Mr. Cheatsheet | Fantasy Baseball Draft Tools and Research

The Weekender | Southern Tier 2X Stout, Bauer/Cobb, Capital Cities

2013-04-06T14:47:00.000-04:00

Fantasy baseball is about more than just numbers and even more than just winning or losing. It's a way of life for many months of the year. Accomplishing the ideal fantasy baseball lifestyle isn't easy so I have a new weekly post here in honor of The Weekend and the pursuit of a fun fantasy season. You'll get beer recommendations, songs to listen to, baseball articles you should read and games you should watch each weekend. It's baseball season so let's live it up!

Beer of the weekend

Southern Tier 2X Stout

So, you want to watch some baseball but you don't know what beer would hit the spot? Well, this nice milk stout might do the trick. This is a beer that simply explodes with foam when it is poured so use caution if you have one eye on a baseball game as you pour. After pouring, you can probably watch a half inning of the game while the foam dissipates. After it finally does, you'll be able to whiff up a bit of some milk chocolatey goodness. Upon first taste, you'll notice it has a nice creamy taste to it but with also a bit of hoppy bitterness that adds some complexity to it. If you've had a milk stout, you might expect some sweetness but you'll only get a little tease of that here. It's the perfect drink for the cold days of early baseball season. It has the warmth of a nice winter drink with hints of the sweetness that is to come when the weather gets warmer. Think of it as the gateway between the darkness and complexity of winter and the promise of light, simple summer days ahead. Early baseball season in drink form.

Rating (1-5 scale)
Appearance (5), Aroma (2), Flavor (4), Palate (4), Overall (4)

Game of the weekend

Indians (Bauer) vs. Rays (Cobb) on Saturday at 7:10 PM EST

What game should you make time to watch as a fantasy baseball nut this weekend? There's some pretty obviously good pitching matchups this weekend. Darvish/Weaver, Cain/Wainwright/, Verlander/Sabathia, Hamels/Shields are just some of the gems that you could watch. But, for the most part, you know what to expect out of those guys and they're owned on every fantasy team in the world. If I'm going to watch a game from a fantasy perspective, I want to use it for information gathering. To me, the best game for that this weekend is the Indians/Rays game on Saturday night where Trevor Bauer is pitching against Alex Cobb. These are both young phenoms who could deliver potentially great numbers this season. Bauer is a total wildcard as he was a huge prospect that the Diamondbacks seemingly gave up on due to his eccentricity. Cobb has already shown some success but how high is his ceiling? These two pitchers should make for a fun matchup. In addition, I want to see what this new-look Indians team looks like as I think they put together some interesting pieces this offseason.

Article of the weekend

Does Plate Discipline Come With Age? (Beyond The Boxscore) - If you're a craft fantasy baseball player then you're always looking for a hidden age. Based on the evidence within this article, it may make OBP owners wonder if older players are the new market inefficiency.

Song of the weekend

Even though you're drinking a dark beer, we need a fun song to remind us that summer is coming and spring is coming. Get your toes tapping with this awesome, upbeat song called "Safe And Sound" by Capital Cities. Have a fantasic fantasy baseball weekend, my friend!

Through The Waiver Wire | Week 1 | Cowgill, Chacin, Henderson

2013-04-05T09:30:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if you noticed or not but BASEBALL IS BACK. We now have a series of games under our belts which means that we finally have some decisions to make. If you're a John Axford or Carlos Marmol owner then you're already looking at other options. Meanwhile, Ryan Ludwick and Brian Roberts owners have been busy looking for replacements. Bryce Harper owners are doing their best Bryce Harper impression by being overly confident in their abilities right now. No matter how you slice it, the highs and lows of baseball are undeniably back and we should all rejoice.

While it should be noted that we're dealing with very small sample sizes, you should start checking out your waiver wire anyway. Sometimes these hot starts turn into breakout seasons and it's time to roll the dice and find out (disclaimer: don't drop anybody of value yet; patience is a virtue). Let's check out some of the hottest pickups and see if they are worth a damn:

Hot Bats

Gerardo Parra - Oh my word. He's leading off now and batting .500 after three games with a homer and stolen base. Of course, that means he's a hot pickup. He's filling in for Adam Eaton and is the type of player who could flirt with 10 HR and 20 SB with a decent AVG in a full season of plate appearances. He likely won't be a full-time player all season long but he's an attractive option for the time being.

Collin Cowgill - He homered on Opening Day! He's in New York! This got attention and made him worthy of punny headlines like "Need More Cowgill" and "Where There's A Cowgill There's a Way" and such. Oh, but aside from the homer, he's only had one hit. That being said, Cowgill did have two minor league seasons with about 15 HR and 30 SB so he's got roto appeal. In deep leagues, he's worth a look. <insert some sort of clever cow joke>

Tyler Flowers - If this guy was a flower then he would be some sort of beautiful but poisonous flower. This beautiful flower can smack homeruns like it ain't no thang and could probably flirt with 25 HR's in a full season of AB's. But, right, it's poisonous and will absolutely kill you in batting average and not contribute any stolen bases. No thanks, silly flower.

Evan Gattis - The story of Gattis' fall from grace, infatuation with marijuana then return to baseball is an interesting one. The story of him on your fantasy team likely wouldn't be as interesting. He's got power, yes, but he doesn't really have a full-time job. The Braves will have Brian McCann back eventually and Gerald Laird is still their primary catcher until then. So, while we can enjoy the Gattis batflip from afar, don't rush to the waiver wire.

Justin Maxwell - Mad Max hit 18 HR with 9 SB in a half season last year yet everyone kind of ignored him in drafts because, well, his batting average sucked. The good news is that it looks like the Astros are going to play him because they're the Astros. He's got appeal with his power and speed combo but he will likely still burn you in AVG. If you can cover up that deficiency on your roto team, he's worth a look.

Lucas Duda - Duda! Sweet! Duda! Sweet! Erm, sorry about that. So, last season, I had Duda pegged as a major sleeper and thought he had 30 HR potential. In three-quarters of a season, he hit half that number. I still think he's got the potential to smack out of a ton of HR's but this will be the year where we find out for sure. In the opening series, he did manage to hit a 2-run bomb which is hopefully a sign of things to come. He's one to keep an eye on and scoop up if he continues to mash.

Smokin' Starters

Dillon Gee - I've already written about him. He started off the season well. He's still not owned everywhere. Go correct that.

Jhoulys Chacin - After letting one earned run and three hits in his opening start, Chacin suddenly became a hot pickup. He's still Jhoulys Chacin, y'all. He will get you those 6 K and 3 BB in most of his starts but he'll likely do it with a 4.00 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. Have at it, if that's your thing.

Lucas Harrell - He will likely have a monster season. I picked him up prior to Opening Day but dropped him for J.A. Happ. If past fantasy experiences have taught me anything, it's that those type of little moves mean that I've just blessed Harrell with super pitching skills in 2013. But, really, he's a decent option for a fairly low ERA that won't contribute much else in any other category. In very deep leagues, there's some value in that.

Hishashi Iwakuma - Iwakuma bounced between being a closer, middle reliever and starter last year. He was most successful as a starter though as he posted a 2.65 ERA and 1.23 WHIP with 7.4 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9 over 95 innings. There's still question marks about whether Iwakuma can do this over a full season as hitters adjust but he started off 2013 on the right foot with a 7 K, 0 BB gem. He's worth an add.

