Tag: In Season Analysis

“The Process – 2020 Edition” Now Available

This year’s edition of The Process is now available!

About the Book

A very thorough and detailed write-up of what’s included in the book is available here. At a high level, this book is everything Jeff Zimmerman and I know about how to play rotisserie baseball (and even points leagues). Regardless your level of experience, I guarantee it includes pages and pages of unique ideas, research, and data you have never seen before. We continue to pour our new ideas, new research, and recent realizations into it. The e-book is 265 pages and includes 58 additional pages of appendices full of projections, statistics, and helpful information.

The paperback edition of the book can be purchased from Amazon.com by clicking here.

Want more detail about the topics covered in the book? You can see the table of contents here.

Want a testimonial that the book is this thorough and contains the value we say? You can read a Clay Link’s (RotoWire, 2018 TGFBI Overall Champion) introduction to the 2020 edition here. Or you can see what many other respected fantasy analysts (Rob Silver, Rudy Gamble, Eno Sarris, Mike Podhorzer, Mike Gianella, Tim Heaney) had to say about the 2019 edition here.

My Favorite New Part

Keep reading for details on all that was added to this 2020 edition, but my favorite addition is a detailed study that performed on the 2018 NFBC Main Event, including all the player adds, player drops, and final standings of all 34 leagues and 510 teams. The study sought to confirm if the advice and strategies in the book can be observed and corroborated in the actions of the game’s best managers. The NFBC Main Event, with its $1,700 buy in, prestigious name, and overall competition aspect, offers the best laboratory to study this.

That new study delves into many topics:

  • How much does draft position affect the chances of winning a league?
  • Do better owners just accrue more playing time? Or are their players also accumulating more stats per AB and per IP? How much more?
  • How many free agent transactions do the best teams make?
  • How do these better owners spread their transactions throughout the season?
  • How do these better owners allocate their FAAB spending?
  • What bidding patterns can be observed from winning teams?
  • How do these owners allocate transactions between hitters and pitchers?
  • How often do these owners acquire two-start pitchers? Closers?
  • How much season-long value do these owners acquire and drop during the season?
  • How much weekly value do these owners acquire and drop during the season?

For example, here’s a table of data in the section analyzing how owners finish in the standings and the amount of moves spent on closer speculation.

Closer acquisitions in the 2018 NFBC Main Event.

 

A Personal Note

I’m really proud of this book. Or shall I say, this annual publication that we’ve started. But the intent to have annual editions creates a significant challenge. The book’s main strength is its long-term nature. Much of what we discuss are fundamental concepts to success at rotisserie baseball. Those ideas are not going to change much from year-to-year. It’s certainly going to be a test to keep the book relevant and worthy of your time and money. We understand that.

I am confident we can do this. Afterall, I’ve been writing on this site for several years now, exclusively with a long-term slant to my analysis. I don’t have much time to write. So I choose to focus my efforts doing research, writing instructions, and building tools that will have long-term benefits. I simply don’t have time to devote to writing short-term pieces that will be irrelevant within weeks or even days. Despite blogging for several years and having written a handful of books, I still feel as though we’re finding new ways to play and think about rotisserie baseball. I see no shortage of strategy-related questions to research.

You can see this in the topics we expanded in this year’s book. Among the higher-level strategy questions approached in this year’s book are:

  • Are rookies more volatile than established hitters? Does a rookie’s upside offset the possible downside? Do rookie projections differ from the projections of MLB regulars?
  • How much does a player’s previous levels of fantasy-production affect their future performance? Do these players offer a higher return on investment than those that have never before attained a given production level?
  • What are the key differences owners should know about the SGP and z-score player valuation models? Where are these systems similar?
  • How does the cost of closers during the draft compare to their cost in free agency (FAAB)? How does the cost of starting pitchers differ?
  • How much value should multi-position eligibility add to a player’s valuation? (Note: This topic was included last year, but we expanded our thoughts)
  • Having studied how weekly values appear in 12-team leagues during the 2017 season, how much did things change in 2018? How does the appearance of weekly values change in a 15-team league?
  • What do average weekly statistics lines look like for players? For example, what does a $30-35 weekly hitter line look like? What do valuable weekly pitcher statistics look like?
  • What strategies and behaviors can we observe from the NFBC’s amazing data (standings, adds, drops, etc.)? What behaviors lead to success? What beliefs about how to best play rotisserie baseball can we confirm by studying this data?

