The points and categories used in the games at Fantasy Sports Live are very simple and balanced.  The rosters are made up of the standard nine positions of C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF and SP.   Most of the games are salary cap games, although there are games with no salary cap and auto-draft games without a cap.  There are many levels of salary caps, so it’s easy to find a skill level game to suit your taste.  There are also games limited to strictly new players to allow you to get used to the setup without having to incur the more experienced players. 

There are several different sizes of fantasy baseball games and buyin amounts at FSL.  There are heads up games, as well as 3, 6 and 10 player tourneys.  There are also some larger field tourneys on the way.  Buyin structures are available for any size budget from lowroller to highroller.  You can play for as little as $1 a game or for as much as $266 per game.

Once you have chosen your 9 player roster, it’s time to get the game started.  The game scoring breaks down as follows: 

• Hitting Stats:  Single (1 point), Double (2 points), Triple (3 points), Home Run (4 points), RBI (2 points), Run Scored (2 points), Stolen Base (2 points), Walk (1 point) and Strikeout (-1 point).
• Pitching Stats:  Outs (1 point), Hits Allowed (-1 point), Walks Allowed (-1 point), Earned Runs Allowed (-2 points), Strikeouts (1 point), Win (8 points).  Pitcher’s hitting statistics are not counted.

I asked Kevin of FSL to give me a quick rundown of the features of the fantasy baseball games at his site for our readers and he had this to say, ”FantasySportsLive.com, the original website with salary cap based daily fantasy sports leagues, is proud to offer its 4th season of daily fantasy baseball in 2010.  Fantasy Sport Live will continue to offer the largest variety of fantasy league structures, draft methods, and entry fee amounts ($1 to $266) with the highest payout percentages in the industry.  All league prize payouts are fully guaranteed, and league payouts can exceed 100% at FSL.”

There are some new features at the site this season which he described, “Several features are new at FSL for the 2010 Fantasy Baseball season.  25 and 50 player Fantasy Baseball leagues are now offered with the top five positions paid cash prizes. FSL also has a new automated draft method where in just a couple of minutes you can prepare for an automated draft that will result in a completely unique fantasy baseball team for yourself and your heads-up opponent.  The autodraft will work great for fantasy baseball because so many teams play each day, and all 9 fantasy positions are unique. FSL also has new Beginner Leagues that only allow new users with less than 100 wins to enter.  These are a safe place for new users to work on their daily fantasy baseball skills before taking on the regulars at the site.”

As I stated above, the games at FSL are the most balanced that you will find on any sites.  Kevin explained it as follows, “As far as fantasy baseball scoring, there will be no changes this year.  FSL has been working on their daily fantasy baseball scoring system for years, and with the changes made prior to last year, it is about as good as it gets.  The scoring system allows for all types of starting pitchers and hitters to be considered for drafting, and is not overly focused on strikeouts pitchers and homerun hitters.  If you want to profit from your Fantasy Baseball knowledge, you need to be playing at Fantasy Sports Live in 2010.”

One of the advantages that the scoring system at Fantasy Sports Live has over the other competitors is it’s transparency and simplicity.  For the baseball rankings cap games, the salary cap is based on the actual value of the individual players, rather than being converted to some arbitrary dollar salary like some other sites use.   Having to convert raw stats into a money salary is a real difficulty, but FSL lets you avoid that by using a player’s true stats.  The ’salary’ of a player is simply 10x his average fantasy points per game.  Divide a player’s salary by 10 and you have his average fantasy points scored per game.  Very clear and easy and it enables you to pinpoint player values accurately.

Fantasy Sports Live is one of my favorite places to play and it should be one of yours as well.  I’ll see you guys in the fantasy games at FSL!

You can find the rankings lists for all positions by clicking the ‘Fantasy Baseball’ tab at the top of the homepage.  Here are the 2010 Shortstop Draft Rankings from all the major sites and blogs. 

• Draft Order:  The Shortstops from FanGraphs.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from FakeTeams.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from CBSSports.com.
• Tier Rankings:  Shortstop from RotoProfessor.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from Yahoo.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from RotoAuthority.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from RotoRob.com.
• Shortstop Rankings and Auction Dollar Values from ESPN.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from Fanhouse.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from ChinStrapNinjas.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from LestersLegends.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from FantasyBaseballDugout.com.
• Shortstop Rankings Discussion from FantasyJuice.com.
• Shortstop Rankings from Fox Sports.

• Second Base Rankings from RotoAuthority.com.
• Top 20 Second Basemen from SBNation.com.
• Tier Rankings:  Second Base from BaseballProfessor.com.
• Second Base Rankings from Yahoo.com.
• Draft Order:  Second Basemen from FanGraphs.com.
• Second Base Rankings from FakeTeams.com.
• Second Base Ranking and Auction Values from ESPN.com.
• Second Base Rankings from RotoRob.com.
• Second Base Rankings from FanHouse.com.
• Second Base Rankings from CBSSports.com.
• Second Base Rankings from FantasyBaseball365.com.
• Second Base Rankings from SI.com.
• Second Base Rankings from FFToolbox.com.

Here are the First Base draft rankings from around the web:

• Draft Order:  First Basemen from FanGraphs.com.
• First Base Rankings from SI.com.
• Tier Rankings:  First Base from RotoProfessor.com.
• First Base Rankings from SBNation.com.
• First Base Rankings from RotoSynthesis.
• First Base Rankings from CBSSports.com.
• First Base Rankings from FFToolbox.com.
• First Base Rankings from FanHouse.com.
• First Base Rankings and Auction Values from ESPN.com.
• First Base Rankings from RotoRob.com.
• First Base Rankings from Yahoo.com.
• First Base Rankings from ChinStrapNinjas.com.
• First Base Rankings from MSN/Fox Sports.

• Top 60 Starting Pitcher Rankings from FantasyPhenoms.com.
• Top 238 Starting Pitcher Rankings, NL and AL Dollar Values from ESPN.com.
• Top 80 Starting Pitcher Rankings from Yahoo.com.
• Top 150 Starting Pitcher Rankings from CBSSports.com.
• Top 40 Starting Pitcher Rankings from BleacherReport.com.
• Top 70 Starting Pitcher Rankings from SI.com.
• Top 100 Starting Pitcher Rankings from Fanhouse.com.
• Top 80 Starting Pitcher Rankings from FoxSports.
• Starting Pitcher 1 Tiers from Fangraphs.com.
• Starting Pitcher 2 Tiers from Fangraphs.com.
• Starting Pitcher 3 Tiers from Fangraphs.com.
• Starting Pitcher Tiers from FantasyBaseballBuzz.com.
• Top 40 Starting Pitcher Rankings from SportsNetwork.com.
• Third Year Starting Pitchers from CBSSports.com.
• Top 25 Starting Pitcher Rankings from LestersLegends.com.