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.

How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 1 – Introduction to Rest of Season Projections

Welcome to the first 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.

A few notes about the series:

Let’s Get Started

If you’re a frequent reader of this site, hopefully you spent the offseason toiling over a spreadsheet making projections, developing rankings, and calculating dollar values.

That dynamite spreadsheet you created has probably been sitting on the shelf for the last month accumulating dust.  But did you know you can still use it to make informed in-season roster decisions?

I’ll show you how in a second.

Avoid This Scenario

Once the season starts, we immediately become retrospective in our decision making. You navigate out to the free agent listing and you see the stats players have accumulated to date.  Some utility infielder with a .240 career average is sitting there staring at you with 5 HR and a .386 batting average to start the season.

This is bad.  We don’t draft based on last season’s stats, so why should we make current roster decisions about last week’s stats?

As we do during the draft, we should be making roster decisions based on projected or future performances.

Some sites do offer full season projections.  They are helpful, but they become less meaningful as the season progresses.  Full season projections are likely not being updated, and we don’t care about the stats that someone has already earned.

What we really want are rest of season projections.  Or what a player is going to do from here on out.

How To Obtain Rest Of Season (RoS) Projections

Continue reading “How To Use SGP To Rank and Value Players During the Season – Part 1 – Introduction to Rest of Season Projections”