Tag Archives: cheatsheet compiler

Fantasy Baseball Update, Fantasy Football Work In-progress

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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.

One Day to Opening Day, Projections Update

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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!

Steamer-Razzball and Zeile Projections Updates

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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

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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

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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!

Zeile Projections Update To The Update

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It is a tricky business relying on fantasy baseball projections from other sources, and trying to stay up to date all the time, especially when they have a seemingly random update schedule. After finalizing the update yesterday for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy, I woke up this morning and, after noticing one small mistake I wanted to correct, I checked the Zeile consensus projections over at FantasyPros and they updated them again, late last night, after our last update. Darn it.

It is the weekend and many of you might be drafting today or tomorrow, so lets get everyone up to date with the latest projections, even though it is difficult to decipher exactly what changed from the last version to the current version. Okay, as of typing this I updated the Zeile projections again. You’ll see even if you already hit Update Projections after yesterday’s update (Friday ~ 7:00pm Eastern), the Compiler will tell you once again this morning (Saturday ~ 8:00am) that there is an update available.

As for the small mistake, I noticed in the Cheatsheet Compiler that Reid Brignac was still on his old team, Tampa Bay, even though I know I switched him in our depth charts weeks ago. I finally realized the issue.

The Compiler update pages I create were pulling the team and position information from the Zeile projections instead of the depth charts. Zeile still shows Brignac on Tampa. Steamer, by the way, shows him as a free agent. You’ll notice this on his player page where each of those projections are shown below his historic season stats.

Now I am pulling the team and position data from the right spot, our depth charts, so the Compiler properly shows his current team, the Colorado Rockies, after running the aforementioned update. This would apply to any other player who switched teams recently where our projection source haven’t quite caught up yet.

Another Update, Plus Baseball Player Rankings

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A new week and yet another update for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. The Zeile Consensus Projections and ADP each received an update, which you can obtain by simply opening your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, going to the update tab, and hitting the Update Projections button, making sure you are asking for the Zeile (FantasyPros) projections from the available drop-down.

Don’t have the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy yet? They are free, including updates from now to Opening Day. All you need to do is register a member account (or login with your old one and renew access) and go to the download page to get the CC/DB, fantasy baseball version for 2013. Testimonials and/or donations to help pay for our web hosting and time are appreciated.

The CC/DB is in Microsoft Excel, which is software that some of you maybe don’t have on your computer, or don’t use currently or very often, or don’t care to try. I’ve tried to make the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy as user-friendly as possible, but it is within the confines of Excel which isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. As a (former) accountant, it was a natural for me, but I understand some reluctance or even frustration using a Microsoft product.

Overall
Rank
Player
 Team 5X5 ADP
1
Ryan Braun, OF
 MIL $46 1.01
2
Miguel Cabrera, 3B
 DET $46 1.02
3
Mike Trout, OF
 LAA $44 1.03
4
Robinson Cano, 2B
 NYY $36 1.07
5
Matt Kemp, OF
 LAD $35 1.04
6
Albert Pujols, DH|1B
 LAA $35 1.06
7
Clayton Kershaw, SP
 LAD $33 2.02

To help bridge the gap by providing something beneficial to non-Excel users, I posted new player ranking pages on the website. Print and go, with the old pencil and paper draft method. Nothing wrong with that, and you are certain to not spill beer on your laptop at the draft. The rankings are based on standard 5X5 roto scoring with a typical $260 salary cap (i.e. same format as you see in outdated magazines on the racks at the book store), pulled from the Cheatsheet Compiler. There are overall rankings and rankings by position. I’ll update these each time we update the projections in the Compiler.

I hope you find that helpful. Feedback is welcome either here in the blog comments, or on Twitter or Facebook.

Big Baseball Update To End The Week

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Where did the week go? Better question: Why do I find myself asking that same question every week?

Not to worry, I’m not expecting an answer to either question, but I do have good news in that we are going to finish the week just like it started, with an update to the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy.

This time the update is to both sets of fantasy baseball projections – Steamer-Razzball and Zeile – plus the average draft position (ADP) data from all three sources – FantasyPros, Mock Draft Central and NFBC. Our depth charts are still in good shape, except the Chicago Cubs who got missed last time, so they got updated.

Since we have two sets of projections to update, and the Cheatsheet Compiler only does them one at a time, here are the steps you should follow, keeping in mind that from the default download file, Zeile projections are in Site A and Steamer projections are in Site B.

1. Update Steamer. Go to the update tab in the Compiler and change the Projections source drop-down to “Steamer-Razzball”. Click the Update Projections button.

2. Move Steamer. After you just updated, Steamer overwrote the prior projections in Site A. Lets move them to Site B so we don’t lose them from the Zeile update. Go to the update tab in the Compiler and near the top of the tab click the Move to Site B button.

