Final Fantasy Baseball Projections Update for Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Mike MacGregor

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!

Projections, ADP and Depth Charts Update

Status

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!

Steamer-Razzball and Zeile Projections Updates

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Mike MacGregor

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!

Fantasy Baseball Projections, ADP and Depth Chart Update

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Mike MacGregor

That took some time – longer than I expected (per usual) – but the projections, average draft position and depth charts are now updated for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. Open your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, go to the update tab, make sure the Zeile (FantasyPros) option is selected for projections source, and click Update Projections.

No update to the Steamer-Razzball projections this week, only the Zeile projections. I updated the ADP from all three of our sources, FantasyPros, Mock Draft Central and National Fantasy Baseball Championship. Thanks once again to each of our partners for their contributions to the CC/DB.

I also ran through every team to update our depth charts too. In terms of other online features, the projections update creates new updated player rankings for our cheatsheets and player pages, like Bryce Harper.

We had some questions the last few days about the projections, including a discussion on our Facebook page when member smackie1970 noticed there are way too many at-bats going to the Tampa Bay shortstops. Make sure to check that out to understand the reasoning behind it.

Commenting on a previous blog post, member prnichols7807 asked why Holds (and I noticed, Quality Starts too) aren’t included in our Steamer-Razzball projections when they are over at Razzball. It seems that Razzball adds those to Steamer, and they want to keep them proprietary, which is certainly understandable considering HLD and QS are not as commonly projected by fantasy baseball prognosticators across the inter webs. My suggestion if you really want these in your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler would be to do so using Projection Pal. If I have time then I will revisit that topic next week to show how I would do it.

Okay, that is it for the update. Have a good one, and good luck if your draft is on this weekend.

Projections and ADP Update Ready for the Cheatsheet Compiler

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Mike MacGregor

I posted this morning on our Facebook page and Twitter account that I was going to work on updating the fantasy baseball projections, Average Draft Position (ADP) and depth charts today for the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. That took some time, but the update is ready!

Both sets of projections, the Zeile Consensus Projections from FantasyPros, and the Steamer-Razzball projections from Steamer Projections Blog, were updated. Plus, I updated ADP from each of Mock Draft Central, FantasyPros and National Fantasy Baseball Championship.

I ran out of time to do the depth charts, so if a few people could look through them and let me know if there are any glaring changes that should be made, I’d appreciate it.

As a result of this update, we now have much deeper Zeile projections. Previously, I grabbed the Excel export file from FantasyPros, but member mjfhokie noticed that didn’t include the complete Zeile projections. Now I’m pulling them direct from FantasyPros’ API, resulting in much deeper projections. Our Zeile import used to include projections for 245 hitters and 181 pitchers, but is now at 358 hitters and 249 pitchers. Good stuff!

Note since this is a projections update, you do not need to download the Cheatsheet Compiler again. You can get the new data using the built in features. To update both sets of projections, perform the following steps:

1. Open your copy of the Cheatsheet Compiler, go to the update tab, and use the drop-down to choose Steamer-Razzball projections. Click the Update Projections button. You should see an indication that Steamer projections now are in Site A.

2. After that runs through the update, go back to the update tab and click the Move to Site B button, which will do just what it sounds like. It moves the now updated Steamer projections from section A to B on each of the hitters and pitchers tabs.

3. Now change the drop-down from Steamer-Razzball to Zeile (FantasyPros). Click the Update Projections button again.

4. Your ADP is already updated from the above steps. If you want to switch to a different source for your ADP, go to the adp tab, change the drop-down, and click the Update ADP button.

One final note that I did make some very minor changes to the Compiler and Draft Buddy download files, even though I didn’t change the version number. In the Compiler, the Check for Update button didn’t work properly. I fixed that.

In Draft Buddy, I noticed a problem on my Mac that threw an error near the end of the Setup Draft Buddy process. This was a curious one that happened because while running one macro (Setup Draft Buddy), Buddy tried to run another macro (recalculate the by pos tab), but ended up getting bungled up because the first task didn’t think the second task finished fast enough. I never noticed this issue on my PC, only the Mac.

Like I said, these are very minor issues, but if you do notice them and want to download a fresh copy of the Compiler or Draft Buddy, then you can certainly do that.

Enjoy the update, and again, let me know if you notice any significant depth chart changes that should be made, particularly those impacting the starting lineup, rotation and closers as shown on our summary depth chart in the Compiler.

Change to NFBC ADP in the Cheatsheet Compiler

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Mike MacGregor

I wasn’t planning to do another video this week, but late Friday I noticed a tweet from RotoSaurus slagging the Average Draft Position (ADP) data from Mock Draft Central (MDC), which of course is what we use in the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. The guys at RotoSaurus use the ADP from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC), because that is where they play, and that is where the pro or more experienced fantasy players, play.