On top of all this, Jeff and I continue to evolve the way we play the game and we share those changes and decisions with you. Here are the new discussions of strategies, tips, and tools included this year:

  • We co-owned a team together this season. We share what we learned from this experience, both during the draft and in-season. Our general recommendation is that partnering is very helpful, especially for leagues where there is a grind of weekly transactions.
  • To that end, we outline the weekly FAAB process we went through together on that shared league. Having a consistent weekly routine is the key to uncovering valuable players and to avoiding under- or over-bidding. We share the process that works for us.
  • We outline the specific tools we use to identify FAAB targets and two-start pitchers. We also share the process we go through for setting lineups and finding important last-minute MLB news.
  • We explored different approaches to dealing with catchers this past season. We share the results of those strategies.
  • We share a FAAB binning strategy that helps owners stay disciplined about overbidding and maintaining a healthy weekly budget.

Do you have to read through the entire book hunting for what’s new? No! We kept track for you. You can see a full list of changes and jump right to the updated content. Here’s what that list looks like.

Please Click the ‘Buy Now’ Button Below to Purchase the e-Book for $17.99

After clicking the “Buy Now” button, you’ll be taken through an online checkout process using PayPal. There is also an option to pay with a debit or credit card. After completing the purchase, a link to download the PDF book will immediately be e-mailed to you. You can read the PDF on any mobile device, PC, or tablet.

 

Or Click Below to Buy the Paperback Edition at Amazon for $22.99

Click here to buy The Process – 2020 Edition: Integrating Valuations and Biases into a Winning Fantasy Baseball Formula at Amazon.com.

“The Process – 2019 Edition” Now Available

The Process is now available!
Twitter 1500x500

I partnered Jeff Zimmerman (Fangraphs, Rotowire, Fantrax, multiple-time Tout Wars Champ) to write this comprehensive e-book guide (PDF) that outlines the start-to-finish process we go through during a fantasy baseball season. Please click here to buy The Process e-book.

 

How to Win Your League

The book is a chronological guide through the fantasy baseball season, with the main goal being to help you win your league. The topics covered are:

  • Use of Projections
  • How to Adjust Projections
  • How to Convert Projections to Values/Rankings
  • How to Adjust Values and Rankings
  • Draft & Auction Preparation
  • Draft & Auction Strategy
  • In-season Management & Strategy
  • End-of-season Management & Strategy
  • Wrapping Up the Season

Player valuation and how it is determined are big themes in the book.
Player valuation and how it is determined are big themes in the book.

As you read through that list, you may be thinking, “I already know that topic,” or, “What more could be said about that?” But that is what I’m most proud of. I think we managed to provide unique perspective, insights, and studies that have not been seen before.

If you’re not an experienced owner and you’re looking for a place to start, The Process can help you too. It is a comprehensive guide, but we also present shortcuts and alternate ways of doing things. You can pick and choose the topics or areas in which you want to expand your game. Adding one or two new strategies or tactics to your own process each season is a great way to improve over time.

I’m also very proud of the way we were able to weave in a lot of theory, so owners are not just presented with a way of doing things, but can also understand the “why”, so it can be applied to similar situations in the future.

Cognitive biases and other decision-making concepts are also sprinkled throughout the book. We believe this combination of process, theory, and decision-making tactics makes The Process a unique tool for fantasy owners.

Tell Me More About What’s Included

One of the more interesting studies included in the book is around the concept of weekly player values. Much of the research and decision-making fantasy owners do centers around annual valuations for players. Yet outside of draft and hold leagues, we don’t make decisions on an annual time horizon. Most owners must make decisions on a weekly or even daily basis. A study of weekly player valuations sheds light on how well we capture value in the preseason, what kinds of players create weekly value, and when new value appears during the season.

