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Download and Installation
Download one of the available files depending on your version of Microsoft Excel. Each of the download files are unzipped and work equally on Windows and Mac computers. Draft Buddy is not compatible with Mac Office 2008.
- Click the appropriate download link and choose “Save” (or right-click Save As.., Save Target As.. or Download Linked File As..), to download the file to your computer.
- If desired, move the file to the folder of your choice on your computer.
- Start Excel on your computer. From Excel, select Office Button > Open or File > Open (older Excel) and browse to the folder where you saved Draft Buddy. Select and open.
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Enabling Macros
The Draft Buddy requires that macros be enabled to work properly.
Newer Versions of Excel (post-2006)
Excel 2007: Note the different menu and toolbars
(called the ribbon) from prior versions
After opening Draft Buddy, you should notice a message, “Security Warning: Some active content may be disabled” with an Options button after that. This is located below the menu and toolbars, and above the spreadsheet content.
Click Options and select “Enable this content” for each of the sections Macro and Data Connection. Click OK.
If you do not see the Security Warning message, follow these steps:
- In Excel, choose Office Button > Excel Options.
- Select Trust Center from the menu, then Trust Center Settings, and choose, “Show the Message Bar in all applications when content has been blocked.” Click OK.
- Close Draft Buddy, then re-open it.
You should now see the Security Warning message, so you can click Options and enable macros and data connections.
Older Versions of Excel (pre-2007)
Excel 2002: Versions prior to Excel 2007 look like this
When you open Draft Buddy, you should be prompted by Excel to enable macros. Macros must be enabled for Buddy to work properly.
If you are not prompted to enable macros, then it likely means your Excel macro security setting is set at high, which automatically disables macros. Perform the following steps:
- In Excel, choose Tools > Macro > Security.
- Adjust your security level to medium.
- Close the Draft Buddy, then re-open it.
- You should now be prompted to enable macros. Select Enable.
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Getting Started
Overview
There are two main functions of Draft Buddy. The first creates custom player rankings (cheatsheets) based on your fantasy football league rules, league scoring, current year player projections and prior year player statistics.
The second main function of the program is the draft tracker, keeping track of your fantasy draft or auction as it occurs by marking players drafted off the cheatsheets and updating various schedules with the draft results.
This first part is sometimes referred to as the Cheatsheet Compiler and the second part is sometimes referred to as Draft Buddy. The reason for this is because each were separate files in prior years, but starting in 2011, both are combined into a single file called, Draft Buddy.
Generally, your first steps will be to create custom cheatsheets for your league. Once these cheatsheets are prepared, then you will be ready to use the features to track your draft.
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Creating Custom Cheatsheets
This section outlines the steps to create custom cheatsheets for your fantasy baseball league. Follow the first tabs in order, numbered 1 to 5 and as described below, to complete the steps to create your custom cheatsheets.
Note that, in general, cells highlighted yellow throughout Draft Buddy are intended to be changed by the user.
- Open Draft Buddy and click to the “1. rules” tab. Input league settings in the League Rules / Settings box. Review the section 1. rules Tab, League Rules / Settings for a detailed description of each option setting.
- Click to the “2. scoring” tab. For roto scoring, check the boxes for the stat categories used by your league, or for fantasy point scoring, input the points scored for each stat category for hitters and pitchers.
- Click to the “3. owners” tab. Input the owner and team names for all of the teams in your league.
- If you do not know the draft order for your league at this time, you can reset the draft order later using this tab.
- Click to the “4. options” tab. Some of the options on this tab are more advanced features, and in most leagues the default settings will work the best. See the section 4. options Tab, Advanced Options for a detailed description of each option setting.
- Click to the “5. action” tab. After completing the above steps, click the Compile Cheatsheets button to see the impact of your changes on the cheatsheets.
- After the Compile Cheatsheets process finishes, Draft Buddy redirects you to the overall rankings tab. Players ranked by position is on each of the tabs hitters and pitchers.
- Print your cheatsheets by going to each of your cheatsheet tabs and using Office Button > Print (Excel 2007 to Excel 2011) or File > Print (older versions of Excel).
