Category Archives: Compiler/Draft Buddy

Fantasy Baseball Update, Fantasy Football Work In-progress

Status

Reply

Two and a half weeks into the Major League Baseball season, and the Toronto Blue Jays are not where fans like myself hoped they’d be so far, sitting two games below .500 after a win tonight at home to the Chicago White Sox. It is still very early. I held my expectations in check even while the Jays skyrocketed up the Vegas odds list to win the World Series, but it is still a little disappointing thanks to some ugly pitching performances, lack of consistent hitting and a mostly absentee Jose Bautista through almost 10% of the season (16 games played / 162).

Losing Jose Reyes for three months with a twisted ankle is an extra tough pill to swallow. He looked absolutely awesome, especially as many of the other new Jays and old Jays alike struggled. I feel like the value of my Jays tickets over the next three months dropped somewhat knowing we won’t see him out there manning short. Come back healthy, Jose.

Okay, so as you can see from the sudden decline in updates since the season started, not much is going on here for fantasy baseball for the time being. Our main annual contribution to fantasy baseball is the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy, but once the season starts, it did its job and we essentially pack it away until next season. Thanks once again to everyone who used it this year.

I thought about adding regularly updated player stats, but given the cost to purchase the stats and time parsing and inserting them into the database, that hasn’t happened. It may still, but other projects are taking higher priority currently. I updated the team rosters and depth charts today, and will continue to try to keep them updated on roughly a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

The projects that are taking all of my time are all about, fantasy football. The NFL just announced its 2013 schedule tonight. The NFL Draft is one week away. My dynasty leagues are starting to buzz with a little more action. Yep, time to get ready for fantasy football draft season. June will be here faster than I want to think about it.

Most of the work I’m doing is all behind the scenes right now, updating my football database, getting Draft Buddy ready and thinking about my own rankings. As I have updates to give, I’ll give them, but I wanted to write this now because the site was getting a bit stale since our previous baseball update as the season started.

Here is hoping your fantasy baseball season is looking up the way the Blue Jays season was expected to go, and even if its not, there is still a long season ahead, and not to mention, fantasy football to look forward to.

Final Fantasy Baseball Projections Update for Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy

Posted on by
Reply

I am away for some rest and relaxation right now, but constantly connected and still updating ye ole website as possible and as needed. Today we were due for an update. I received a final fantasy baseball projections update from Steamer Projections Blog for the Steamer-Razzball projections. FantasyPros also updated their Zeile Consensus projections, and with Opening Day now officially in the books yesterday, I’m putting a cap on that and calling those the final projections as well.

The update is now available for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. Each set of projections are updated, plus Average Draft Position (ADP) data from each of FantasyPros, Mock Draft Central and National Fantasy Baseball Championship.

The depth charts are taking a little more time than I’d like with all the final week changes, and my desire to not mess up the available players we already have in the Compiler & Draft Buddy. I updated the AL East so far, plus the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim so I could get Vernon Wells on the New York Yankees, and I’ll work away at the rest as time allows (and to not annoy the wife while on vacation).

Thanks once again to all the guys at FantasyPros, Steamer, MDC and NFBC for their contributions to the Compiler & Draft Buddy this fantasy baseball season. It is very much appreciated.

Thanks to all of you, our members, for continuing to use the CC/DB, or trying it for the first time this season. I hope you liked it, and will remember us again next year. Or, even better, if you play fantasy football make sure to try out the fantasy football version of the CC/DB.

Have a great season. Go Blue Jays!

One Day to Opening Day, Projections Update

Posted on by
Reply

It is nearing 1:30 am in the morning where I’m sitting, and I have a family vacation planned to start tomorrow. Er… later today. Not too late in the day though. Our flight leaves at a ridiculous 6:30 am, so just 5 more hours to boarding and departure.

Why then am I up right now instead of getting some much needed rest? We have another projections update! To start with, I had to stay up until the final of the Florida Gulf Coast-Florida game so I could appropriately update my March Madness Survivor Pool.

As I was waiting for the game to finish, I flipped over to FantasyPros and saw they updated their Zeile Consensus projections. Then I zoomed over to Steamer Projections Blog to find out they updated their Steamer-Razzball projections. Everyone is keen for a last final tweak to their projections before we hit Opening Day on Sunday night and Monday.

I guess it is time for an update for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy, and our online fantasy baseball cheatsheet rankings. Those are now updated as of this post, so open your copy of the Compiler, select the projections you want to update, and hit Update Projections.

Thanks again for all of the support this year. The response to the baseball Compiler & Draft Buddy continues to be very strong. If you are still drafting this final weekend before real baseball starts, good luck! Have a great season!

Projections, ADP and Depth Charts Update

Status

Reply

The Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy update is now available! That was quite a chore, starting yesterday and finally finishing today, but we have updated projections from each of FantasyPros and Steamer-Razzball, Average Draft Position (ADP) data from each of Pros, Mock Draft Central and NFBC, plus updated depth charts. These updates also helped create updated fantasy baseball cheatsheets, for those who want to quickly print and run to their draft instead of downloading and setting up the CC/DB.