This table is one of many in a study of how well fantasy owners do at capturing weekly hitter and pitcher value.
This table is one of many in a study of how well fantasy owners do at capturing weekly hitter and pitcher value.

The book also includes average standings data and standings gain points calculations for many popular league variations. Save hours of time having to calculate these yourself!

Example AL-Only OBP Average League Standings Data
Example AL-Only OBP Average League Standings Data

This data is provided for the following league types:

  • 15-team, Standard League (14 hitters, 9 pitchers)
  • 15-team, 1-Catcher League (2 utility hitters)
  • 15-team, OBP League (instead of batting average>
  • 15-team, Draft and Hold League (no in-season pickups)
  • 12-team, Standard League
  • 12-team, OBP League
  • 12-team, AL-only Standard League
  • 12-team, NL-only Standard League
  • 12-team, AL-only OBP League
  • 12-team, NL-only OBP League

What Do Others Have to Say?

You don’t just have to take my word for it. Some of the minds I most respect in the fantasy baseball community have taken the time to read the book and offer their feedback (Rob Silver, Rudy Gamble, Eno Sarris, Mike Podhorzer, Mike Gianella). You can see what they had to say here.

Please Click the ‘Buy Now’ Button Below to Purchase the e-Book for $17.99

After clicking the “Buy Now” button, you’ll be taken through an online checkout process using PayPal. There is also an option to pay with a debit or credit card. After completing the purchase, a link to download the PDF book will immediately be e-mailed to you. You can read the PDF on any mobile device, PC, or tablet.

 

More (Than You Wanted to Know) About Ratio Stats and Standings Gain Points

Most of the concepts used in the standings gain points process of valuing players are straightforward. If there’s one facet of the process that causes the most confusion, it’s the handling of ratio statistics like batting average and WHIP. In the piece that follows, I’ll revisit the basics of what makes ratios statistics different and then I’ll get into two very specific and more complicated questions I often see.

  1. How do you determine the baseline (or league average) ratio to compare the player pool to?
  2. What if you don’t use an accurate measure for that baseline?

Counting Stats are Simple

A player cannot hit a “negative home run” or “lose strikeouts”. Each counting stat helps you move closer to the next team in the standings. So when we are calculating SGP for a player, the counting stats all evaluate out to a positive number. For example, if we determine based on 2017 standings that it takes 8.526 home runs to move up one spot in the standings, Dee Gordon’s two home runs still calculate out to 0.2346 standings gain points. They’re still beneficial in an absolute sense.

Ratio Stats are Messy

When it comes to rotisserie scoring of ratio stats, we are not judged in that same manner. A player with a poor batting average or a bad earned run average can lower your score within those categories. You can have negative ratios that cause you to lose points or fall in the standings. A player can have a negative SGP for a ratio category.

Negative-Standings-Gain-Points-SGP

How Do We Calculate SGP for Ratio Stats?

NOTE: This part is a refresher. If you already have a general understanding of how this works, skip down to the next bolded heading.

Let’s revisit how we calculate things for ratio stats. Directly from my guide “Using Standings Gain Points to Rank and Value Fantasy Baseball Players” (with specific text emphasized):

If we assume a league of 12 teams and 14 hitters on each team (adjust for your roster size), that is 168 players (12 * 14). In the Steamer projections, the top 168 major leaguers are projected for an average of about 509 at bats per player.

This means the average team in this fantasy league will have approximately 7,126 at bats (14 players * 509 at bats). According to Razzball, the average rotisserie batting average in 12-team leagues was .267. This means the average team had approximately 1,902 hits (7,126 * .267). And the average player had 136 hits (1,902 team hits / 14 players).

To find the impact of Trout we need to remove one “average” player from the team and then add in Trout’s projections. We can do the same for Tulowitzki.

13 “average” players * 509 at bats = 6,617

13 “average” players * 136 hits = 1,768

Before I start getting into the intricacies of that process, it’s important to understand that the approach we use to calculate SGP for ratio stats is to find an individual player’s effect on that ratio stat for an AVERAGE team in the standings.