- If you are happy with your Buddy generated cheatsheets, then you can proceed to the steps to track your draft. If you change any of your league settings, scoring, options or projections, then you must click Compile Cheatsheets again to see the impact of those changes on your cheatsheets.
Tip: Even if you plan to use the Draft Buddy at your live draft, remember to take a hardcopy of your cheatsheets as a backup, to avoid frustration if anything happens to your laptop, battery, etc. that unexpectedly prevents you from using Buddy.
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Tracking Your Draft or Auction
This section outlines the steps to prepare for and track your draft or auction.
Note that, in general, cells highlighted yellow throughout Draft Buddy are intended to be changed by the user.
- Review the draft report or auction report, summary and rosters tabs. These should indicate the proper number of teams and draft picks based on the league settings input to create your custom cheatsheets.
- If the draft report or auction report does not show the correct team or owner names, or the teams in the correct order, try clicking Compile Cheatsheets again to reset the draft or nomination order.
- If you changed the team or owner names, or the draft or nomination order on the 3. owners tab, and those changes are not reflected on the draft report or auction report tab, then try changing the Draft Order option at the top of the tab, and then switching it back to the correct setting. For example, if you have a Serpentine draft order, change the Draft Order option from Serpentine to Straight, wait for Buddy to update, and then switch it back to Serpentine.
- If applicable, a keepers tab should appear to input pre-draft keepers for each team in your league. For each kept player, click in the first yellow cell for a team and select the appropriate position using the drop-down. Then click the next yellow cell and select the player using the drop-down.
- For keeper leagues where a kept player costs a draft pick, a third yellow cell should appear to select the draft pick being forfeit by the team to keep the player. Select the appropriate draft pick using the drop-down.
- For auction/contract leagues, a third yellow cell should appear to input the cap value of the kept player.
- You are ready to start your draft or auction. To draft or nominate players, you can do either of the following:
- Go to any of the summary, hitters, pitchers, overall, adp or depth tabs. Click on the player name for the current draft pick or current turn in the auction, and click the “Draft Player” or “Nominate Player” button. If you make a mistake, click the “Undo Pick” button.
There are shortcuts for these buttons. Use CTRL-x to draft or nominate a player, and CTRL-z to undo (option-command-x and option-command-z for Mac users).
- Go to the draft report or auction report tab. Next to the current draft pick or current turn in the auction, select the appropriate position under the Pos heading, and then the player name under Player.
- For auction leagues, on the auction report tab select the team that won the player at auction, and the winning bid amount. If the team that won the auction is the same as initially nominated the player, then you do not have to select the team.
Use the Draft Player button, or CTRL-X
to draft and CTRL-Z to undo.
As each player is input on the draft report or auction report tab, the other tabs in Draft Buddy will update.
Tip: Make sure to spend sufficient practice time tracking a draft prior to your league draft to get used to its functionality rather than figuring it out on the fly.
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Description of Each Tab
| 1. rules | This tab is for inputting the basic rules for your league, including whether it is roto or fantasy points league, the player pool, the number of teams in the league, whether it is a keeper league, auction or draft style draft and number of starters at each position. |
| 2. scoring | This tab is for inputting the scoring rules for your league. For roto scoring leagues, check the boxes under the Roto heading for each stat your league uses in its scoring. For fantasy point scoring leagues, input the number under the Fantasy Points heading that are awarded by your league for each stat accumulated. |
| 3. owners | This tab is for inputting the team and owner names for all of the teams in your fantasy league. You can also indicate which is your team, and reset the draft order if necessary. |
| 4. options | This tab includes advanced options, including the allocation of projections and stats to project players for the current year used to determine their value and ranking. Each option is described in detail in the section Advanced Options (4. options Tab). |
| 5. action | This tab includes the buttons necessary to check for a projection update, update projections, and Compile Cheatsheets. |
| summary | This tab provides a snap shot of the current rankings and draft or auction progress. It includes a recap of the last draft pick and what team is up next, a recap showing the number of players each team drafted, a salary cap summary for auction leagues, the top rated players available and the user’s current roster. |
| keepers | This tab is for inputting the players kept by each team prior to the draft or auction. This tab is hidden for non-keeper leagues. |
| hitters and pitchers | These tabs are the positional cheatsheets for each of the hitter positions (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF or split LF/CF/RF and DH) and pitcher positions (SP and RP). |
| overall | This tab is the overall rankings cheatsheet. |
| auction report or draft report | These tabs track the draft or auction, in order, as players are selected or won at auction. Only one of these tabs will appear depending on the type of draft your league uses, and the other will remain hidden. |
