DraftBuddy.com

Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Football Draft Tools

Fantasy Baseball Projections Update + Improved Player Stats and News

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The 2019 fantasy baseball version of Draft Buddy is updated for Steamer projections, NFBC ADP and depth charts. Plus, the Zeile projections from FantasyPros are now available and added to Draft Buddy. Note, I filtered the NFBC ADP from December 1, 2018 to give us a good number of drafts without being too stale.

If you already downloaded the 2019 version since it was released in December, then you can keep your current download and update the data. To get both sets of projections, then follow the steps in this new demo video:

Updating is particularly helpful if you are in the middle of a draft and want to save the draft picks already input in Draft Buddy. Or if you are in a keeper league and you’ve already input the kept players.

To make sure that data is saved, then uncheck the “Reset keepers” and “Reset draft order and picks” options found in the upper-left of the action tab PRIOR to updating projections.

Last Player Picked, the online auction calculator, is also updated for the Steamer and Zeile projections.

Fantasy Stats Research Tool

Our fantasy baseball player stats are improved, and I hope you like the changes. First, we have a lot more data as I pulled in all regular season game stats going back to 2010 for all players. Now you can filter our player stats for any date range in a season, to find out things like, RBI leaders from March 29, 2018 (Opening Day last year) through April 30:

The game stats are also improved in layout, now showing the visiting team and home team stats separately, side-by-side (on wider screens). That was bugging me from the prior version.

Other improvements I would like to see are dollar values and other fantasy point system scoring options to accompany the stats tables. This is a complicated issue.

The game log stats should make their way to the player pages eventually. I am also continuing to develop improvements to the stats (and the whole site) for smaller, mobile screens, since none of us can stay off our phones these days.

Player News Research Tool

We have a new fantasy baseball news tool. You may not have known there was an old one. The old one grabbed fantasy headlines from RotoWorld to include on the player pages, and we pushed those to Draft Buddy. The news updates in Draft Buddy are found on the far right side of the hitters data and pitchers data tabs.

The new tool tracks articles and posts from a lot more websites, including local and national news sources, team blogs, official team sites, and fantasy resources. Where possible, the tool tags all players mentioned in the article or post. I am still making some adjustments to refine the tagging by teams, players and keywords, like “prospect”, “contract”, etc. Here is recent news in which Mookie Betts is tagged:

Okay, that is it for today. If you want to contribute your fantasy baseball knowledge to the cause, then please let me know.

2019 Fantasy Baseball Draft Buddy, Last Player Picked

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Fantasy Baseball Draft Buddy

Hitters with target percentages tab from 2019 fantasy baseball Draft Buddy

Draft Buddy and Last Player Picked are now available for the 2019 fantasy baseball season. Draft Buddy includes Steamer projections, MLB depth charts and Average Draft Position data from early National Fantasy Baseball Championship drafts. Last Player Picked is loaded with Steamer projections.

Since I had all the necessary data readily available, why not make these tools available earlier than usual? I’m sure many fantasy baseball players are already looking ahead to the upcoming season, and would love to start their research over the holidays. Historic stats for the 2016-2018 seasons are in Draft Buddy, and you can run LPP with last year’s MLB season stats, too.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Buddy

For those not familiar with Draft Buddy, it is our custom cheatsheet rankings and draft tracker tool, based in Microsoft Excel. It works for roto and fantasy points scoring, mixed, AL- and NL-only player leagues and auction and pick style drafts. You can customize your cheatsheets in a variety of ways, including a weighted average of projections and prior stats. We update Steamer projections and add more projections sets through the winter and early spring.

This version of Draft Buddy includes Target Percentages, a concept we learned about last year from our fantasy baseball guru, @Roto_Chris.

Last Player Picked

Last Player Picked

Last Player Picked hitters output using 2019 fantasy baseball projections

Last Player Picked is an online tool that provides rankings with dollar values for players. It works for roto and fantasy points scoring, and mixed, AL- and NL-only leagues. You can input rostered players and values for keeper leagues, to see the inflation impact on the remaining available player pool for your fantasy baseball league.

Not sure which to use? Try both! Draft Buddy is a download and does require Microsoft Excel to function. Register a free member account to access the Draft Buddy download. Both tools are free to use. Now get and early jump on the competition in your fantasy baseball league. If you have any questions about either feature then let me know.

Straight Cheese Streaming Starting Pitchers – 2018 Post Mortem

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Anibal Sanchez, Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Braves Anibal Sanchez was one of Chris’ most used pitchers in his weekly streaming starting pitchers analysis – Straight Cheese. Texas Rangers were his most picked on opponent. Here is the 2018 season review.

Fantasy baseball owners, this is the place where you come to get the Straight Cheese on less than desirable, questionably talented, less than 50% owned starting pitchers you can use for a spot start. Streaming pitchers is necessary to get those all-important counting stats for your roto league without drop-kicking your ratio stats into submission.

But before we dive into the 2018 post mortem, let’s take a look back at my picks from Week 24.

