Posted by Brian Joseph on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 2:05 am

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of fantasy baseball. Somehow, someone (this year it was BDD’s Matt Sisson) finds a way to rope me in to playing fantasy and I regret the decision at some point.

Typically, I amuse myself by taking fliers on waiver wire one-day pick-ups like Edwin Maysonet or Joe Blanton for no particular reason. (For the record, the Maysonet pick-up worked out although the Blanton one was a bust!) You’ll find me somewhere in the middle of the pack of my league and if it is a head-to-head one and you are my opponent, you’ll probably wonder what the heck I’m doing.

By this time of year, if I didn’t pony up the entry fee at the beginning of the season, I will be wondering why I didn’t just fork over the cash and play the only fantasy baseball I’ve ever truly enjoyed — Scoresheet Baseball.

Different from any other fantasy baseball I have played, Scoresheet is based in reality but challenges team owners to build a deeper roster within a thinner player pool (leagues are 12-team NL or 10-team AL in size and rosters start 35 players deep with nine additional players added in three mid-season drafts at the beginning of May, end of June and beginning of August) and no waiver wire to bail you out should you draft poorly.

Results aren’t based on statistical category rankings like normal fantasy games. Instead, weekly results are used to simulate match-ups and owners are required to manage their team like a true Major League team where defense matters and every statistic is weighed into the game’s results.

If Rotisserie Baseball and Strat-O-Matic had a love child, Scoresheet would be it’s name.

Unfortunately, I have not always had the time to devote to Scoresheet and have only played in two seasons. My first experience was many years ago as co-manager of the Naked Mole Rats. My brother owned the team but I tried to help out as much as possible. It was before the Internet exploded (yes, THAT many years ago) and the team was managed via mail and waiting for game results was deadly but it was always exciting to take a look at the team’s box scores each week.

Last year, I took on my own team. Thanks to some injuries and some bad luck (I refuse to admit it had anything to do with my amazing managing or stellar drafting ability), my Homestead Grays failed to make the postseason and hovered around .500 most of the year. Actually, the team never recovered from the loss of Yovani Gallardo or the awful first half of Brett Myers.

Due to so many things on my plate this year, I decided to sit out Scoresheet again this year though e-mails from the most unique fantasy offering have reminded me why I’m never quite into any other fantasy foray I find myself involved in.

Recently, Scoresheet sent out an e-mail offering up orphaned teams in their continuing leagues. Not only does Scoresheet offer the ability to play single-season leagues, they also offer continuing leagues for the true die-hards.

The e-mail sparked an idea and after some correspondence with Jeff Barton of Scoresheet, an agreement was reached to allow Baseball Daily Digest to take the reins of one of the orphaned teams. Specifically, BDD’s fantasy guru Rob McQuown will take over a fledgling Scoresheet franchise that has it’s fair share of problems to give him the Scoresheet experience and also see how he tackles the challenge of a team with its ups and downs roster-wise.

The team BDD will be assuming ownership of is 11 games out in the Mays Division of P-NL300. Lacking any real depth, Rob will be hard-pressed to turn things around while learning the ropes of Scoresheet’s management system. The uncomplicated interface allows owners to decide lefty/right lineups, rotations, bullpen usage and make decisions on whether or not players are allowed to steal or when they should beging to bunt. It’s like any other simulation with the exception of results being based on present results, not what happened last year.

There is excitement for BDD’s team, of course. The team recently picked up phenom Stephen Strasburg in the late June supplemental draft but did not find any immediate help to bolster their already thin 2009 roster.

Can Rob find a way to dig this team out of their current hole or will he decide to throw in the towel on 2009 and begin prepping for next year? Both Rob and I will be sharing with the BDD readers some thoughts about the Scoresheet endeavor and sharing how the rest of the season pans out for BDD’s Scoresheet team.