How to be the best fantasy baseball commissioner in history

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Starting a fantasy baseball league from scratch seems easy and, on the whole, it mostly is. Still, the role of commissioner involves much more than logging onto your fantasy host site of choice, clicking 'create league,' and sending out invites.

The commissioner, in addition to being one of the league members, needs to be active daily. If you don't think you will have the time to check in every single day of the season, join a league instead of creating one. You think absentee owners are bad? An absentee commissioner is the worst.

Be present

Like any relationship, to be successful you have to be active and available. Throughout the season, league members may not have many issues or questions at hand, but that doesn't mean the commissioner can fall into lineup-setting mode and call it a day.

If someone has an issue or a question, the commissioner has committed to the task of responding in a timely fashion. If you've been in a league where someone asks a pertinent question where an answer is expected, and the commissioner either takes days/weeks to reply or simply doesn't, then he or she is doing a poor job.

One way to curb this is creating a group chat either via text or Facebook, or some other alternative that isn't a league message board. Too often, people log on to set their rosters and leave without doing anything else. If you don't want the hassle of dealing with the league's day-to-day operations, then don't be a commissioner.

Listen to your league

There are no real qualifications for a fantasy commissioner beyond being the person who took the initiative to start a league and send out invites. This is a pretty low bar to clear. One of the biggest problems that arises beyond setting a league and forgetting about it is an unwillingness to listen to the members of the league in its formation.

Nothing should be set in stone, and everyone should have a say. If members abstain from throwing their opinions in the ring, that is their right, but everyone should have the opportunity to have their voices heard. Whether it's for prizes or bragging rights, fantasy baseball is supposed to be a fun enterprise - and when the commissioner rules like Roger Goodell on Adderall, it isn't.

Change up scoring and positions

While you can't please everyone all of the time, you can make your league stand out by varying wildly from the norm, or at least being willing to try new things. Standard 5x5 is a perfectly fine format, but it limits creativity. When starting a league from scratch, play fast and loose with tradition.

Whether you select rotisserie, head-to-head, or overall points, you get to determine how it all comes together. Try out OBP instead of batting average. Include doubles and triples as categories. Opt for 10x10 instead of 5x5, or streamline it and limit roster size and categories to a minimum.

It's an opportunity to try alternatives. If experiments don't work, make changes in the offseason and try again the following year.

Clarity and consistency

Whatever decisions you make, and however democratically you make them, final decisions ultimately fall on the commissioner. Look no further than trade disputes. Lopsided trades happen all the time; how to approach them differs from league to league. Some require commissioner approval while others provide a period of time for league members to dispute.

This needs to be addressed before the season, and it's best to keep it simple. Don't save someone from their own mistakes. The only time a trade should be overturned is in the case of collusion or purposeful tanking. This has to be communicated. If the league agrees to it in March, then there's no argument against it later.

In-season prizes

Unless you have surrounded yourself with a long list of dedicated fantasy sports fanatics, you can almost always count on absentee owners populating the bottom of the standings by the end of August, if not sooner. This is a problem, and it's one of the hardest to curb.

Sure, life gets in the way - and baseball season is long. Despite its length, wallowing in last place makes it difficult to inspire the necessary optimism and effort to make a run. Keeper leagues weed out some of this, as the following season matters, but what about standard redraft leagues?

Freebie leagues are doomed to suffer unless there's the threat of being expelled from the league, and no one really wants that kind of pressure. For pay leagues, introduce in-season prizes much like NFL leagues do. While a weekly prize is pushing it, monthly or milestone prizes could help an owner rekindle desire if the season appears lost.