Here’s a closer look at how you would do this for batting average:

Step Description
1. You first need to know what your fantasy league’s average batting average was. In this example, let’s say it’s .267.
2. Determine what the SGP factor is for the ratio stat. In this example, let’s use 0.0019 (the raw factor for the 12-team Online Championships calculated here).
3. You then need an approximation of how many at bats it took to generate that average. In this example, I determined that 168 players (12 teams * 14 players per team) would average 509 at bats. (more on how this was determined later!)
4. Using that information, derive the number of hits the average player had. Knowing the league average and the number of at bats, we can easily figure out that the average player would have had 136 hits (.267 * 509 = 135.9).
5. Next, you extrapolate the 136 hits and 509 at bats per player to team totals. But not a full team of players. ONE LESS PLAYER THAN A FULL TEAM (PER YOUR LEAGUE’S SETTINGS). We’re trying to figure out what an average team looks like without the one player we’re trying to rank.

In this example of a 14-player roster, we’ll use 13 players (one less than a full team). This means the average team (minus one player) would have 1,768 hits (13 * 136) and 6,617 at bats (13 * 509).

It’s CRITICAL that these two numbers hold true to your league average stat. Notice that 1,768 divided by 6,617 is still .267.
6. Then, you add in the projection for the player being evaluated and DETERMINE THE TEAM’S RATIO STAT WITH THAT PLAYER. Assume a player is projected for a .300 average on 200 hits and 667 at bats. The calculation would be:

= (1,768 hits + 200 hits) / (6,617 at bats + 667 at bats)

= 1,968 hits / 7,284 at bats

= .27018 AVG
7. Finally, determine the effect of the individual player by subtracting the average team’s ratio (from step 1 above) from the recalculated team ratio with the player, then divide by the SGP factor.

In our example, this calculation would be:

= (.27018 – .267) / 0.0019

= 1.6737 SGP

Instead of using a player with a .300 average, assume we used a player that dragged the team average down to .264. For this player, the SGP calculation would be:

= (.264 – .267) / 0.0019

= -1.5789 SGP

Negative standings gain points! I said this cannot happen with counting stats… But it CAN AND WILL HAPPEN with ratio stats.

How Do You Determine the Baseline (or League Average) Ratio to Compare the Player Pool to?

When you read through that description above, things generally make sense. But when you actually try to reperform that process, you’ll quickly realize I skipped some steps and take some liberties…

Continue reading “More (Than You Wanted to Know) About Ratio Stats and Standings Gain Points”

How Much Do Current Season Stats Matter?

Every major fantasy league hosting site (Yahoo, CBS, ESPN) allows you to look at recent history (e.g. the last 7 days or the last 14 days).  It’s also very easy to see the year-to-date stats any player has accumulated to this point in the season.

Yahoo_Stats
The Yahoo! free agent list allows you to look at the last 7, 14, and 30 days.

And now that we’re nearly half way through the current season, how much do those current year stats mean?  If you’re trying to add a free agent, should you be looking at the last 7 days?  Is the last month OK to use?  How much can we expect production from the first half of the season to continue into the second half?

CBS_Stats
CBS allows you to look at 7, 14, 21, and 28 days, as well as 3 year averages.

Let’s Take A Quiz

Before we get to the answers to those question, let’s put you to the test with some very specific questions.  I’ll lay out a series of “story problem” (remember middle school math?) questions for you .  Place yourself in each situation and make what you think is the best fantasy baseball decision.

Question #1

Your team recently suffered an injury and you must go out to the free agent list and find a replacement.  Which of these measures is the best method of identifying the player who will perform the best for the rest of the season?

  1. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 7 days
  2. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 14 days
  3. Looking at the statistics for free agents in the last 28 days
  4. Looking at the statistics the free agents have accumulated to this point in the season (season-to-date stats)
  5. Looking at the projected statistics for free agents for the remainder of the season  (like Steamer or Zips rest-of season projections)

Question #2

Which model(s) above do you actually use to make decisions?

Question #3

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production so far?

Current production (as of 6/22/2014):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 306 45 23 60 .299
Chris Davis 252 32 12 37 .220

Question #4

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production and the Steamer RoS projections below?