Andy Pettitte - It's funny that Pettitte gets such little love each year in fantasy drafts. It's not "funny ha-ha" but more like "funny hmm," like a Wes Anderson movie. Regardless, Pettitte is a craft old man who still shows good control and ability to outthink other teams. You don't need to rush to a nursing home to help out the elderly; just pick up Pettitte instead.

Closer Carousel

Detroit Closers - Oh goodness. I don't even know. Your guess is as good as mine. Three possible closers and the Tigers even signed Jose Valverde to a minor league contract now. Until something clears up here, I'm not going to try to guess every game about who is closing.

Jim Henderson - I still like John Axford but he's standing on shaky ground right now after letting up 3 HR's in the first series of the season. If these struggles continue then Henderson is next in line. Henderson is worth a speculative add to see what happens here but I wouldn't drop Axford until something definitive happens here.

Kyuji Fujikawa - Meanwhile, a closer who is on even shakier ground is Carlos Marmol. He's still walking guys at an incredible rate and striking them out an incredible rate too. He's still giving Cubs fans heart attacks. I don't see how much longer this can go on. The Cubs have a nice option in Fujikawa waiting in the wings now too. Fujikawa has looked nice in his MLB debut thus far and I think he's got to take the job at some point soon. He's worth adding now though.

Potential Waiver Wire Gems To Keep An Eye On

2013-03-29T12:09:00.001-04:00

As I look out the window today, I see snow on the ground but I know baseball season is just days away anyway. Most of your fantasy drafts are either finished or about to be finished. What do you do in between Draft Day and Opening Day (two of the greatest days in fantasy baseball)? Well, you probably look at the waiver wire a lot. I wouldn't recommend making moves at this point. You drafted your team for a reason after all. I recall too many knee-jerk early season moves that I later regretted (dropped Joey Votto after drafting him late in 2008... oy vey). But, that doesn't mean you can't start to figure out who you want to scout out in the first few weeks.

So here are some names of guys that are on waiver wires but I'll be keeping a close eye on. If I start to see any signs of success from them, I'll likely be pouncing on them and hopefully reaping the benefits.

Andy Dirks (Available in 83% of CBS leagues) - I already profiled what Dirks brings to the table. He was aided by luck last year but still has the potential to hit close to .300 with 15 HR and 15 SB's.

Tyler Moore (Available in 98%) - The Nats traded away Mike Morse because they felt Moore gave them the same sort of production. Moore will be coming off the bench to start the season but he could be a big-time fantasy contributor if injuries clear a path into the lineup for him. In a full season of AB's, he has the potential to hit 30+ HR's (as he did in his 2010 and 2011 minor league seasons). Unless he gets a shot in the starting lineup, he isn't worth owning though. Optimistic projection - .260 AVG, 25 HR, 60 R, 80 RBI in 500 PA.

Darin Mastroianni (Available in 95%) - The Twins opted to start Aaron Hicks over him in CF. If he gets a shot to crack the lineup, he has the type of speed that roto players drool over. He stole 21 bases in 181 PA's last season and literally stole hundreds of bases in a few minor league seasons. Optimistic projection - .260 AVG, 5 HR, 80 R, 40 RBI, 40 SB in 550 PA.

Ivan Nova (Available in 62%) - He had a 3.70 ERA in 2011 then a 5.02 ERA in 2012 but nearly all of his stats improved. Despite his strikeout rate improving greatly and his walk rate decreasing, he was hounded by an unlucky BABIP and HR/FB rate. With those numbers returning to normal, he should be put up nice numbers in 2013. Optimistic projection - 12 Wins, 4.00 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 155 K's in 180 IP.

J.A. Happ (Available in 90%) - For years, Happ was overrated as his ERA was far below his xFIP. Last year, he found some secret recipe for success but now is suddenly underrated. His strikeouts skyrocketed as he had 9.0 K/9 but he also was hurt by a poor BABIP rate. Now that he secured a starting spot in Toronto, expect good win totals and good numbers across the board. You may not need to rush to the waiver wire now but keep a very close eye on him. Optimistic projection - 12 Wins, 3.75 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 165 K's in 175 IP.

Jeff Karstens (Available in 98%) - He was undervalued to begin with despite posting sub-4.00 ERA's in both of the two past two years. And, now he is starting the season on the DL so his value drops lower. Once he returns, Karstens is poised to deliver low ERA and WHIP totals. The only knock against him is a poor strikeout rate. But, hey, it has worked for Doug Fister so don't hate him for it. Optimistic projection - 9 Wins, 3.50 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 95 K's in 140 IP.

Drew Smyly (Available in 78%) - Smyly came out throwing heat as a rookie last year with a 3.99 ERA and 8.5 K/9. Unfortunately, he didn't crack the rotation out of spring and will be in the bullpen to start the year. It might take an injury for him to force his way into their rotation but let's hope he does. In the minors, his ERA was sub-3.00 with a high strikeout rate. He could have a big impact on your rotation if he gets a shot. Optimistic projection - 7 Wins, 3.50 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 120 K's in 125 IP.

Carlos Villanueva (Available in 92%) - Villanueva pitched decently in the AL over the past two years but a move to the NL should help boost his numbers a bit. He has a good strikeout and walk rate with his major weakness being that he's susceptible to the HR ball. If he maintains his strikeout rate from last year, he's suddenly pretty valuable. He is worth keeping an eye on. Optimistic projection - 10 Wins, 3.75 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 170 K's in 175 IP.

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Final Version

2013-03-27T09:49:00.001-04:00

As Boyz II Men once said so eloquently, we have come to the end of the road. Opening Day is nearly upon us and this is the final release of the 2013 cheatsheets. If you have a draft coming up this weekend, you get the honor of having the hottest and freshest version of these Excel masterpieces. This latest version doesn't add any new features but gets all of the data up-to-date. All of the ADP and auction values are as fresh as they can be and all of the projections are from the current datasets. In addition, I've finally added in the Marcel projections (disclaimer: Tom Tango owns the Marcel projections and opted not to run them this year so this is a third-party version of the usual Marcel projections). Also, this version contains my custom projections which weight the projections individually for each stat based on my previous research.

So, if you love your cheatsheets and you want them to have the most current data around for your upcoming draft then you got it in this latest update.

As for the usual words of warning:

For those completely new to these fantasy baseball cheatsheets, I encourage you to read the opening post for more information on them.

Before downloading the cheatsheets below, please be forewarned that these cheatsheets are designed to work in Excel 2007-2010 and were designed in Windows. The Mac version of Excel (and older versions of Excel) has been known to have problems when trying to operate these cheatsheets. Also, Microsoft has a few security features which makes opening these spreadsheets more annoying than it should be. If you have the default security settings, you'll be asked if you want to enable macros when opening this spreadsheet and you must enable macros in order for this cheatsheet to work! In addition, Microsoft may point out that the file originated from an internet location so you will have to click the button that says Enable Editing. You can always change your settings in Excel so you don't get asked that again but those are two hiccups you might encounter before you get to play around in the sandbox here. Now that you've been prepped, go ahead and download your cheatsheet of choice:

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

After opening the cheatsheet, you'll be presented with a form to enter some of your league specifications such as number of teams, team names, number of starters at each position, your roto categories and so on. You'll also choose what sources you want to display information from. Keep in mind that you can always change this info later if you just want to close that and peek around for now.