| rosters | This tab shows the roster for each team in your league, sorted by position, and updates as the draft progresses. It includes the position, player name, MLB team, projected fantasy points or dollar value, and winning bid amount, if applicable. To unhide all of these columns click the “+”sign above each team name. |
| adp | This tab shows the Average Draft Position (ADP) data for each player, sorted by ADP from lowest to highest. This data is included on the positional cheatsheets for non-auction leagues, and this tab is updated to show players as they are drafted. |
| depth | This tab provides a one-page depth chart of the projected regular starters at each fielding position, starting pitcher rotation and main closer and setup man for all MLB teams. This tab is updated to show players as they are drafted. |
| hitters data, pitchers data | These tabs include all of the detail about all players in Draft Buddy, including their characteristics (height, weight, experience), current year projections, past stats, more projections, custom fields, player notes and recent news. |
| last player picked | This tab is optionally used to import values from the online draft value calculator Last Player Picked into Draft Buddy to use for the rankings in place of the built-in Buddy methodology. |
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League Rules / Settings (1. rules Tab)
|
League scoring format |
Roto (Rotisserie) – A league is considered a Roto league when scoring is based on your ranking in a stat category against your league, or winning or losing a stat category against your opponent in a head-to-head league. The key indicator is that it does not matter if you rank higher or win the category by a little or a lot of stats, you score the same points based on your ranking or for winning the category. The points earned for each stat category are summed to determine your current standing against your league or opponent. Fantasy Points – Fantasy points leagues award points for each stat accumulated, typically in a linear fashion and with no upper limit on the fantasy points to be earned. All fantasy points earned from all stat categories are summed into a single total fantasy points score. |
|
Player pool |
AL only – Only players listed on American League teams are eligible to be drafted and included on fantasy team rosters in the pool. NL only – Only players listed on National League teams are eligible to be drafted and included on fantasy team rosters in the pool. Mixed AL + NL – All Major League Baseball players are eligible to be drafted and included on fantasy team rosters in the pool. |
|
Number of teams in league |
The total number of fantasy teams in your fantasy league, including your team. |
|
Number of draft rounds |
In re-draft leagues, the number of draft rounds, or rounds to complete an auction, should be the same as the next setting, Max roster size. In keeper leagues, this may be less than the roster size in cases where every team is required to keep a minimum fixed number of players. |
|
Max roster size (active players) |
Do not include DL spots in this setting. |
|
Position Eligibility (# of Games) |
Most fantasy baseball leagues include rules about what position, or positions, each player is eligible to start at, and typically to start the season it is based on a number of games the player played at a position the prior year. This setting allows you to set the number per your league rules. The Compiler will include all players at a position based on the number of games and the position he is listed at on the hitters tab. |
|
Max keepers per team |
If your league is a keeper league, then this option must be set with a number greater than zero for Draft Buddy to show the keepers tab after setup. |
|
Keepers cost a draft pick |
If your league requires you to forfeit a draft pick for each player you keep from the prior year, check this option. |
|
Auction |
If your league draft is an auction style draft, check this option. |
|
Salary cap per team |
Even for non-auction leagues, this setting will impact roto scoring leagues because they produce rankings based on dollar values. The default and recommended setting in these cases is $260. |
|
Minimum player bid |
This is the smallest amount bidders can open the bidding on a player. |
|
Minimum bid increment |
This is the smallest amount bidders can raise the current player bid. |
|
Cap allocation: hitters |
The cap allocation splits the salary cap used to value each of hitters and pitchers. The recommended setting is between 65% and 75% for hitters. The difference goes to Cap allocation: pitchers. |
|
Hitter and Pitcher Positions |
For each of these options, indicate the number of starters required by your league at each position. If your league does not use a particular position, then set the number of starters to zero. |
|
Designated Hitter (true DH) |
Set starters for a DH position if your league requires the player to be eligible at DH. This would typically only be used for AL-only leagues. |
|
Utility (any hitter) |
Use the UT position if your league starts a player who can be eligible at any fielding position or DH. |
|
Corner Infielder |
Use the CI position if your league starts a player who can be eligible at either 1B or 3B. |
|
Middle Infielder |
Use the MI position if your league starts a player who can be eligible at either 2B or SS. |
|
Pitcher (Starter or Reliever) |
Use the P position if your league starts a player who can be eligible at either SP or RP. Some leagues do not require a specific number of SP or RP, and instead just use a single pitcher position. For those leagues, input all starters in this option. |
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Advanced Options (4. options Tab)
| Tiering | Tiering is a method of identifying groups of similarly ranked players on your positional cheatsheets. Check this option to enable tiering, and Draft Buddy will insert a red dotted line at the end of each tier.