If I could mention the depth charts (and accompanying rosters) for a moment, I’m still not entirely happy with how they are presented on the website. The 25-man rosters are in good shape, as that is what I’m concentrating on mostly because those are most relevant for fantasy purposes, and they feed into the Cheatsheet Compiler (well, it all does). It is the remaining 40-man roster players and non-roster players that are tougher to keep straight.

As time allows, I can see I’m still going to continue to fuss around with the depth chart and roster pages to provide as much information, in a clean and organized format, as possible. What isn’t helping entirely is the roster data purchased from our stats provider. It gives me all the players, but in terms of identifying what roster a player is currently on, and whether he is injured or not, the data falls short in places.

Anyway, something for me to continue to work at and improve. If you are still drafting this week and Easter weekend leading to Opening Day, grab the update and good luck!

Baseball Coming Soon! Projections Update Coming Sooner

Posted on by
Reply

It is getting a bit late in the day here Monday (when I take into account hustling kids home from school, some other chaos going on in this household (don’t get me started), and the fact I play hockey tonight), so I don’t want to guarantee the next projections update will be done today. However, it looks like Steamer updated their projections and FantasyPros updated their Zeile consensus projections, so we are definitely due for an update heading into the final week before the start of the season. I wanted to post a quick Monday update saying that is what I’m working on, and for you guys to expect it shortly.

I’ll also hit the ADP which should be updated to reflect drafts from this past weekend, and whatever depth charts changes are needed, like Vernon Wells to the New York Yankees, assuming it gets approved. What a contract he got from the Toronto Blue Jays. Even after an unbelievable offseason of player acquisitions, shipping Wells off to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim may still rank as Jays GM Alex Anthopolous’ greatest magic trick.

If you have a minute, and you’ve had a good experience using the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy this season, please add a testimonial. I’d really appreciate it.

Also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, if you haven’t already. I’m not the most rah-rah social media butterfly around, but each of those sites do prove to be very good ways for us to communicate if you have thoughts or questions about the CC/DB or other features at the website. Okay, on to the update. I’ll be back as soon as possible.

Steamer-Razzball and Zeile Projections Updates

Posted on by
2

Welcome to a new week, another week closer to the start of baseball season. I know a bunch of our members drafted this past weekend and I’m sure there are still plenty of fantasy baseball drafts scheduled the next couple weeks. That, coupled with March Madness* kicking off this week, and we’ve got a pretty darn exciting sports calendar ahead of us.

To start the new week, we have an update to both sets of projections available in the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. The Steamer-Razzball projections from Steamer Projections Blog and Razzball, plus the Zeile Consensus Projections from FantasyPros, each updated on Sunday.

Those are now updated on our side, so you need to open your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, go to the setup tab, select which one you want to update, and hit Update Projections. Remember, if you want to update both sets of projections, select one, click Update Projections, then click the button to move it from Site A to Site B. Once that is done, select the other set and click Update Projections again.

The Average Draft Position (ADP) data from each of Mock Draft Central, FantasyPros and National Fantasy Baseball Championship also received an update. Select the one you prefer on the ADP tab in the Compiler and it will update when you update projections.

Last but not least, in terms of update news, new projections meant the Compiler kicked out new baseball cheatsheets for us, if you simply want to print the player rankings from the website and go.

I received a note from member btscot7 this morning wondering why he was getting an error opening Draft Buddy… something to do with the TimerModule. From that he reminded me that the countdown timer does not work in 64-bit versions of Excel. This happened last year too, I just forgot exactly what the issue was.

As of this morning there is a new alternate version of Draft Buddy available from our download page for 64-bit Excel users. You won’t be able to use the countdown timer, as I simply had to remove it (sorry), but better to get 100% of the core features of Draft Buddy and lose one frill feature than not be able to use it at all.

* Are you a college basketball fan, or even March Madness bandwagon fan this time of year (like me)? Over at one of my other websites, MyOfficePool.ca, I run a unique March Madness Survivor Pool that has steadily grown in popularity. If you want to try it out, sign up over there and give it a shot. It is a lot of fun and frustration trying to pick winners each round of the tourney to move on – survivor style. And you can’t pick the same team twice, so plan ahead!

Another Zeile Consensus Projections Update

Status

Reply

I moseyed over to FantasyPros today and noticed they updated the Zeile Consensus Projections again, so even though we did an update yesterday, I don’t want you guys heading into the weekend with outdated projections. A new update is now ready, and it is strictly for the Zeile projections. The ADP, depth charts and Steamer-Razzball projections all stayed the same. If you are using Zeile, open the Compiler, go to the update tab and hit Update Projections and you’ll be all set.

Compiler v.1.2 Plus New YouTube Tutorial Importing Holds, Quality Starts Projections

Posted on by
6

I promised an update to the fantasy baseball projections, ADP and depth charts earlier today on our Facebook page, and it got done this afternoon, so you are now free to update your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler. Same method as before, go to the update tab in the Compiler and hit Update Projections.

