol.
What format should I play?
The three most common formats are head-to-head points, head-to-head categories and traditional rotisserie. Head-to-head points is most like fantasy football, where you try to outscore your scheduled opponent over the course of a week (Monday-Sunday).
Head-to-head categories blends the two by scoring your weekly matchup based on the number of categories you lead your opponent in. In Head-to-Head "most" you get a "W" for leading the most, In Head-to-head "each" you get a point in the standings for each category you win against your opponent. Head-to-head "each" is the more popular format of the two.
Rotisserie is a season-long game where you try to accumulate the most stats in several categories (usually batting average, runs, home runs, RBIs and stolen bases for hitters, wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA and WHIP for pitchers) and are scored in relation to every other member of your league.
No matter what way you decide to play, we have you covered with rankings updated from Opening Day to the last day of the season and analysis tailored to all three formats, as well as our "Daily Notes" series which will give you advice on whom to start, sit, stream or avoid every single day of the season.
Keeper leagues can use any format above, but rather than redrafting every year, a certain number of players are kept from year to year so that there is some continuity. Dynasty leagues take that concept even further in that most, if not all, of your roster can be kept.
To find out more about these league styles, check out our Fantasy 101 series.
What is the difference between a public league and a private league?
Public leagues are open to join by anyone and follow a standard roster format and rule set. There is no "commissioner" or "league manager," so everyone in the league is equal. This also means there is no way to change any of the settings: what you see is what you get. Public leagues do have some features enabled such as league voting on trades, waiver-wire priority for player pickups and an "undroppable" list to prevent someone from ruining the league by dropping all of their star players.
When you create a private league, you can decide not only the scoring format and the roster settings, but also the number of teams and, of course, who gets invited into the league. The league creator gets access to our suite of League Manager tools which will help make the most of your fantasy experience for you and your friends.
Have more questions that need answering?
Check out our Fan Support FAQs to see if we've answered your question, or to reach out to Fan Support representatives.