The initial tier groups are determined by the Set tiers every X points… option. For leagues with low fantasy point scoring, you will want to set a relatively low number to identify the tiers. For leagues with high fantasy point scoring, you will want to set a relatively high number to identify the tiers. In general, 5 points is a good estimate for leagues that use dollar values (roto and/or auction leagues). After the initial tiers are set, tiers can be easily adjusted directly on the cheatsheets found on the hitters or pitchers tabs by changing the numbers for each player under the Tier heading. |
| Dollar Valuation Methodology | This option gives the user the ability to choose between two methods for determining dollar value of players for the cheatsheets. One is the original, built-in Draft Buddy method, and the second is the method used by the online dollar value calculator Last Player Picked. |
| Average Projections / Allocation Keys | The option Default allocation key is a global setting to define what current year projections or past stats are used to calculate the projected fantasy points for all players, from which the cheatsheets are generated.
The section showing the defined allocation keys includes the name of the key and percentage applied to each current projection or past stats section. Changing these options allows the user to define their own allocation key (or keys), creating a unique weighted average if desired. The sum of percentages should equal 100%. The user can override the Default allocation key on a per player basis on the hitters data or pitchers data tabs. To find this, go to tab, scroll right and click the first “+” sign at the top of the tab to unhide columns showing the allocation key applied to each player. Inputting a different number from the default key under the heading Non-Default % Key will result in a new weighted average for that player. See the section Importing Projections for more information on averaging projections and allocation keys. |
| Import Projections | The option allows the user to simply label projections that they imported into the DB. Importing projections requires a separate optional add-on to Draft Buddy, called Projection Pal. See the section Importing Projections for more information on Projection Pal and how to include additional sets of projections in Buddy. |
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Multiple Leagues
To work with multiple leagues in the Draft Buddy, save a copy of the DB with a new filename for each of your leagues. Use Office Button > Save As.. > Macro-Enabled Workbook (.xlsm) for newer versions of Excel, or File > Save As.. (.xls) for pre-2007 versions of Excel.
You will have one file for each of your fantasy leagues. The best way to keep organized and know which league each file relates to is to make the filename unique to your league. For example, for a league named Dirty Dozen, save the DB as dirty_dozen_compiler_20XX.xlsm.
- Note with a different DB file for each league, you will need to run Update Projections for each file to keep all of them up to date. However, consider only creating a new file, and performing the update, as needed as you prepare for each of your fantasy league drafts or auctions.
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Importing Projections
Projection Pal
Projection Pal is a tool to help you import projections from alternate sources into Draft Buddy to complement the projections included by default. Please note you do not need to download and use Projection Pal. This is a completely OPTIONAL add-on for Draft Buddy.
To use Projection Pal, download the available file and save it to the same directory as you have your copy of the Draft Buddy, open it in Excel and give it a try.
Read and follow the detailed instructions included on the setup tab of Projection Pal. There are sure to still be instances where projections from the web will not import into Buddy very well (if at all). However, Projection Pal should make things much easier overall.
Projection Pal Tip: If the web query steps in Projection Pal are giving you issues, then try skipping the web query function and instead copy and paste the projections into Projection Pal. Then follow the remaining steps to pull the projections into Draft Buddy.
Demo Video
The following video is a demonstration using Projection Pal.
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