Ah, but there is more to the story which is why it took me an extra nine hours to post about the update. You’ll be particularly interested in this part if your league uses Holds or Quality Starts as a scoring category.

Last week member prnichols7807 asked why Holds are available at Razzball.com in the Steamer-Razzball projections on their website, but not in the Steamer-Razzball projections available in the Cheatsheet Compiler (and here). Good question. I learned that Razzball adds the Holds projections, and Quality Starts too, and they want to keep those proprietary.

No problem, of course. I can understand that, because Holds and QS are not as commonly projected as other stats, so if you want them you need to visit Razzball to get them. However, that doesn’t help us get them in the Cheatsheet Compiler to incorporate into our cheatsheets for leagues that use Holds, Quality Starts, or both, does it? The answer: Projection Pal. We can use Projection Pal to import just the Holds and QS into the Compiler, and add them to our existing Steamer projections.

The question then of course is how to do that, which inspired me to create a new YouTube tutorial on exactly that. The video shows all the steps from copying the projections off the website, pasting them into Projection Pal, getting them into the Cheatsheet Compiler, adding them to the existing Steamer projections, and creating our new cheatsheets for a 6X6 league (standard 5X5 plus OBP and Holds, and QS instead of Wins).

These videos are time consuming to produce but I can understand they are more helpful than reading instructions. I hope you find this one helpful.

As a further addendum to this story, when I first ran the Holds projections through the Cheatsheet Compiler, relievers with Holds were overvalued quite a bit. I made some adjustments to Compiler version 1.1, and uploaded version 1.2 to our download page with a new feature.

Similar to the “Stockpile Closers” feature already in the Compiler, there is now a “Stockpile Holds” feature on the roto adjust tab that forces relievers projected with a base level of holds into the draftable player pool. That change, plus an appropriate adjustment to the holds value as discussed in the video, spits out the projected best setup men in baseball at reasonable dollar values relative to closers and other positions.

The time to do one update plus another nine hours later, we have updated projections, a new version of the Cheatsheet Compiler and a new YouTube video. Yep, that is a full day, and I’m calling it a night. Enjoy!

Draft Buddy 1.2 Fixes Missing Players in Drop-downs

Posted on by
Reply

As you may have noticed in the comments of my prior post, member bigcntry7879 told me that some players in Draft Buddy were not appearing in the available drop-downs. Specifically, players very early in the lists sorted alphabetically, like Adrian Beltre or Adam Wainwright, were missing.

Related to this, if you managed to select these players by other means, then their team was not appearing properly, and instead throwing a miserable looking #REF error.

What was happening is the hidden worksheet in Draft Buddy that creates all the alphabetical players lists by position during setup, was not counting down far enough to catch these players. It is a bit complex, the steps, and no need to get too deep into the technical details, but the important thing is, Draft Buddy 1.1 needed a fix.

Now available from our download page, Draft Buddy version 1.2. You can simply go there, download it and use it going forward, replacing version 1.1 if you already downloaded that previously.

If you already did a fair amount of work in version 1.1 and don’t want to replace it, it is possible to fix the problem yourself following a few steps. I’ll try to detail them here:

1. Open Draft Buddy and unhide the sheet titled “Sheet1″ using Format > Sheet > Unhide.*

2. There is a lot of data here, but across the top row there are some formulas that sort of go in a pattern starting with cell S1. The S1 formula is this:

=COUNT(S3:S1001)+COUNTIF(S3:S1001,"AddHitter*")

A similar formula is repeated in cells X1, AC1, AH1, etc. for each hitter position, and then a slightly changed formula for pitchers in cells BX1 and CC1.

For the hitters formula in cell S1, we are going to change it from the above to this:

=COUNT(S3:S1021)+COUNTIF(S3:S1021,"AddHitter*")

That is it, just two characters, changing “1001″ to “1021″.

3. Copy the formula in cell S1 (CTRL-C) and paste it (CTRL-V) in each of the similar cells for each hitter position, X1, AC1, AH1, AM1, AR1, AW1, BB1, BG1 and BL1.

4. The pitchers formula in cell BX1 was this:

=COUNT(BX3:BX1001)+COUNTIF(BX3:BX1001,"AddPitcher*")

Change it to this:

=COUNT(BX3:BX1051)+COUNTIF(BX3:BX1051,"AddPitcher*")

In this case we changed “1001″ to “1051″.

5. Copy the formula in cell BX1 and paste it in cell CC1.

6. Since you’ve already done work in Draft Buddy, such as inputting keepers, draft pick trades or maybe even some draft picks, you do not want to lose this work. Go to the setup tab and make sure to uncheck the “Clear Keepers and Draft Picks During Setup” option.

7. Now open your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, and go back to Draft Buddy and click the Setup Draft Buddy button. Buddy will recreate the drop-downs and they should now include all the players at each position.

* method for unhiding sheets will vary in different versions of Microsoft Excel