Tag Archives: Fantasy Baseball

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.

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.

Baseball Stats and Player Pages Updated

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That was a chore. Yes, I did say in my prior post I’d return with a more official announcement about the 2013 Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy for fantasy baseball. I’m overdue for that, but the week I posted that comment I spent planning my projects for the year.

As a result of that planning, I scheduled time to update my baseball stats database. Since then, I’ve been head down, eyes on computer, plugging away at the stats. It was a lot of of programming and Excel spreadsheets to try to automate importing rosters from a stats provider, to keep them updated, and making sure the stats are complete and accurate. That took another week, plus most of today. Glad to have that done and announce the updated player stats, games played by position data, team rosters (example: Washington Nationals) and player pages (example: Bryce Harper). If you notice an error with the stats, please let me know so I can correct it.

Now that is done, next stop is the Compiler & Draft Buddy. I need to look at my schedule and see what is possible for this year. To be perfectly honest, it may be “simply” updating the same file as last year for the current year. Hey, if you liked last year’s version (and many did), then you should be happy to hear that. Timing? Not sure. These projects do take a significant amount of time. You can still download last year’s baseball CC/DB by registering (rookie members) or logging in (returning vets).

Thinking About Fantasy Baseball – 2010 Review, 2011 Preview

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The picture on the left is the view out my front door. The one on the right is out the back porch, showing a nice accumulation of snow on the patio furniture. We had intentions of covering the furniture with a tarp for winter, but since its been in roughly this state since early November we’ll just roll with it uncovered until spring and see what happens. At any rate, in this winter wonderland surrounding me, now is the perfect time to think about spring (please spring, come any time now) and … fantasy baseball!

Yes, consider this your pre-official introduction to the introduction to fantasy baseball season at DraftBuddy.com. The official welcome back is yet to come, but as some fantasy sites are starting to roll we wanted to get the word out that we will be back after a nice pre-season of fantasy baseball content a year ago.

Last year represented a step up from previous efforts providing the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy, Fantasy Baseball Version, to our CC/DB Fantasy Football Version users. In 2010 we created our own modest Draft Kit including Rick Milleman’s projections (included in the Compiler of course), rankings, sleepers, busts and a handful of articles such as his popular Consensus Top Prospects chart.

We also had the honor of publishing Scott Rudicil’s (a.k.a. Bodhizefa) Tiers of Starting Pitching, your ultimate pre-season guide to help draft your fantasy pitching rotation. Antonio D’Arcangelis helped us out tremendously with his Tiers of Relief Pitching, including closer rankings.

For my part, in addition to the Compiler, Draft Buddy, Projection Pal and all the tech support that went with that, I created some demo videos on YouTube which were popular (and not as easy to do as my natural acting talent made it look). We added player stats, player pages and depth charts to the website, plus games played by position. The stats pages are now updated for the 2010 season.

We also had some great discussion in the baseball forum and sponsored the inaugural DB.com Whitey Herzog fantasy baseball league, which was hotly contested all season by CC/DB customers and went right down to the wire with yours truly finally finishing in top spot. Wow, it was a great league last year and seriously was a battle at the top with a new number one team swapping into that first spot almost daily for a long stretch. I feel lucky to have pulled that one out at the end.

Okay, that is the review of what we accomplished in 2010. For 2011, we plan to take another step forward with our fantasy baseball content to make it an even better year than last year. Without giving too much away, and mostly, because nothing is set in stone and I don’t want to over-promise, let me just tell you where we are at now and when to expect we’ll get ourselves really rolling:

  • Compiler and Draft Buddy for 2011 are in development currently. I always feel like mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein when I’m in this stage rolling over the prior year CC/DB to the new year. “It’s alive!”
  • As mentioned, player stats are up from the 2010 season.
  • We are working on the depth charts as I type this. They will be continuously updated through spring training and the updates included in the Compiler.
  • Mock Draft Central agreed to give us access to their Average Draft Position (ADP) data to include in the Compiler this year. That will be great, and thanks MDC!
  • In case you haven’t noticed, Rick continued to provide some fantasy articles the past couple months with his deep prospects series, the latest of which profiled Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.
  • Rick is working on the projections and we’re going to get him cued up to fill the 2011 Draft Kit with as much content as his students, wife and kids will let him accomplish the next three months. At least he doesn’t have to shovel any snow – much.
  • I would love us to have another fantasy baseball league or leagues with CC/DB customers. We’ll fill the Robbie Alomar league first and if we have enough interest, the Bert Byleven league after that.

Okay, I’d better get back to work. If you’d like to help contribute to DraftBuddy.com to get your baseball acumen published, then drop me an email so we can discuss it. Or if you just see something that isn’t working right let me know that too. Feedback is always welcome and helps us improve to get where we are going. Thanks for your time.

Are You Ready For Some Baseball?

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I hope so. I wouldn’t say I’m ready, but I’m frantically getting ready under our new website here, DraftBuddy.com.

Its weird, I feel like we’re behind, when in fact we usually release the Baseball Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy in late, late February or early March.

Last year Rick and I agreed for him to get the projections done earlier, and for me to get the software done earlier, because it seemed like a lot of fantasy baseball sites were already going steady last year at this time. Now when I look around, it seems like a lot of fantasy baseball sites are already going steady.

Football season is now officially over though, so toss your helmet and grab your cap and glove. Spring is in the air (ignoring the sub-freezing temperatures outside my door for a minute). Here is where we stand on the baseball front as of today, two days after the Super Bowl:

All in all, that is not a bad start I think. Over the next two months however, we plan to get a whole lot better.

Rick will be consistently updating the projections and depth charts, which will also provide updates for the Cheatsheet Compiler. As usual I’ll tackle the Compiler & Draft Buddy tech support via email and our message board.

We are working towards a complete draft kit this year, complementing the projections plus Compiler & Draft Buddy with player rankings, average draft position data (already included in the CC/DB), mock draft results, sleepers, busts and other articles.

If you feel like you (a) know your fantasy baseball, (b) can write with nearly perfect spelling and grammar, and (c) can entertain us in the process, and want to contribute to the cause, then drop me an email with your idea.

Also, in terms of feedback and new feature suggestions for the Compiler, Draft Buddy or the website, I’d love to hear those as well.

How to contact me? A few ways. I have yet another email address for this website, mike@draftbuddy.com. The message board works too, but you’ll need to register an account (for free) if you don’t already have one.

You can also connect with us for updates via the new Compiler & Draft Buddy Facebook Fan Page, and Twitter @DraftBuddy.

Anyone who registers at the website will be included in our semi-regular newsletter, which you can specify by topic or topics you are interested in – fantasy baseball, fantasy football, fantasy hockey or sports pools from former home of the CC/DB and sister site MyOfficePool.ca.

Okay, enough talk and time for me to get back to work. Enjoy the baseball stuff we have right now, especially the Compiler & Draft Buddy, and expect more and more baseball content to fill up this website as we countdown to your fantasy baseball drafts. Are you ready?