Current production (as of 6/22/2014):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 306 45 23 60 .299
Chris Davis 252 32 12 37 .220

Steamer RoS Projections (as of 6/22/14):

Player PA R HR RBI AVG
Nelson Cruz 320 41 17 47 .261
Chris Davis 341 46 20 52 .261

Question #5

Similar scenario to question four above…  But now imagine that we’re five full months into the season instead of at roughly the half way point.  Who would you rather have in the final month of the season?

  • The player who was incredibly hot for the first five months but that projections say will cool off towards his career averages or
  • The player that has struggled for the first five months but is projected to improve and perform closer to his higher level of career averages over the final month of the season?

Question #6

Which player would you rather have the remainder of the season given these levels of production and the Steamer RoS projections below?

Player IP K/9 ERA WHIP
Andrew Cashner 76.1 6.96 2.36 1.19
Homer Bailey 90.0 8.07 4.68 1.45

Steamer RoS Projections (as of 6/22/14):

Player IP K/9 ERA WHIP
Andrew Cashner 103.0 7.29 3.85 1.27
Homer Bailey 95.0 7.99 3.80 1.22

The Research

The information that follows Continue reading “How Much Do Current Season Stats Matter?”

How To Evaluate a Trade Using Standings Gain Points

In this video I’ll show you how to add a Trade Evaluator into your existing rankings spreadsheet.

Here’s an animated image demonstrating the finished product.  This spreadsheet will pull in all the Rest of Season projections for a player, their total SGP to be earned the rest of the season, and the player’s dollar value (provided you’ve added dollar value calculations to your sheets).

TradeEvaluator

I’ll also show you a practical example and explain a few important things to think about when considering trade offers.

The video is roughly 30 minutes long, but keep in mind that just about everything you create by following the guides on this site are long-term in nature.  With a little bit of maintenance, all of these tools can be used all season long AND into future seasons.

The Step-By-Step Process

I start with a spreadsheet that has already been updated with RoS Projections.  I then show you how to add a tab just to evaluate trades and other roster decisions.  We’ll add drop down menus that pull each player’s statistics, dollar value, and SGPs.

This information will enable you to add clarity to all your roster moves.  No more using your gut to analyze a 2-for-3 player trade involving hitters and pitchers.  You’ll be able to see exactly which side of the offer is better.

If you’re new to the site, I would suggest getting familiar with How To Create Your Rankings Using Standings Gain Points.

A Quick Suggestion

WatchVideoDoubleSpeedIf you’re looking for a way speed things up by watching them 1.5 or 2 (double)  speed, cutting down the time it takes to watch significantly.  Just adjust the settings at the bottom of the video player.  Click the cog and change the “Speed to 1.5 or 2.

I also recommend watching the videos in HD.  A lot of the detail in Excel can only be seen well in 720p or higher.

And a Disclaimer

I created this video using Prince Fielder, Jose Abreu, Billy Hamilton, and Ian Kinsler in an example trade.  News that Fielder is facing season-ending surgery came out the next day!  I apologize for this glaring problem with the example, but hope you can still see the power of using a tool like this to evaluate trades and free agency acquisitions.

Here’s The Video

Thanks for Watching

Stay smart.

Questions?  Comments?  Future Video Ideas?

Let me know in the comments below.

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 6 – Adjust Replacement Level

Welcome to the final part of the series in which we go through the process of plugging Steamer’s Rest of Season (RoS) projections into your existing ranking/dollar value spreadsheet so you can make informed and objective roster decisions during the season.

If you register as an SFBB Insider (it’s free), you can receive the entire series in an easy-to-use e-book (also free) along with two other helpful guides.  I’ve also written a comprehensive guide on ranking players and calculating player dollar values that’s available at Amazon.

Introduction

In this sixth part of the series we will revisit the concept of replacement level and adjust replacement level for our updated RoS projections.

Reminders About Replacement Level

If you’re new to the concept of replacement level read the introduction here (don’t go into the “Step-by-Step Instructions”.  When you consider the injuries that occur in Major League Baseball, rookies being called up, players underperforming projections, and others exceeding projections, the player pool is constantly changing.