The Draft Central tab is your home base for these sheets and it is where you'll see a summary of information for each player throughout the draft and this is where you'll enter what team drafts each player. Changes on this sheet update the Live Standings and Team Summary tabs. The Live Standings tab will calculate each team's projected starters and base the current standings throughout the draft on that info. The Team Summary tab shows who is on each team and who is projected to be their starters. The Player Profiles tab allows you to compare players and look at all of the projection and expert data for them. For roto leagues, you'll also see a calculation of how many points in the standings you may gain (or lose) by drafting that player.

Data included for this v1.5 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Steamer (with Fan playing time) projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
Oliver projections
ZiPS projections
MORPS projections
Clay Davenport projections
Custom combined projection option
"Marcel" projections
Mr. Cheatsheet's special combined blend projections
MockDraftCentral ADP data
CBS ADP data
Yahoo ADP data
ESPN ADP data
Fantasy Gameday ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
Yahoo dollar values
ESPN dollar values
Fantasy Gameday average auction values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
David Gonos rankings
Mr. Cheatsheet rankings
FantasyPros expert consensus rankings

It's been another great year of fantasy baseball draft preparation and I hope you enjoyed these cheatsheets that I put out to the public. I put in a ton of hours into them and I'm very happy that I can put them out to the public for free this year and I hope I can continue to do that. However, if you'd like to give me a pat on the back or figuratively buy me a beer then feel free to punch that donate button below. Happy drafting, y'all!

Hidden Value in Point-Based Leagues | Key Players for 2013

2013-03-20T12:16:00.003-04:00

The industry standard for fantasy baseball leagues is still the traditional rotisserie league but point-based leagues have quite a market as well. These leagues make for an easy transition for those who started in the fantasy football world as they are set up in a similar weekly head-to-head fashion that relies on points for various player outcomes.

Some may scoff at the concept but these leagues are quite popular as evidence by the fact that, in the time that I've been tracking it, roughly one-third of my cheatsheet downloads have been for players in points leagues. In fact, most of my fantasy baseball years have personally been spent in the point league universe. However, most rankings and articles out on the web are targeted towards roto players and this can be confusing for an owner in a points league. Those owners aren't interested in balancing out SB's with HR's or any of that business; they just wants points no matter how they can get them. So, how does that change the rankings?

Well, first and foremost, nearly all point-based leagues are different because the scoring systems are completely customizable. Check your scoring system. Learn your scoring system. Exploit your scoring system. Find what is odd about it and attack that weakness. In this analysis, this is the standard scoring system that I used:

Hitters: 1B (1 pt), 2B (2 pt), 3B (3 pt), HR (4 pt), RBI (1 pt), Run (1 pt), SB (1 pt), CS (-1 pt), KO (-1 pt), BB (1 pt)
Pitchers: Win (4 pt), Loss (-2 pt), IP (1 pt), HA (-1 pt), BB (-1 pt), KO (2.5 pt), ER (-1 pt), Sv (10 pt), CG (5 pt), SO (5 pt)

It's a very basic scoring system but the concept should align with most formats. For hitters, extra-base hits get rewarded and strikeouts hurt you. For pitchers, strikeouts are generally very valuable. You may already see how this would change rankings over a roto league. Roto players don't worry about doubles or triples or whether their hitter will strike out a lot and that is going to change things. Roto players worry about a balanced team and point league owners couldn't care less about that.

I wanted to analyze players who should be valued differently if you're playing in a points league. In order to do so, I took the same projection system and ran it through the cheatsheets here to see the rankings for a roto league and then ran the rankings again for a points leagues. Looking at those who have big fluctuations, we can start to see some trends. Let's first look at the players who took a big dip in value in points leagues:

Josh Hamilton - #55 in Roto, #92 in Points - More than anything, this has to do with projected plate appearances. Not a single projection has Hamilton at or above 600 PA's. For point-based leagues, every plate appearance is a chance for points so missing time hurts his projected output.
Doug Fister - #147 in Roto, #258 in Points - A guy who doesn't have a high strikeout rate is less valuable in point leagues. Fister is projected to have a K/9 that is below league average. His WHIP and ERA rates are still very nice in roto leagues but don't play as big of a role in points leagues.
Jay Bruce - #31 in Roto, #57 in Points - Strikeouts are the main culprit here. He has a very high K% and that brings down his value in points leagues by a bit.
Adam Jones - #26 in Roto, #51 in Points - While Jones is still valuable in points leagues, his value is hurt by the fact that he doesn't walk much. In 5x5 roto, that's not an issue. In addition, his SB's which make him more valuable in roto don't benefit him as much in this format.
Paul Goldschmidt - #50 in Roto, #99 in Points - I'm actually somewhat surprised to see him dip lower in points leagues as he has a decent walk rate and hits a lot of doubles in addition to what else he brings to the able. However, he is hurt by a somewhat high projected K%. His value in roto leagues is boosted by his SB's which don't have as big of an effect in point leagues.
Roy Halladay - #37 in Roto, #89 in Points - His ERA/WHIP projections look nice and his K/9 looks pretty good so why would he dip in value for point leagues? Well, the projections see him missing some time throughout the year which limits his overall projected point totals.
B.J. Upton - #35 in Roto, #90 in Points - His value in roto leagues is aided by his ability to contribute very good numbers in both SB's and HR's. In point leagues, the SB's aren't as valuable and his low AVG and high K% hurt him badly. Strikeouts and lack of on-base opportunities are the poison of point league owners.
Carlos Gonzalez - #9 in Roto, #27 in Points - Carlos takes a dip because of his roto value being boosted by SB's but he is still quite valuable in point leagues.
Giancarlo Stanton - #12 in Roto, #33 in Points - His decrease in value for point leagues is mainly tied to his very high K%. Those strikeouts pile up and end up cancelling out some of his positives.
Matt Kemp - #15 in Roto, #56 in Points - There are two things at play here. First, he strikes out a lot as well. Second, some projections have him missing some time. We've seen that those two things factor highly in the value of hitters in point leagues.

Of course, the next logical progression is to look at the undervalued guys for point-based leagues:

Carlos Santana - #83 in Roto, #34 in Points - One of the main reasons that Carlos gets a boost for point leagues is his high BB%. He's able to draw walks and those equate to points. In 5x5 roto, walks don't really play a direct factor on value.
Yu Darvish - #93 in Roto, #45 in Points - Lots of strikeouts mean lots of points. Even if the pitcher lets up more runs along the way, strikeout totals are important in point leagues.
Yunel Escobar - #354 in Roto, #176 in Points - Escobar doesn't move to the top of the charts in point leagues but his value is boosted by his ability to avoid strikeouts, which means more total points for him.
Denard Span - #299 in Roto, #152 in Points - In addition to avoiding strikeouts, Span provides a bonus in point leagues because he projects to hit for a lot of doubles and triples. Those type of extra base hits don't do anything to his roto value but are important to point league owners.
Martin Prado - #84 in Roto, #43 in Points - We're starting to see a trend here. Here's another low strikeout guy. He moves up way higher because he hits a ton of extra base hits too. He's much like Span above but to an even greater extent.
Nick Markakis - #146 in Roto, #75 in Points - Copy paste. Low strikeout rate. Lots of extra-base hits, especially doubles. Point leaguers love it. Roto leaguers ignore it.
Jeff Samardzija - #202 in Roto, #106 in Points - See Yu Darvish.
Jeff Keppinger - #374 in Roto, #197 in Points - Insanely low strikeout rate here which means extra points as a result.
Yovani Gallardo - #64 in Roto, #35 in Points - Once again, a high-strikeout pitcher gets a bonus. His slightly lower-than-elite WHIP gets cancelled out a bit more in point leagues by his strikeout ability.
Marco Scutaro - #261 in Roto, #142 in Points - You can probably guess what I'm going to say at this point. Low strikeout rate with lots o' extra-base hits. Rinse, repeat.

