I’m going to try something a bit different here.
Instead of analysis, let’s try an instructional piece about how to add a feature to your draft prep spreadsheet. In the instructions that follow, I’ll show you how to make a cheat sheet based on auction values. When you’re done, you’ll have something like this…
Is Justin Upton going to bat second for the Tigers? Or sixth? What would happen to Addison Russell‘s value if he moved from ninth in the order to second? Is Corey Dickerson really going to hit cleanup for the Rays? How does Yoenis Cespedes‘ signing affect Michael Conforto’s projections?
When it comes to evaluating our typical fantasy baseball hitting categories, we know that home runs, batting average, and stolen bases are dependent upon some mix of skill and playing time (let’s say “skill-dependent”). Runs and RBI are a bit more difficult to assess. They have playing time and skill elements (getting on base and hitting for power), but they are also largely team-dependent. The projection systems, like Steamer, project R and RBI for us, but what if we want to make an adjustment? Or we want to take a gamble on a player winning a particular battle?
My goal with this post is to provide a simple framework that can be used to quickly answer questions like those above. I’m also not the first to attempt this task. So when I’m done displaying my method, I’ll share the other strong approaches I’ve been able to find. Read the rest of this entry »
Finish third in each rotisserie category and you’ll win the league. We’ve all heard or read that at some point. Where does it originate from? Is it founded in fact?
I’ve spent a lot of time acquiring and analyzing standings data of late (AL-only, NL-only, mixed). And looking at that information got me to thinking that I could easily determine if finishing third across-the-board is really what it’s cracked up to be.
Turns out that it is. Finishing third in all ten categories would have won 67 of the 76 AL-only leagues and 47 of the 51 NL-only leagues I looked at.
But in looking at things a little closer, I found an even better reason you should set your sights on finishing third. One that had never crossed my mind. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week we took a look at standings data, for 12-team AL-only leagues. Now I’m back to present the same findings using a sample of 51 NL-only leagues. What follows is a look at the points required to win an NL-only roto league, what it takes to finish first in each rotisserie category, standings gain points information, and a downloadable Excel file for you to analyze further. Read the rest of this entry »
As a standings gain point disciple, one of the questions I get asked most is if I know where to get final standings data (and SGP denominators) for AL- and NL-only leagues. You can find reliable mixed-league data if you search hard enough on the web. But you won’t find much, if anything, about the only-league format.
Thanks to a tip from Mike Gianella, I finally got my hands on a nice set of AL- and NL-only standings. Mike suggested I check with the guys that run OnRoto.com. If you’re not familiar with OnRoto, they’re a league hosting and stat service that caters to hard-core and old-school rotisserie leagues… Meaning they host a lot of only leagues.
OnRoto has also historically hosted the various Tout Wars competitions. So this is legit data from a trusted fantasy resource. In this post we’ll be looking only at the AL data (NL coming soon). I was able to obtain the standings for 76 different 12-team AL-only leagues and here’s an analysis of the data… Read the rest of this entry »