In order to make the best possible decisions and to calculate representative dollar values, it is very important that we update the estimate of replacement level.

Caution:  No Further Adjustments Necessary

When listening or reading fantasy advice, you might come across a piece of advice that goes something like this, “You really need to draft a SS early to account for the lack of depth at the position.  Go ahead and reach for that shortstop.”

Don’t listen to that advice when you’re using the approach we’re now going through.  The replacement level adjustment that follows is already calculating the effect of depth at each position.  And it does it mathematically.  There is no guesswork going on here.

DON’T MAKE ANOTHER ADJUSTMENT.

You do not need to make an arbitrary adjustment to shortstops or catchers, or any other position.  When you have added this adjustment to your rankings, each player will be ranked according the their value over the worst players at the position.  If the position is weak, that’s accounted for.  If the position is deep, it’s accounted for.

If you then decide to make arbitrary adjustments to your rankings after adding in the replacement level calculation, YOU ARE DOUBLE COUNTING.

You will be reaching for players and you will be hurting your team.  Don’t “bump” players up a list because of their position.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Continue reading “How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 6 – Adjust Replacement Level”

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 5 – Update the Player ID Map

Welcome to the fifth part in a series of posts in which I’ll go through the process of plugging Steamer’s Rest of Season (RoS) projections into your existing ranking/dollar value spreadsheet so you can make informed and objective roster decisions during the season.

If you register as an SFBB Insider (it’s free), you can receive the entire series in an easy-to-use e-book (also free) along with two other helpful guides. I’ve also written a comprehensive guide on ranking players and calculating player dollar values that’s available at Amazon.

Introduction

In this fifth part of the series we discuss updating the Player ID Map to pull new players into the rankings information.

Player ID Map

The SFBB Player ID Map contains the Fangraphs, MLB, Baseball-Reference, Retrosheet, CBS, NFBC, ESPN, Baseball Prospectus, Davenport, and Yahoo player IDs for over 1,200 players.  It’s not a comprehensive list of past players by any means, but I make a concerted effort to have all current fantasy-relevant MLB players and those minor league players likely to make a fantasy impact this season.

PlayerIDMap

To give credit where credit is due, I originally downloaded the player map from Crunchtimebaseball.com and tailored it to meet my needs.  CrunchTimeBaseball is run by Tim Blaker.  He continues to maintain his own map of player IDs and generally keeps his more up-to-date than I do.  You can obtain his version here.

Why Update the Player ID Map

April inevitably brings us players that were never intended to be fantasy relevant; minor leaguers that were not anticipated to make the jump, role players thrust into starting jobs, and more.  As the summer rolls on, impact rookies begin to get called up that may not have been in the preseason Player ID Map.  When September arrives there will be more of the same.

While it is possible to add individual players to the player ID map, it can be inefficient to add more than a handful.  Updating the entire list is probably easier.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Continue reading “How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 5 – Update the Player ID Map”

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 4 – Add the IFERROR Formula

Welcome to the fourth part in a series of posts in which I’ll go through the process of plugging Steamer’s Rest of Season (RoS) projections into your existing ranking/dollar value spreadsheet so you can make informed and objective roster decisions during the season.

If you register as an SFBB Insider (it’s free), you can receive the entire series in an easy-to-use e-book (also free) along with two other helpful guides. I’ve also written a comprehensive guide on ranking players and calculating player dollar values that’s available at Amazon.

Introduction

In the fourth part of the series we’ll introduce a new Excel formula to help remove lookup errors, like those shown above, from our spreadsheets.  These occur when we have instructed Excel to do a VLOOKUP to find a player’s RoS projections and Excel is unable to find the player ID within the projection data.

Often times a player will stop appearing in the RoS projections.  This might be because they’ve suffered a season-ending injury, they’ve retired, or they’re an unsigned free agent. If that player remains in the list of hitters or pitchers rankings, no projection can be found for that player.  I’ve realized that the rankings and dollar value formulas I previously used did not handle these situations very well, so it’s necessary to adjust these formulas slightly.

Adding this formula to your spreadsheet is a one-time fix.  You won’t need to go through this part when you download updated RoS projections in the future.