There you have a small listing of some guys to target or avoid in point leagues. As I alluded to, there's some obvious trends as we go through the list. Those trends leave us with a few things to keep in mind:

Health plays an important role in point leagues. If you have a great player, you need him to play in order to accrue points. Rate-based stats like ERA/WHIP/AVG don't mean as much as net production.
Strikeouts are important in two ways. You want to be cautious of hitters with high strikeout rates while you give bonus points to hitters who can avoid strikeouts. In addition, you want to target pitchers who can accumulate strikeouts even if their ERA/WHIP may be a bit higher.
Extra-base hits are much more important for point leagues. Hitters who can hit doubles and triples provide great value that moves them up in the point rankings.
Hitters who draw a lot of walks also have more value so look towards OBP rates more than AVG when comparing players.

Which Stats Are Most Scarce In 5x5 Roto? | Part 1: Hitters

2013-03-19T10:07:00.002-04:00

You probably remember learning about supply and demand at some point in your academic life. The idea is that the quantity of a product that's on the market and the demand for that product have an effect on the price of it. You need not know everything about economics but this little concept is helpful to keep in mind for fantasy baseball owners in rotisserie leagues.

This concept comes to life when fantasy baseball owners talk about position scarcity in drafts. Though the top catcher may have less production than a mid-range outfielder, his price tag is fairly high because the market for the catchers is very thin and the demand is there because every team needs to own at least one catcher. Balancing production versus position scarcity is one of the major decisions fantasy owners have to make at their drafts. Despite position scarcity being a fairly known concept in fantasy circles, we don't talk as much about scarcity of the 5x5 roto stats.

In Round 1, you have the entire draft pool at your disposal and can draft for any stat that you want. You want a guy who can grab 40 SB? Sure! How about a 40 HR guy instead? Yup, there's one on that shelf right there! It's great. Everything is in stock and you are free to do as you please.

By Round 2, we already start to see some stats become more scarce. You want a 40 HR guy now? Well, you should have looked for that in Round 1 because there's only 30 HR guys left. But, hey, there's still lots of stolen bases on the shelves!

All of the draft choices in each round end up limiting the amount of production available for each roto stat from that point forward. If you went heavy on stolen bases early, you may find yourself scrambling around to find home runs later. Because, just like with position scarcity, the demand for each of the stats is there as you want to compete in all of the stat categories if you can. But as you go through the draft and players fly off the board, which stats are still available? And what stats are primarily available in the early rounds? Let's see:

The trend in projected value for each stat of players drafted from Rounds 1-25 (of a 12-team league)

What you see above is a lot of colorful squiggly lines which represent the value available for each stat throughout the draft. The first thing to notice is the purple line for SB's. It stays fairly flat throughout the entire draft while the other stats start out very high then dip down and drop out. With SB's, you can find nearly as much value in Round 21 as you can find at the start of the draft. This is significant because it means you shouldn't worry at all about finding stolen bases early on. If you had the choice between Giancarlo Stanton with a .280 AVG, 40 HR and 5 SB versus Justin Upton with a .280 AVG, 25 HR and 20 SB then you shouldn't really put much extra value on those SB's at that point and draft Stanton there. It's a lot easier to make up that 15 SB difference than the 15 HR difference as you go through the draft. Basically, don't worry about getting guys who can contribute in all five categories in the first few rounds. Draft four-category guys then worry about stolen bases later. They'll still be there but the homers and batting average may not be.

The other thing to notice here is that Runs and RBI's start out the highest but end up being nearly impossible to find at the end of the draft as they dip way below the other stats. As a caveat to this fact, I'll note that is is very hard to specifically draft for RBI's and Runs. Those two stats are the result of opportunity. A batter has more direct control over HR, AVG and SB. A player who gets on base more will hopefully score more Runs and a player who hits more HR's will hopefully get more RBI's. To specifically target RBI's or Runs is a fool's errand that will burn you.

That being said, the thing to notice about the HR and AVG line is that they have absolute peaks in value at the beginning of drafts, as expected. That's where you'll find the .300 hitters or 30+ HR guys (or, ideally, ones who can do both). You need to spend your first few rounds focusing on these two categories because it becomes much harder to find positive value in both of them as the draft goes on. By Round 6, the value for both stats dips to lower levels and then evens out for a long stretch. This may be the time to turn your attention to pitching as the hitting stats remain stable from here for quite a while.

In looking at the projected value across the roto stat categories for hitters, here are my main takeaways:

Don't reward guys who can contribute in SB's at the expense of HR's and AVG in the early rounds
In the first five rounds (of a 12-team league) at least, focus totally on getting high HR and high AVG players
Turn your attention towards pitching at some point around the sixth round (paying attention to what value is still around, of course, because if HR/AVG value is still there then grab it now)
As the draft goes on, start looking at guys who will help you in SB's. You may not win this category outright but you want to compete while you hopefully dominate the other four categories
Don't focus specifically on RBI's and Runs. If you draft for HR/AVG then these will be byproducts of those categories

Felix Doubront | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-03-17T15:44:00.000-04:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. When I look for undervalued pitchers, there are a few statistical benchmarks that I identified as being good ways to identify the pitchers who should be among the best in a luck-neutral world. While we know that pitchers like Justin Verlander should be in there, these benchmarks also identify some unheralded pitchers each year which can be found at a much cheaper price tag in your drafts. Based on past years, those unheralded pitchers often stand a good chance of being breakout players. Today, we'll look at one of the players that is on the list for 2013 and we'll see if Felix Doubront (SP, BOS) has what it takes to be a real sleeper.

Why He's Here

Way back in 2005, Doubront joined the Red Sox organization at the ripe age of 17 and started mowing through their rookie leagues almost immediately. Despite having evidence of success at a young age, Doubront was never considered a major prospect for the Sox. He occasionally appeared on organization prospect lists but mainly stayed under the radar.

His minor league career hit a bump when he had a horrible season in 2007 (7.45 ERA, 1.71 WHIP) but he started to turn a corner in 2008 when he ramped up his strikeout rate in Single-A ball. His K/9 went from 5.5 to 9.6 that year and his ERA dropped to 3.69 as a result. From that point on, he rose up the ranks in the minors and maintained a 3.36 ERA as he went through Double-A and Triple-A over the next three years.