Week 24 Review

NameDateGSIPERHBBKDecERAWHIP
Eric Lauer SDP9/14 vs TEX15.002314ND3.600.80
Vince Velasquez PHI9/15 vs MIA12.004414ND18.002.50
Robbie Erlin SDP9/16 vs TEX15.331606L1.691.13
Shane Bieber CLE9/16 vs DET16.005904L7.501.50
Total for Week 418.3312222181-25.891.31

Not a strong finish to the season. In fact, can we just ignore September? It was easily my worst month.

Monthly Totals

Month GS IP K W-L ERA WHIP
April 15 79.00 80 6-4 4.90 1.51
May 16 94.33 86 5-5 3.72 1.09
June 5 31.00 31 3-0 1.74 0.97
July 12 73.34 71 7-3 2.70 1.16
August 14 88.33 86 10-1 1.83 0.88
September 9 34.00 34 0-5 9.00 1.94
TOTAL 71 400.00 388 31-18 3.64 1.20

Still, 400 innings of 3.64 era and 1.20 whip are commendable considering all pitchers were less than 50% owned at the time. Some pitchers that ended 2018 with an era higher than 3.64 and a whip higher than 1.20: Jake Arrieta, German Marquez, Dallas Keuchel, Cole Hamels, Jose Berrios, Julio Teheran and Jose Quintana… to name a few.

Most Frequent Opponent

The team I found myself picking on the most was the Texas Rangers. In fact, I went against them 12 times this year (five more than the next most frequent: Baltimore and San Diego). My line when picking a starting pitcher versus the Rangers: 2.39 era, 1.25 whip, 57 strikeouts and a 6-2 record in 64 innings.

Interestingly enough, here is my line for starting pitchers versus Rangers, Orioles and Padres: 2.85 era, 1.19 whip, 149 strikeouts and a 15-3 record in 148 2/3 innings (26 games). That’s Mike Clevinger with a lower era.

Most Frequent Pitchers Recommended

There were four pitchers that I suggested three times this year:

  • Anibal Sanchez: 1.53 era, 0.85 whip, 17 strikeouts, 1 win in 17 2/3 innings
  • Kyle Gibson: 3.66 era, 1.17 whip, 21 strikeouts, 2 wins in 19 2/3 innings
  • Lance Lynn: 4.91 era, 1.77 whip, 17 strikeouts, 1 win in 14 2/3 innings
  • Trevor Cahill: 1.84 era, 1.16 whip, 23 strikeouts, 1 win in 14 2/3 innings

All four combined: 2.97 era, 1.21 whip, 78 strikeouts, 5 wins in 66 2/3 innings (12 games). That’s 66 2/3 innings of Noah Syndergaard with a slightly better era and more strikeouts.

My Best Calls

  1. Ross Stripling (5/25 vs SD): 6 2/3 ip, 0 er, 6 h, 0 bb, 10 k, 1 win; 60 FanDuel points, 35.4 DraftKings points
  2. Trevor Cahill (8/5 vs DET): 6 ip, 0 er, 3 h, 1 bb, 10 k, 1 win; 58 FanDuel points, 35.1 DraftKings points
  3. Trevor Cahill (5/5 vs BAL): 6 ip, 0 er, 4 h, 1 bb, 12 k, 0 win; 58 FanDuel points, 34.5 DraftKings points
  4. Daniel Mengden (5/26 vs ARI): 9 ip, 0 er, 2 h, 0 bb, 5 k, 1 win; 52 FanDuel points, 38.05 DraftKings points
  5. Danny Duffy (7/14 @ CHW): 7 ip, 0 er, 4 h, 3 bb, 8 k, 1 win; 55 FanDuel points, 31.55 DraftKings points

My Worst Calls

  1. Brian Johnson (9/2 @ CHW): 1 1/3 ip, 4 er, 7 h, 1 bb, 2 k, 0 win; -2 FanDuel points, -5.8 DraftKings points
  2. Daniel Mengden (4/28 @ HOU): 2 1/3 ip, 4 er, 6 h, 1 bb, 1 k, 0 win; -2 FanDuel points, -4.95 DraftKings points
  3. Zack Wheeler (5/4 vs COL): 6 ip, 8 er, 10 h, 3 bb, 3 k, 0 win; 3 FanDuel points, -4.3 DraftKings points
  4. Trevor Cahill (9/9 vs TEX): 2 2/3 ip, 3 er, 2 h, 6 bb, 1 k, 0 win; 2 FanDuel points, -2.8 DraftKings points
  5. Steven Matz (5/19 vs ARI): 4 ip, 4 er, 6 h, 1 bb, 2 k, 0 win; 6 FanDuel points, 0.8 DraftKings points

I still can’t figure out #4 on the Worst list. Cahill vs Texas should have been a slam dunk.

Well, that closes the book on Straight Cheese for 2018. I hope you enjoyed my work and I look forward to getting back to the grind in 2019!

And remember, my suggestions aren’t ludicrous. They’re @Roto_Chris.