Excel Functions in Part 4

IFERROR

The IFFERROR function allows us to control what happens when another function being used is calculating an error.  The image below is a great example of this.  On our “Hitter Ranks” tab we have a series of VLOOKUP formulas that instruct excel to go find Kendrys Morales’ player ID (moralke01) in the “Steamer Projections” tab.  During the 2014 season Morales is likely not included in the RoS projections because he remains unsigned by any Major League team.

IFERROR-Excel-Formula

The IFFERROR function will allow us to replace the error message with any value of our choice.  It essentially works by telling Excel, “If this other formula I’m using comes back with an error, use this instead”.

The formula requires two inputs:

IFERROR(value,value_if_error)

  1. Value – This represents the formula or calculation we want Excel to perform.  In our example above it will be the same VLOOKUP formula we already have entered.
  2. Value_if_error – This represents the value or message we want Excel to return if the first argument, “Value”, returns an error.  In our example above we don’t want the default “#N/A” error message that turns up if Excel cannot locate Kendrys Morales in the RoS projections.  Instead, we could just ask for Excel to return zeroes for his projected stats.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Continue reading “How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 4 – Add the IFERROR Formula”

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 3 – Delete Old Info and Insert New RoS Projections

Welcome to the third part in a series of posts in which I’ll go through the process of plugging Steamer’s Rest of Season (RoS) projections into your existing ranking/dollar value spreadsheet so you can make informed and objective roster decisions during the season.

If you register as an SFBB Insider (it’s free), you can receive the entire series in an easy-to-use e-book (also free) along with two other helpful guides. I’ve also written a comprehensive guide on ranking players and calculating player dollar values that’s available at Amazon.

Introduction

In this third part of the series we will remove the old (preseason) projections from our spreadsheet and paste in the new information.  It sounds simple, but there are a few tricks to be aware of.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Continue reading “How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 3 – Delete Old Info and Insert New RoS Projections”

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 2 – Download and Prepare Rest of Season Projections

Welcome to the second part in a series of posts in which I’ll go through the process of plugging Steamer’s Rest of Season (RoS) projections into your existing ranking/dollar value spreadsheet so you can make informed and objective roster decisions during the season.

If you register as an SFBB Insider (it’s free), you can receive the entire series in an easy-to-use e-book (also free) along with two other helpful guides. I’ve also written a comprehensive guide on ranking players and calculating player dollar values that’s available at Amazon.

Introduction

In the second part of the series we will download the free Rest of Season Steamer projections that are available from Fangraphs.com.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step Description
1. Visit Fangraphs’ Steamer RoS projections at this link or visit Fangraphs.com and hover over the “Projections” link on the menu bar and look for “Steamer (RoS)”.Fangraphs2
2. Once the page loads, use the link to “Export Data”.Fangraphs-RoS-Export
3. The data will download in CSV (comma separated value) format. Locate the downloaded CSV file and open it.

It should open in Microsoft Excel (if it doesn’t, launch Excel and then use the File>Open menu to open the CSV file).

You might recall from our earlier work that theFangraphs reports come withPlayerID as the last column in the file. We must move thisto be the first column so we can later use the VLOOKUP formula to pull data from theseRoS projections.Once the file opens, locate the “playerid” column. Right-click on the column header (column “W” in the image below) and choose to Cut the column.Cut_Fangraphs_ID
4. Now right-click on the first column header and choose the option to “Insert Cut Cells”.Insert_Fangraphs_ID
5. Repeat the steps above for pitchers. You can obtain RoS Steamer pitcher projections here or by clicking the “Pitchers” button at the top of the Steamer hitters web page.Steamer_RoS_Pitchers

The “playerID” column is currently column “S” in the Steamer RoS download.Excel-ROS-Projection-Part2-6
6. You have finished reordering the information and have copied it so it can be pasted into your rankings and dollar value calculation spreadsheet.

Example Excel File

We did not edit the main dollar value calculation spreadsheet in this part, so no example spreadsheet is provided.

Questions?

Do you have questions about Part 2? Or want to see what others have asked? Comment below.