He got his first cup of coffee in the big leagues in 2010 and another taste in 2011 but only accumulated 35.1 IP over that span. In 2012, he broke camp with the team and was a starter throughout the season for them. The results of that season look discouraging if you look at the base stats of a 4.86 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP. However, if you dig deeper, you can see signs that he was fairly unlucky as evidenced by a high BABIP and by his 3.84 SIERA and 3.81 xFIP rates. In addition, he was striking out more than a batter per inning on average. The general public is looking at the high ERA and WHIP and choosing to pass on him. This is why he is going undrafted in a majority of leagues and why he is a possible sleeper for 2013.

Why He Might Fail

First off, the amount of walks that he allows is somewhat concerning and that's not going away anytime soon. His 3.97 BB/9 last season is slightly higher than he was posting in the minors previously but not by much (3.59 BB/9 from 2009-11). So, expect him to allow a few free baserunners throughout the season in addition to giving up a fair share of hits. His BABIP was higher than league average last season which is usually a sign that the pitcher should regress back to the mean and allow less hits next year. In Doubront's case, he has shown a history of having a higher BABIP than average throughout his entire career so this seems to be the norm for him and I wouldn't expect a regression. Even if he dips down a bit, he seems destined to post a mark similar to his 1.45 WHIP from last season.

The other concern with Doubront is the fact that he is clearly not a groundball pitcher so is susceptible to the homerun ball. With his below-average WHIP and this possibility of letting up homers, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to expect his ERA to drop next season.

Why He Might Come Through

Here's an old fantasy blogger trick. I'm going to post you two stat lines without telling you who they are for then you'll be amazed when I reveal who the two pitchers are.

Pitcher A: 78.4 Contact%, 9.5% SwStr%, 1.68 Strikes/Balls, 10.0 BB%, 23.6 K%, 3.81 xFIP
Pitcher B: 76.9 Contact%, 9.5% SwStr%, 1.49 Strikes/Balls, 10.5 BB%, 22.8 K%, 3.73 xFIP

My goodness, those are fairly similar numbers! They must have had fairly similar results, right? Okay, time to get your jaw ready to drop to the floor. Pitcher A is Mr. Doubront in 2012. Pitcher B is Gio Gonzalez in 2011 (while still in the American League). Of course, you would rather own Gio in your fantasy leagues but it shows that someone with Doubront's pedigree can produce MLB success.

The difference between Gio and Felix is largely in their WHIP and HR's allowed. Last season, Gio had a HR/FB rate of 5.8% and Felix had one that was 15.9%. Both of these rates are likely unsustainable as they are on either side of the extreme spectrum. HR/FB rates have been found to vary greatly from year-to-year and Doubront should likely see a dip here closer to the league average of 9.5%. Last year, he let up 24 HR's but would have only let up 14 with a league average HR/FB rate (for a rate of 0.87 HR/9 which is much closer to his minor league numbers of 0.67 HR/9). Letting up a much fewer amount of HR's will definitely allow for a decrease in ERA that should point him in a direction closer to his SIERA and xFIP numbers.

There is no doubt that his strikeouts will stay as he has shown a long history for being able to do this for years in the minors and majors. While his WHIP likely won't drop too far, his ERA should dip down a bit with the HR's taking a slide. For fantasy purposes, he has the ability to give you above average performance in the major stat categories aside from WHIP where he will likely hurt you a bit.

Conclusion

In shallow drafts, Felix won't even be a consideration and will likely go undrafted. In those cases, he's just a guy to keep a close eye on to see if he starts out hot. For deeper leagues or AL-Only leagues, Doubront has some potential. He profiles as a pitcher who generate a large amount of strikeouts with a decent ERA and Win totals in Boston. The biggest concern for fantasy owners is his WHIP, which should be fairly high. Other pitchers have found a way to be successful with a fairly high WHIP like Yovani Gallardo or Anibal Sanchez. Due to his strikeout ability and control of the strikezone, I see him as being worth a flier for deep leagues. In other leagues, go ahead and just keep him on your radar as a waiver wire add.

Analyzing the Accuracy of the 2012 Projections | Part 3: Weighting Projections

2013-03-16T13:54:00.000-04:00

Throughout the first two parts of this series, we've gone on a statistical journey to see which of the many baseball projection systems are the best predictors for fantasy baseball purposes. While we saw that Steamer's projections generally perform much better than others, we also saw that averaging multiple projections into a combined projection works quite well too. But, perhaps there could be an even more accurate method of combining projections.

It was unspoken but understood that just averaging a few projections into one is a fairly simplistic method and that there likely could be even better projections created by providing certain weights to each projection system. Giving Steamer equal weight to the Marcel projections is likely not the best idea for hitter projections due to the evidence showing Steamer to be much more accurate. Last week, keeping that sort of logic in mind, I added the ability to brew up custom projections in the cheatsheets by putting different weights on the projections of your choice. At that time, I didn't address the obvious question of what would be the best weights to use for a customized projection.

In order to answer that question, I did linear regression analysis to determine the relationship between the actual production from 2012 and 2011 and the available projection systems from those years. Using the results from this analysis, I was able to determine some weights that would have worked well over that time. Though the weights worked well in these two years, we can't be certain that they'll also be the best for this year but they represent an improvement over the simple combined projection system regardless.

I ran the analysis to determine the approximate weights that would be applied for best accuracy in each of the ten stats associated with 5x5 roto leagues (in addition to my home-brewed WERTH roto values). First, I ran analysis only for the 2012 projections/statistics as the MORPS projections weren't around in 2011 and I wanted to include their work in this research. After looking at 2012 only, I ran the analysis with the 2011-12 years combined for a larger sample size (though Saves were missing for some projections I had so I excluded that stat).

As expected, some projection systems are better than others at specific stats so the weighting would be slightly different when trying to predict Stolen Bases versus RBI's. You can see all of the weights that resulted from my analysis in this sheet here if you're curious. This left us with the question of how to apply one overall weighting using all of those separate weights. Previously, I had done research here on which stats were most important to target for 5x5 roto owners and AVG and HR came out as the most significant ones as they had a direct effect on the other stats. For pitchers, WHIP and Strikeouts were the most important. With that in mind, I looked at the weighting in regards to those stats and tried to find a good balance.

For hitters, I found that using 45% Steamer, 25% ZiPS, 20% Fans and 10% CAIRO works quite well. This is interesting because you see four entirely different methodologies come together here in a way that accentuates the strengths of each. Looking at the 2012 results in particular, that type of weighting would have improved greatly upon the previous method of averaging four projections in a Combined projection. As shown in the previous research, the Combined projections had an average z-score rank of 1.3 for correlation and RMSE in my previous analysis. This new custom-brewed projection would increase it to 1.5 (and lower Steamer to 1.1, creating a bigger gap between first and second). So, yes, this would be a system that would theoretically perform significantly better than Steamer alone.

On the pitching side of things, the weights are a bit different. I found that a mix of 66% Steamer, 22% Marcel and 12% Fans created a strong system. Once again, these are three different approaches to projections. Marcel shows good results with the rate-based stats of ERA and WHIP while struggling with the counting stats and Steamer shows strengths in all areas while the Fans seem to do best with the counting based stats. Put them all together and you have a nice home-brewed system. In the analysis that included simple Combined projections, we saw that the Combined projection struggled to keep up with Steamer. This custom projection increases the average z-score rank from 0.76 to 1.11 (lowering Steamer from 1.30 to 1.17) when all players were included. When only including the Top 200 ADP or Top 300, the system surpasses Steamer.

