The Fantasy Sports Writers Association has announced the finalists for its seventh annual writer awards, and, as usual, RotoWire is all over the list.

The fantasy content hub drew 19 total nominations, including one for its baseball print magazine and seven categories in which at least two staffers will be competing against each other. Among those, RotoWire placed at least two entrants into writer of the year categories for baseball, basketball, hockey, auto racing and college sports.

RotoExperts.com and Yahoo! Sports tied for second most nominations, with each garnering six. Yahoo’s list included one for its baseball magazine.

ESPN nabbed four finalist spots, Sporting News grabbed three and KFFL.com showed up twice. Football Diehards rounded out the multiple-nomination field with two entries in the category for best football magazine.

Individuals up for multiple awards include …

– Yahoo!’s Andy Behrens (best football Web article, football print article and humor article)
– RotoWire’s David Regan (baseball writer of the year, baseball series and baseball Web article)
– ESPN’s Tristan Cockcroft (baseball writer of the year and baseball Web article)
– RotoWire’s Derek VanRiper (baseball writer of the year and baseball Web article)
– RotoExperts’ Chris Ryan (baseball series and humor article)

It’s worth noting that the FSWA changed its judging procedure this time around. For the past couple of years, the board of directors was in charge of whittling the entire class of entries down to finalists in each category, passing those along to a trio of journalism professors to decide on the winners.

In 2010, however, the professors took on the whole judgment process, grading all entries on a 100-point scale. Thus, the finalists in each category represent the top three finishers in the grading.

The full rundown of finalists appears below. Winners will be announced the night of Jan. 25 as part of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association winter conference.

Football Writer of the Year
Ladd Biro, The Sporting News
Dave Richard, CBS Sports
Matt Schauf, RapidDraft.com

Best Football Series
Ryan Bonini, KFFL
Michael Fabiano, NFL.com
Mike Gilbert, RotoExperts

Best Football Article on the Web
Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports
Christopher Harris, ESPN
Tim McCullough, RotoExperts

Best Football Article in Print
Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports
Cory Bonini, KFFL
Matt Waldman, Football Guys

Best Football Print Publication
Football CheatSheets
Football Diehards
Sports Illustrated

Baseball Writer of the Year
Tristan Cockcroft, ESPN
David Regan, RotoWire
Derek VanRiper, RotoWire

Best Baseball Series
Matt Lutovsky, The Sporting News
David Regan, RotoWire
Chris Ryan, RotoExperts

Best Baseball Article on the Web
Tristan Cockcroft, ESPN
David Regan, RotoWire
Derek VanRiper, RotoWire

Best Baseball Article in Print
Brent Hershey, Baseball HQ
Chris Liss, RotoWire
Jeff Stotts, RotoWire

Best Baseball Print Publication
RotoWire
The Sporting News
Yahoo! Sports

Basketball Writer of the Year
Carson Cistulli, RotoWire
Shannon McKeown, RotoWire
Brian McKitish, ESPN

Hockey Writer of the Year
Evan Berofsky, RotoWire
Jan Levine, RotoWire
Janet Eagleson, RotoWire

Racing Writer of the Year
Adam Ansell, RotoExperts
C.J. Radune, RotoWire
Mark Taylor, RotoWire

College Sports Writer of the Year
Brad Evans, Yahoo! Sports
Chris Morgan, RotoWire
Jesse Siegel, RotoWire

Golf Writer of the Year
John McNamara, RotoWorld
Scott Pianowski, Yahoo! Sports
Greg Vara, RotoWire

Newcomer of the Year
Jake Ciely, RotoExperts
Mario Puig, RotoWire
Lane Rizzardini, Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

Best Humor Article
Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports
John Paulsen, Bulls-Eye
Chris Ryan, RotoExperts

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– RotoWire has released the first of what the company says “should be several” Android apps from it this year — the RotoWire Fantasy News Center. The app supplies news for football, baseball, hockey, college football, college basketball, golf, auto racing and soccer.

– KFFL has released a free iPhone app that features the site’s articles, player news and access to its forums.

– Another RotoWire item: The company has begun supplying fantasy content for the Huffington Post – including this item reproduced from the RotoWire “Rotosynthesis” blog.

– Pickemfirst has added the Fantasy Football Players Championship to the lineup of fantasy platforms it supports. The Web application — as noted on this site several times — allows users to instantly check the availability of athletes included they encounter in online text away from their league-management sites.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).

FF Spin and Fantasy Football Crystal Ball kicked off its affiliation with USA Today by revealing Wednesday that Yahoo! led the way in its study of 2009 weekly player recommendations.

Yahoo! beat out a field of 10 fantasy sites to present the most accurate overall set of weekly position rankings, as measured by FF Spin and Fantasy Football Crystal Ball. Yahoo! took top honors for the season at wide receiver and team defense and reportedly edged KFFL for the overall prize. Fantasy Football Cafe, FF Today and FF Toolbox rounded out the top five.

“The overall winner was determined by a weighted average based on the cumulative results across all categories, a ’secret sauce’ of sorts,” FF Spin co-founder Scott Pashley wrote in the post on USA Today’s Fantasy Joe site. “Notably, two websites, FFToolbox.com and KFFL.com, actually outperformed the overall winner in one important category — top-five finishes by position. Each tallied five top-five finishes among the six categories tracked.”

JunkyardJake.com scored best at projecting quarterbacks, FF Today at running back and kicker, and FF Cafe with tight ends.

Throughout this season, the two “expert”-tracking outfits will be collaborating to present weekly grades at Fantasy Joe.

A roundup of items recently posted on the FSB News page.

– KFFL’s William Del Pilar says he’s regularly disappointed with the analysis that fills fantasy football preview magazines.

– Excited about the upcoming World Cup but wondering what kind of coverage you’ll have available while you’re in Malaysia? Worry no more. Yahoo! Sports has rolled out a Malaysia-dedicated site.

– Scott White’s alma mater, the University of Georgia, recently featured the CBS Sports fantasy analyst for winning the 2010 FSWA baseball writer of the year award.

– If you’re a programmer with experience building a fantasy football website but without the desire to make much money, these folks would like you to build a slight variation on the Yahoo! fantasy platform for $750 or less.

– FantasyFactor.com has partnered with the World Championship of Fantasy Football to attract players of the former to the latter. Starting Friday, those who play in the Fantasy Factor daily baseball games will get “WCOFF dollars” that can be put toward the buy-in for the main event.

– Fantasy gaming site Fantazzle.com has rolled out a slick bracket-style game for the upcoming World Cup.

Send all of your news, job postings, stories and profile ideas to FantasySportsBusiness@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter (FSBcom).