I absolutely know there are a ton of sharp fantasy baseball players in the NFBC, so I agree the NFBC ADP is good data. I guess which you prefer could depend on who you are playing against. Do the owners in your league draft more like your average Joe MDC member, or your average Joe NFBC player?

Always one to give you guys choices, I created an HTML page with ADP from the NFBC that you can import into your copy of the Compiler, in case you’d rather use that instead of the default MDC ADP. The only thing you need to know, is how to change it. And that is why I created another video, to show how it is done.

Average Draft Position Inflated for Late Drafted Players

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Mike MacGregor

Inflated ADP? Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. Well, it isn’t that bad. If I had room for a ridiculously long title, I would extend it with, “and what we’re going to do about it.” Here is my story and how it impacts fantasy baseball drafting, the Cheatsheet Compiler, and literally, what my response is to this discovery which in part prompted a new version of the Compiler, version 1.5 (now 1.6).

I was editing Rick’s article about overvalued and undervalued hitters, and it included a lot of Average Draft Position (ADP) numbers referenced from Mock Draft Central (MDC). Upon close inspection, Rick’s numbers, converted to a round and draft pick, didn’t match the numbers from the Cheatsheet Compiler, and that got me to take an even closer look at what the heck was going on to cause the discrepancy.

All players in the ADP table are sorted by their ADP from lowest to highest, representing which players are, on average, drafted earlier than other players. This creates essentially a ranking list from number one – first to get drafted on average – all the way down to as far as the ADP data travels – last to get drafted on average.

Average Draft Position (ADP) from the Cheatsheet Compiler, updated February 14, 2011

At the top end of the ADP table included in the Compiler and with data from MDC, we have Albert Pujols: Rank 1st, ADP 1.0, High 1, Low 2, Adjusted 1.01

The adjusted number is a formula in the Compiler which converts the ADP number to an equivalent draft pick based on the number of teams in your league.

Next in line, Hanley Ramirez: Rank 2nd, ADP 2.2, High 2, Low 4, Adjusted 1.02

This all seems fine and dandy. Pujols is on average the first player drafted and therefore has an expected draft pick of 1.01. Ramirez is on average the second player drafted, giving him an expected draft pick of 1.02.

This goes on and on like this down the table until we get to the later drafted players. Particularly, the players who have a Low drafted of “ND”, or not drafted, in some mock drafts.

For these players, a wide spread is being created between the ranking and the calculated ADP from MDC. The further down the list we go, these key numbers – Rank and ADP – are getting further and further apart.

ADP with the Adjusted column calculated using the old method, based on ADP.

When players aren’t drafted in a particular mock draft, they receive a penalty addition to their ADP calculation, to ensure their ADP is not too low (i.e. which would indicate they are drafted earlier than they actually are on average), which I agree with, but it seems to be inflating the ADP number. Check the spread between Rank and ADP for players drafted beyond pick 200 overall. Some examples:

Jaime Garcia: Rank 200, ADP 265.6, High 147, Low ND, Adjusted 19.14

Ty Wigginton: Rank 218, ADP 311.3, High 190, Low ND, Adjusted 23.03

Luke Scott: Rank 281, ADP 435.1, High 199, Low ND, Adjusted 32.01

The reason I’m pointing this out is because it impacts the Adjusted calculation, which is the number that means the most to us in terms of referencing where a player is expected to be drafted. The Adjusted numbers get translated to the cheatsheets.

In prior years, and version 1.0 of the 2011 Cheatsheet Compiler, the Adjusted calc was based on the ADP number. I mean, that is the ADP, so why would we think it shouldn’t be based on the ADP? It says right there that Ty Wigginton is on average the 311th player off the board, which translates to an early 23rd round pick (14-team league).

Wait a second though. He isn’t on average the 311th player off the board. There are only 217 players ranked in front of him with a lower ADP. He’s on average the 218th player off the board. That translates to a mid-16th round pick. That is a huge difference, a 23rd versus a 16th round pick.

ADP with the Adjusted column calculated using the new method, based on Rank.

So which is it? Logically, the Rank has more relevance in determining the projected round and draft pick for a particular player. I still trust the order that MDC has developed as a result of its ADP calculations, but effective with version 1.5 of the 2011 Cheatsheet Compiler, the Adjusted calculation is now based on Rank, not ADP. The chart on the right shows the same table as above, but with the new ADP formula based on Rank.

This should result in little to no difference for players in the top half of the ADP table, because their Rank and ADP are very similar. Where we will see major differences are later drafted players. Ultimately, this will provide better information on our cheatsheets from which to make our draft day decisions.

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