However, this begs the question of whether doing a projection system that individually weights each stat differently would perform the absolute best. The short answer is "yeah, pretty much." There was a small gain with the hitter projections in their overall accuracy when doing different weights for each stat. It wasn't a huge jump but it was an improvement regardless. The bigger gain was for the pitcher projections though. With there being so many different types of predictions (counting stats like Strikeouts, rate stats like ERA and an opportunity-based stat Saves), I'm not surprised that a completely customized projection would be best.

For a comparison between the custom projections versus Steamer, check out the graphs below showcasing the various Root Mean Square Errors associated with each versus actual production.

For pitcher projections, the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for each stat after they are standardized. Comparison between Steamer projections, a projection system weighting all stats or one weighting each stat separately

Same comparison as above but for hitters

The takeaway from all of this is that providing specific weights to the projections allows for increased accuracy over just averaging out a bunch of projections (which is still surprisingly effective). If you want a standard weight to use across the board, these are my recommendations:

Hitters

Steamer: 45%

ZiPS: 25%

Fans: 20%

CAIRO: 10%

Pitchers

Steamer: 66%

Marcel: 22%

Fans: 12%

I am also now going to include the completely-customized projection as an option to select in the cheatsheets (I'll announce that update on Twitter when available) for those who are interested in having different weights for each stat as we can see how effective this might be as well.

Part 1: Analyzing Hitter Projections

Part 2: Analyzing Pitcher Projections

2013 Printable Cheatsheet | Tiered Rankings by ADP

2013-03-15T11:11:00.000-04:00

Fantasy baseball drafts are about more than just player value as the value relative to their position plays an important role too. If you know that there's a significant dropoff in value at 1B after Anthony Rizzo goes off the board then you might make more of an effort to draft him if you're still in need of a 1B instead of drafting a pitcher at that point. To help identify those tiers and where there is a drop-off in value, I provide this printable cheatsheet that breaks down the players at each position by Average Draft Position (ADP) but breaking those groups of players into tiers based on where there is a projected drop in value.

To determine where those tiers begin and end, I calculate the WERTH roto values for each player based on projections for them. I take those values and determine the average value available for each position in the various rounds of a draft. By doing so, we start to see noticeable drops in value at various points. In the chart below, you can see the average values at each position in the various draft rounds (of a 12 team draft). This is what I used as a guideline for basing my tiers off of.

At some positions, the drop in production is more harsh than others. I tried to make this apparent by putting each tier in a color corresponding with the projected value of that tier. With all of that in mind, I present to you the 2013 version of the positional tiers cheatsheet:

2013 ADP Positional Tiers

Each tier has the players sorted by their projected ADP and their projected roto value in parentheses next to their name. It should be noted that just because Ian Desmond has an ADP that puts him in one tier does not necessarily mean that he is more valuable than Josh Rutledge in another tier. So, I recommend using this sheet as a guide for how to attack your draft but still do your research on who you would want to target within each of these tiers.

Hit me up in the comments if you have thoughts or suggestions for this printable sheet.

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Version 1.4

2013-03-12T07:30:00.000-04:00

Last week, I mentioned that there are often great ideas for new features to add to the fantasy cheatsheets that are suggested by readers here. I was very excited about introducing the Custom Projections feature last week and there will be more written about that soon. But, this week, I took on the task of tackling the feature that has been asked for the most year after year. Yes, the spreadsheets will now be able to handle NL-Only and AL-Only leagues! Not only that, if you're in a league that allows for certain teams from both leagues but not all teams, you can do that too. For certain folks, this will be a huge addition as you'll finally be able to use these sheets for your specific league type. I encourage you to check out the update and play around with it prior to draft day.

In this latest and greatest update, I also did a bunch of other tweaks for point-based leagues (including adding a Points Per Plate Appearance and Points Per Innings Pitched stat). In addition, all of the projections are up-to-date as well as the average draft position and average auction value data.

With the features that were added last week and the addition of ADP from Fantasy Gameday, I feel that the cheatsheets are way better than they've ever been. But, definitely toy with them and let me know if you find any bugs or oddities.

Now for the standard disclaimers that accompany each release...

For those completely new to these fantasy baseball cheatsheets, I encourage you to read the opening post for more information on them.

Before downloading the cheatsheets below, please be forewarned that these cheatsheets are designed to work in Excel 2007-2010 and were designed in Windows. The Mac version of Excel (and older versions of Excel) has been known to have problems when trying to operate these cheatsheets. Also, Microsoft has a few security features which makes opening these spreadsheets more annoying than it should be. If you have the default security settings, you'll be asked if you want to enable macros when opening this spreadsheet and you must enable macros in order for this cheatsheet to work! In addition, Microsoft may point out that the file originated from an internet location so you will have to click the button that says Enable Editing. You can always change your settings in Excel so you don't get asked that again but those are two hiccups you might encounter before you get to play around in the sandbox here. Now that you've been prepped, go ahead and download your cheatsheet of choice:

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

Data included for this v1.4 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Steamer (with Fan playing time) projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
Oliver projections
ZiPS projections
MORPS projections
Clay Davenport projections
Custom combined projection option
MockDraftCentral ADP data
CBS ADP data
Yahoo ADP data
ESPN ADP data
Fantasy Gameday ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
Yahoo dollar values
ESPN dollar values
Fantasy Gameday average auction values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
David Gonos rankings
Mr. Cheatsheet rankings
FantasyPros expert consensus rankings

I put a lot of work into these obviously and I'm very happy to put these out for free to the public. However, if you're a nice fellow and would like to send a dollar or two my way to fund my coffee addiction, hit the donate button below.

Andy Dirks | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-03-07T10:35:00.002-05:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. As I laid out in the research behind this, my method here has been successful in finding breakout players as 64% of the sleeper candidates identified over the past five years returned value much greater than expected from their draft slots. In 2013, there are four players who meet the criteria. Today, we'll look at one of those four as we try to determine if Andy Dirks (OF, DET) could be one of the 64%.

Why He's Here

Dirks was drafted in the eighth round of the 2008 draft by the Tigers after a successful college career. In 2009 (his first full minor league season), he showed some initial promise of good defense, speed and contact ability. The power wasn't there initially but started to manifest in 2010. In that year, he posted a .296 AVG with 15 HR and 22 SB over 476 AB which earned him the Detroit minor league player of the year award. He continued that domination early in the winter leagues and at the start of the 2011 season where he earned Detroit's minor league player of the month in April. The Tigers had seen what they needed to see by that point so they called Dirks up to the big leagues in May.

Despite his call to the majors, he was limited in his role and was mainly a part-time player. He started off quite well during that stretch but his numbers dipped a bit as the season went on. In 2012, he started the season with the big league team and was expected to serve in a platoon role. By May, he was playing in nearly all of the games and hit .343 with 3 HR's over the course of that month. However, the injury bug bit after that and he was shelved for the next couple of months. He returned in August and picked up right where he left off as he hit .317 over the final 51 games with another 4 HR's as well.

