Oct 6

What Is a Baseball Pool? How MLB Pools Work

A baseball pool is a group contest built on the MLB schedule. Each player predicts game results, usually from a weekly slate the commissioner picks, and earns points for correct picks. Results score as games finish and a leaderboard tracks the season. Most baseball pools run from Opening Day in late March through the end of the regular season in late September, with the postseason in October as an optional finale.

It is the same idea as a football pool, adapted to a sport that plays almost every day. If you already know you want to run one, the baseball pool page covers setup and pricing. This guide covers what a baseball pool is, the common formats, and how the daily schedule changes the rules.

What is a baseball pool?

A baseball pool is any contest where a group of people compete by predicting baseball results, with a shared leaderboard and usually a prize or bragging rights at the end. The most common version is a pick’em pool: the commissioner chooses a set of games each week, every player picks a winner in each one, and each correct pick is worth a point.

What separates baseball from football is volume. Thirty MLB teams play 162 games each, which adds up to more than 2,400 regular-season games, and on a typical summer day there are a dozen or more of them. No group wants to pick all of those. So nearly every baseball pool is built around a curated slate: a smaller set of games the commissioner chooses for each week.

How does a baseball pool work?

A season-long baseball pick’em pool runs the same weekly cycle:

1. The commissioner sets the week’s slate. Eight to twelve games is a comfortable size, often weighted toward the teams your group follows plus a marquee series or two.
2. Players pick a winner in each game. Some pools ask for every game on the slate. Others show a larger card and require each player to pick a set number of games from it.
3. Each pick locks at first pitch. Games start at different times all week, so locking per game, rather than once for the week, keeps the pool fair.
4. Results score automatically. As games go final, correct picks are credited and the weekly and year-to-date standings update.

Then it repeats for roughly 26 weeks. Because a baseball season is so long, the year-to-date leaderboard tends to stay close for months, which is a large part of the appeal. A slow April means very little by August.

What are the types of baseball pools?

Every format that works for football works for baseball, with a few adjustments for the daily schedule.

• Baseball pick’em pool. Pick the winner of each game on the slate; one point per correct pick. The default, and the easiest to explain.
• Baseball confidence pool. Pick the winners, then rank your picks by how sure you are. A correct pick earns the confidence points you assigned to it. Baseball rewards this format, because a heavy favorite in baseball still loses often, so being right about your confidence is a real skill. See confidence pools versus pick’em for the difference.
• Baseball survivor pool. Pick one team to win each period; if it loses you are out, and you cannot reuse a team. It works, but eliminations come quickly in a daily sport, so most groups define one pick per week, not per day.
• Reverse survivor. Pick a team to lose. Weak baseball teams still win four games out of ten, so this one is harder than it sounds.
• Single pick. One pick per period, no elimination, scored over the season. A low-effort option for groups that want to play without a weekly slate.

You will also hear about run pools and home run pools. These are traditional paper office games built on random draws: entrants are assigned a team or a player and win on a run or home-run outcome, with rules that vary from office to office. They involve no picking, so they are closer to a raffle than a pick’em contest. Pocket Office Pool runs the pick-based formats above, not draw-based run pools.

How is a baseball pool different from a football pool?

Four differences shape every baseball pool:

• Curation is the design. A football week is a fixed set of 13 to 16 games. A baseball week is close to 100. Choosing the slate is the commissioner’s main job.
• Upsets are constant. The best MLB teams still lose around 60 games a year. Straight-up picking stays competitive all season, and nobody runs away with the pool.
• Lock times are spread out. Day games, night games and West Coast starts mean picks have to lock game by game.
• The season is long. Roughly six months of regular season plus October. Weekly prizes help keep people engaged through the summer.

One shared habit: like football, baseball pools work best with a written rule for postponed games. Rainouts are routine in baseball, so decide up front whether a postponed game is dropped from the week or carried to its makeup date.

When does a baseball pool run?

The MLB regular season runs from late March to late September, and the postseason runs through October into early November. That is exactly the stretch when a football pool is dark, which is why many commissioners run baseball as their spring and summer pool. The season calendar shows how baseball fits alongside the other sports, and the year-round office pool calendar covers how to keep one group playing twelve months a year.

A postseason-only pool is also an option. October has far fewer games, so a pick’em on every playoff game works without any curation at all.

How do you start a baseball pool?

On Pocket Office Pool the MLB season is preloaded. Create a pool, select MLB as the league, choose a format, and set how the week is built on the Rules tab: turn on the curated weekly slate so only the games you select appear on the picks screen, and set picks per week if players should choose some of the games rather than all of them. Add a tiebreaker, either total points (total runs, in baseball terms) or margin of victory, and invite your players.

The first 4 seats are free, then it is $3 per player beyond the free 4, $2 per player from 30 to 99 and $1 from 100, billed annually. Seats are counted per unique person, so anyone already in your football pool does not cost a second seat when they join your baseball pool. Full detail is on the pricing page.

When you are ready, create your baseball pool and send the link.

Frequently asked questions

What is a baseball pool in simple terms?

A baseball pool is a group contest where players predict the results of MLB games and earn points for correct picks. Usually the commissioner chooses a slate of games each week, everyone picks a winner in each game, and a leaderboard tracks weekly and season-long results from Opening Day through September.

How many games should be in a weekly baseball pool?

Eight to twelve games a week is the comfortable range for most groups. MLB plays close to 100 games in a typical week, so the commissioner selects a slate instead of asking players to pick every game. Another option is a larger card where each player must pick a set number of games.

Can you run a survivor pool for baseball?

Yes. Each player picks one team to win per period and is eliminated when that team loses, with no team used twice. Because baseball is played daily, most groups make it one pick per week. A daily survivor pool can be over within a few weeks.

What happens to a pick if a baseball game is rained out?

It depends on the rule your pool sets before the season. The two common choices are dropping the postponed game from that week’s slate or carrying the pick to the makeup game. Rainouts are routine in baseball, so write the rule down before Opening Day.

Is a baseball run pool the same as a baseball pick’em pool?

No. A run pool is a draw-based game: entrants are assigned teams or numbers at random and win on a run outcome, with no picking involved. A pick’em pool asks players to predict winners and rewards correct predictions over the season.