3. Update Zeile. Repeat step 1 but change the Projections source drop-down to “Zeile (FantasyPros)”.

After that you are up to date.

For some added reading on the projections we are using in the Cheatsheet Compiler, check out Where Steamer and ZIPS Disagree by Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs. Then read Jared Cross’ response at the Steamer Projections Blog and adjustments made to Steamer as a result (and which led to the above noted update).

Longtime Draft Buddy member, BeanTown, did some sleuthing to find out if projections that are averages of a bunch of single sets of projections tended to be more or less accurate in general than single sets of projections. He found this article by Wil Larson over at FanGraphs, and mentioned similar findings from sabermetrician (is that a word?) Tom Tango. The findings? Average projections are good for hitters, but less good for pitchers. Interesting.

From that, BeanTown asked me how he could set the allocation keys in the Cheatsheet Compiler to use Zeile projections for hitters, and Steamer projections for pitchers. No problem I told him. Here is how:

1. First, set the default allocation on the setup tab to 100% Zeile (Site A). That we will use for hitters.

2. Then, go to the pitchers tab and do you notice just above the spreadsheet but below the toolbars a “+” sign. Click that and it will unhide some columns. In the yellow column under “Non-Default % Key” you can put a different allocation key for an individual player. Unless you’ve changed it, “8″ should be the 100% Steamer (Site B) key. Put 8 for the first player, copy it, and paste it all the way down for all players on the pitchers tab.

3. Hit Compile Cheatsheets.

After step 3, the cheatsheets are now generated based on Zeile for hitters, Steamer for pitchers. Hopefully that provides the best of both worlds.

Big Baseball Update To Start The Week

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Okay, I know it is Tuesday, but that was supposed to be the lead headline yesterday on the website. It was a marathon session to get as much updated as possible for the fantasy baseball Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy since our prior update, last week.

I noticed the Zeile Consensus Projections from FantasyPros got updated over the weekend, plus our depth charts were getting a bit stale. So I started first thing Monday morning updating those projections, all of our depth charts (except the Chicago Cubs – nothing personal, there was no new roster info on them from our stats provider), and the Average Draft Position data from each of our sources, Mock Draft Central, FantasyPros and National Fantasy Baseball Championship.

That sounds like a pretty good update, right? I thought so, and I had that all finished Monday afternoon. You should have heard about it then (and if you clicked the “Check for Update” button in the Cheatsheet Compiler it would have told you there was an update).

However… before I announced the update, I got tinkering around with some of our pages on the website. Mainly the player pages, like this one for Joey Votto, or if you prefer a pitcher, how about David Price. I added player rankings, by position and overall, to the players pages. The rankings are highlighted in the upper-right, and also there is a short rankings box below the stats and projections showing not only the player’s ranking, but the players ranked right around that player.

I was pretty happy with the results. Then I continued tinkering on some of the formatting of our tables to give them a sharper look and feel. By the time all of this tinkering got done, it was late, I was tired, so I figured I would start first thing Tuesday properly announcing the update.

Lo and behold, this morning I wake up and FantasyPros updated the Zeile projections again, so back to work I go. And it was quite an update. For those who like deep, deep fantasy baseball projections, you should like this. The number of hitter projections expanded from 407 players to a whopping 702. On the pitchers side, they increased from 283 to 690.

Finally my day and half journey is finished so I can announce the projections update. Open your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, make sure on the update tab the projection source is set to Zeile (FantasyPros), and hit Update Projections. This will also bring in updated ADP and depth charts. The latest download file – make sure you are updated to version 1.1 – includes this latest update.

Have fun prepping for your fantasy drafts.

Baseball Compiler 1.1 Plus Draft Buddy Released

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After an extensive update to the depth charts, enough players changed from version 1.0 of the Cheatsheet Compiler that I needed to release a version 1.1. It is now ready and available from our download page.

For those new to the website, the 2013 Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy for fantasy baseball is completely free. It is free to download, use and update right up to Opening Day, no strings attached. You just need to register an account to get access to download. Existing members can login to download again this season.

If you already downloaded the earlier available Cheatsheet Compiler 1.0, then you must replace it with version 1.1 to ensure the update pages and Draft Buddy work properly. There are no other feature changes since 1.0, but 1.1 includes updated Steamer and Zeile projections, updated Average Draft Position data from each of FantasyPros and Mock Draft Central, plus ADP from National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the depth charts.

Oh, and that little gem called Draft Buddy is also now available. Not a bad update, eh?


 

If you notice any issue with the Compiler, Draft Buddy, or anything on the website, then please send me feedback so I can correct it. To submit feedback, like the CC/DB on Facebook, follow @DraftBuddy on Twitter and Google+, post in the blog or send me an email.