It seems that he is poised to be a regular player for the Tigers in 2013. He remains under the fantasy radar because of the fact that he was never a major prospect and has yet to play a full season in the majors. If he can continue to hit above .300 with his previously evidenced mix of power and speed then we might have a valuable asset on our hands for deeper fantasy leagues. This makes Mr. Dirks a potential narco candidate around these parts.

Why He Might Fail

At first blush, the good thing about Dirks is that he seems to have the ability to do a little bit of everything. At the minor league level, he stole bases at a rate that would roughly equate to 25-30 SB's in a full major league season. Meanwhile, he hit .289 in his minor league career with a home run rate that suggests a 15 HR hitter. If that translates into the majors, you'd have someone giving you plus contribution in AVG and SB's with decent HR numbers as well. Runs and RBI's are a result of opportunity so are harder to gauge but he's shown 80 R/RBI potential as well. However, there's some big reasons pointing to why it might not work out so beautifully.

The stolen bases have not followed him into the majors thus far. Over two seasons, he's had nearly 600 PA's and has only managed 6 stolen bases. For whatever reason, it seems that the Tigers don't want him running the basepaths. This was even more evident last year as he only had two stolen base attempts. It may have been due to his Achilles' injury but regardless it's not a good sign. Despite his speed shown in the minors, we cannot count on that to continue unfortunately. Couple that with the fact that Detroit has consistently had the least amount of SB attempts in the league under Jim Leyland.

The biggest asset for him last season was hitting for .322 over that half-season. That won't happen again. His BABIP was extremely high which is the first evidence that he was lucky here. And, if we crunch the numbers to come up with his xAVG, we can see that he should have hit around .285 in a luck-neutral world last season. That's not a bad AVG but it is quite a drop from what we saw. As evidenced by his minor league production, the .285 AVG seems like a much more reasonable expectation.

While his HR rate seems sustainable, Dirks is not a valuable fantasy asset in most leagues if he hits .285 with 15 HR, 0 SB and a speckling of R's and RBI's.

In addition, his full-time role is not assured. He could slip right back into a platoon if he struggles against lefties.

Why He Might Come Through

As noted above, the speed factor is the wild card here. The fact remains that Dirks stole over 80% of his bases in the minors (which is far above the MLB average of 73%). While the Tigers didn't let him run last year, he did have 7 attempts in his first stint with the team in 2011 (successful on 5 attempts) so I think his injury played a factor in their decision to hold him back last season. While they might not turn him completely loose, getting 10-15 SB's seems like a real possibility for a healthy Dirks.

While his .322 AVG seemed a bit out of place last season, Dirks did hit .326 in his Triple-A career (306 PA). A slight regression may certainly be in store but it may not be as harsh as it seems. Last season, he showed a good contact rate of 86% (league average is 81%) which is evidence that he's got the skills to be a high AVG hitter.

In 2013, he was on pace for about 15 HR's in a full season and that coincides nicely with his minor league numbers. It's a fairly safe bet to assume that he should continue at that rate.

With a return of his speed and maintaining his contact percentage, we should see Dirks as a 15/15 hitter with an AVG close to .300. There's definitely a spot for that type of production in most roto lineups.

Conclusion

I have my doubts about Dirks. He showed up on this sleeper list as a result of his high production from last season in limited time but that was heavily influenced by fluky BABIP rates. He may have some value in deeper leagues but he won't be relevant in most leagues unless he gets a little bit of luck. In addition, he's still fighting for a full-time role and could easily get stuck in a platoon position all year without getting a shot to accumulate enough plate appearances to be fantasy relevant. I think Dirks is a player worth watching but I wouldn't invest highly in him this year.

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Version 1.3

2013-03-06T12:38:00.003-05:00

I often get tons of really interesting suggestions from readers on how to improve these cheatsheets. I don't always get to implement all of them but, this week, I'm very happy to introduce a new feature that has been asked for in the past.

In this update, users of the cheatsheets can now play with their own custom combined projections. What that means is that you can select how much weight you want to put on each available projection to come up with your own combined projection. You want to put 50% weight on Steamer's hitting projections and 50% on ZiPS? Sure, you can do that. You want to put 20% weight on five different projections? Have at it.

The other fun part is that you can now apply a different projection for hitters versus pitchers. If you want to weight Marcel more highly for pitcher projections than hitter projections then you have that freedom too.

Of course, this creates questions about what the ideal weights for each projections should be. I've done my own research on that topic and I'll post on this site later but, for now, the default weights are possible ideal weights from my preliminary research on the subject. This new feature may not be for everyone but I think it's pretty awesome and has the ability to create even better projections for you to use in drafts!

And, that's not all in this latest update! Fantasy Gameday has agreed to share their work with me so now you have the option of using their ADP data and Average Auction Values. They do a great job of pulling from multiple sources, including mock drafts and various sites around the web, to get a good baseline for average draft position information. In the past, I've written about why I hate ADP data that pulls from mock draft sites. That data is highly skewed by the mock draft site's rankings so it doesn't give an accurate portrayal of public opinion (however, it is still interesting information to know because if you draft at CBS then you know that your leaguemates will also be very influenced by the default site rankings). But, the beauty of Fantasy Gameday is that they take all of that bias out to give us a good snapshot of what a player's true perceived value is to the public. In the spreadsheets at their site, they also have tons of other neat information on trends in ADP. Definitely worth a look!

In addition, I made a lot of tweaks for usability of the Auction sheet and just some other minor updates here and there. The next updates after this will focus on updating ADP, Rankings and Projection data as well as trying to finally get an NL-Only and AL-Only option out there (no promises).

For those completely new to these fantasy baseball cheatsheets, I encourage you to read the opening post for more information on them.

Before downloading the cheatsheets below, please be forewarned that these cheatsheets are designed to work in Excel 2007-2010 and were designed in Windows. The Mac version of Excel (and older versions of Excel) has been known to have problems when trying to operate these cheatsheets. Also, Microsoft has a few security features which makes opening these spreadsheets more annoying than it should be. If you have the default security settings, you'll be asked if you want to enable macros when opening this spreadsheet and you must enable macros in order for this cheatsheet to work! In addition, Microsoft may point out that the file originated from an internet location so you will have to click the button that says Enable Editing. You can always change your settings in Excel so you don't get asked that again but those are two hiccups you might encounter before you get to play around in the sandbox here. Now that you've been prepped, go ahead and download your cheatsheet of choice:

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

Data included for this v1.3 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Steamer (with Fan playing time) projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
Oliver projections
ZiPS projections
MORPS projections
Clay Davenport projections
Custom combined projection option
MockDraftCentral ADP data
CBS ADP data
Yahoo ADP data
ESPN ADP data
Fantasy Gameday ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
Yahoo dollar values
ESPN dollar values
Fantasy Gameday average auction values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
David Gonos rankings
Mr. Cheatsheet rankings
FantasyPros expert consensus rankings

Analyzing the Accuracy of the 2012 Projections | Part 2: Pitchers

2013-03-04T11:00:00.001-05:00

The cheatsheets that you see on this site aggregate a lot of available data for your fantasy baseball drafts. One of the main features within the sheets is the array of projections to look at for each player. These are fairly scientific projections that take in a lot of factors to predict player performance. If you're using these sheets within your drafts, you're putting a lot of faith that the projections are providing an accurate picture of the draft pool. That being said, there are loads of projections to choose from and the list is growing every year. From that list of oddly-named projections, what should you choose? Or, more specifically, which one is the "best" for fantasy baseball purposes?

