Welcome to the wonderful and wacky world of the Bat Flips & Nerds Fantasy Baseball Elimination League.
The premise is simple. We wanted a challenging format, but one which did not require much in-season maintenance. We know that everyone has too much to do without wasting time submitting FAAB claims.
And, as we are Bat Flips & Nerds, there is a twist.
FORMAT
23-team league with 23-player rosters. The scoring system mimics 2022 Tout Wars points (CBS points), and the league is held on the Fantrax platform.
Weekly lineups: Lineups lock for the week just before the first game on Monday.
Transactions: There are no adds, no drops, no trades, and there is no IL.
DRAFT
The draft starts at 7:00 pm BST on Monday 28 March, and Mark Blakemore (statistically, a Top-10 player in TGFBI) has the honour of the first pick.
- Mark Blakemore
- David Greenman
- Russell Eassom
- Behind Home Plate Podcast (2021 champions)
- Patrick Davenport
- Joshua Edwards
- RotoBrits Podcast
- Rob Noverraz
- Dugout Classics (Bubba)
- Mrs D. Salinger
- Adam Nicholson
- David Runciman
- Eric Gilde
- Ben Carter
- Darius Austin
- Joel “Four Bases” Bailey
- Birds with Balls
- Harry Broster
- Bat Flips & Nerds (Gav)
- Sharp Money Consulting
- Flyball to the Moon Podcast
- MLB UK Community
- Jamie Steed
With just 45 seconds per pick, all 23 participants will need their wits about them.
QUALIFICATION PERIOD
The first scoring period runs from Thursday 7 April to Sunday 8 May. The three lowest-scoring teams are eliminated, and their players returned to the pool.
My sophisticated computer program will then calculate the Top 20 free agents and randomly assign one to each of the remaining 20 teams. This increases roster size from 23 to 24.
ELIMINATION PERIOD 1
Runs for two weeks until Sunday 22 May. Remember, each Monday you can change your lineup before rosters lock. The lowest-scoring team over this two-week period is eliminated, and their players returned to the pool.
The Top 19 free agents are then randomly assigned one to each team, increasing rosters to 25.
This is repeated every two weeks for ELIMINATION PERIODS 2 – 5, with one team getting eliminated every fortnight.
ELIMINATION PERIOD 6… it now starts getting serious
The scoring period runs for two weeks, from Monday 18 July to Sunday 31 July. There are 15 teams, each with 29-player rosters. However, after this two-week period, THREE teams are eliminated.
Each of the remaining 12 teams receives one new player.
ELIMINATION PERIOD 7
Runs for two weeks from Monday 1 August to Sunday 14 August. The three lowest teams are eliminated, leaving nine.
ELIMINATION PERIOD 8... final elimination period
Runs for two weeks from Monday 15 August to Sunday 28 August. The three lowest teams are eliminated, leaving six. This is the last elimination. The remaining six teams have qualified for the championship.
CHAMPIONSHIP
This period runs for five and a bit weeks from Sunday 29 August until the final day of the regular season, which I think is Wednesday 5 October. The six finalists will have 32-player rosters.
The team with the most points over this 5½-week period is the new Bat Flips & Nerds Champion.
The plan is to keep everyone updated with the league, but this will likely be via my personal account @GavTramps, so make sure you follow.
Featured image photo of Francisco Lindor by Mark Brown/MLB Photos via Getty Images.