I had posed this question last month and looked at how the projection systems predicted performance for 5x5 roto hitters in 2012. In that analysis, the Steamer projections beat out the competition. In addition, an approach of averaging four of the main free projections for a Combined projection did quite well. This was similar to the results from 2011 which shows a trend of Steamer being a strong predictor of fantasy success for hitters on a consistent basis.

Now what about the pitchers?

Glad you asked. The time has come to analyze them too. So, first, let's meet the contenders. There were nine different projection systems used in this analysis. Here is some background on each of them:

Marcel: The most basic forecasting system around. It takes three years of player data, weights the most recent years heaviest and regresses the players towards a mean (age factor included)
Steamer: Steamer also takes years of player performance but then regresses certain stats more heavily than others while using an aging factor as well. It also accounts for player role, park factors and league factors. Each component within their projections uses a different projection system. It also uses pitcher velocity as part of its system.
ZiPS: Does a little of the weighted regression like Marcel but for four years and does a bit of the comparable player regression based on aging trends
Cairo: It's like Marcel but with more bells and whistles (stat-specific regression and position-specific regression for instance)
Fangraphs Fans: These are user-entered projections for a player that are entered into the Fangraphs site. They average out all of those user-entered projections for a look at how the public views a player as opposed to a computer algorithm. A minimum of 8 "fans" must have submitted a projection for a player in order for them to be eligible.
RotoChamp: Also takes three years of player data and weights the most recent years heavier. Utilizes projected roles and uses FIP/xFIP as opposed to ERA.
MORPS: I can't find a full explanation of his system but he seems to utilize some of the simplicity of Marcel and complexity of ZiPS while adding a human element of accounting for role changes from one year to the next.
PECOTA: A bit more complicated in that it finds comparable players to each projected player and bases the projections on the history of those comparable players.
Combined (MSZC): Averaging the four main free projections (Marcel, Steamer, ZiPS and CAIRO) for a player into one projection.

Now that you know the players, let's dive into the game of analyzing the projections. First off, I needed to make sure I was only analyzing players that were shared in all nine projections so I weeded out any were not projected by one of the systems. The next step was to make sure I was only looking at players that were relevant for fantasy baseball drafts last season so I looked at 2012 preseason ADP and weeded out any players that were not being drafted in fantasy drafts last year. After all of this weeding, I washed my hands and saw that I was left with 155 pitchers to analyze. These were all players that were relevant on draft day last year.

At this point, I started to compare actual results to projected results for the traditional rotisserie pitching categories. I calculated the correlation of projections to actual results for each system as well as the root mean square error (RMSE). The correlation coefficient helps to show us how well the projections ranked the players for each stat in comparison to the actual rankings. On the other hand, the RMSE value analyzes the misses and the extent to which the projections varied from the actual results. Good RMSE results indicate a better agreement between the projected and actual results.

In this analysis, I standardized all of the stats within their own universe because we're comparing players within their own projection systems on draft day and if the system projects Justin Verlander to be 3 standard deviations above the mean in total strikeouts then it doesn't matter if the mean is 120 strikeouts or 150 strikeouts in that projection universe. This concept is how the WERTH values work on this site to show you projected roto value in each category.

Using that concept, I ran the analysis and came up with correlation coefficients and RMSE values for each projection system in each roto stat. While displaying the rankings at this point would be a nice snapshot of winners and losers, that wouldn't account for the times when 1st, 2nd and 3rd place were a virtual tie or when last place was far, far behind the others. To account for that, I converted the rankings to standardized z-scores to show how far above or below average each projection was in each of the roto stats.

You know the players and you know the game now so let's see the results. In addition to the five roto categories, I also did the same analysis for the projected total WERTH value too (adds up standardized scores in all five other categories for their total roto value). Finally, I averaged those six z-scores for the final tally of winners and losers.

The first analysis looked at all 155 pitchers.

*Correlation rankings (results converted to z-scores)*
	W	K	S	ERA	WHIP	WER	Av
Steamer	1.1	1.3	0.7	1.3	1.7	1.6	1.3
Comb.	0.3	0.7	0.7	1.2	1.0	0.7	0.8
PECOTA	0.8	0.8	0.4	-0.2	0.0	0.2	0.3
Fans	0.9	0.5	-0.1	-0.3	0.4	0.6	0.3
RC	-0.4	-0.7	0.5	1.1	-0.7	0.3	0.0
ZiPS	-0.8	-0.1	-0.1	0.1	0.4	0.1	-0.1
MORPS	0.6	0.4	0.6	-1.2	-1.6	-1.6	-0.5
CAIRO	-1.8	-1.3	-0.2	-1.0	-0.6	-0.7	-0.9
Marcel	-0.7	-1.6	-2.5	-0.9	-0.6	-1.2	-1.3

*RMSE rankings (results converted to z-scores)*
	W	K	S	ERA	WHIP	WER	Av
Steamer	1.2	1.4	0.7	1.3	1.7	1.7	1.3
Comb.	0.3	0.7	0.8	1.2	0.9	0.7	0.8
Fans	0.9	0.5	-0.1	-0.3	0.4	0.6	0.3
PECOTA	0.8	0.8	0.4	-0.3	-0.1	0.2	0.3
RC	-0.5	-0.7	0.5	1.1	-0.7	0.3	0.0
ZiPS	-0.8	-0.1	-0.1	0.1	0.4	0.1	-0.1
MORPS	0.6	0.3	0.6	-1.2	-1.6	-1.6	-0.5
CAIRO	-1.8	-1.3	-0.2	-1.0	-0.6	-0.7	-0.9
Marcel	-0.7	-1.5	-2.5	-0.9	-0.7	-1.2	-1.3

The results actually look quite similar to what we saw when I analyzed the hitters. Steamer is top by a wide margin and the Combined projections are sitting up there as well. For the hitters, the bottom two of CAIRO and Marcel were also far below the rest. I expected to see the rankings look slightly different since the methodology of projecting pitchers is different than hitters but it seems that the takeaway is that a good system is good in any format. With that being said, Steamer continues to wipe the field.

I should note that projecting Saves is likely the hardest thing to do as it is mostly based off of opportunity and it's hard to project opportunity for a player since that is controlled by a manager's whimsy. If you strike Saves from the record, you can see that Steamer's average z-score would go up even more (despite finishing well in Saves). I ran this analysis separately by taking out relievers and the results were similar with Steamer beating the field.

Looking at all 155 pitchers only tells us one story though. On draft day, you may not be too concerned with who had the best projection for Jeremy Affeldt and Antonio Bastardo. Most likely, you're thinking more about the pitchers who might actually be starters on your fantasy team. So, I ran the test again and only included those with an ADP within the top 225 last year. This left me with 76 pitchers to analyze. In a 12-team league, that's close to the number of pitchers that teams would have in their starting lineup.

*Correlation*
	W	K	S	ERA	WHIP	WER	Av
Steamer	0.8	0.7	0.3	0.9	1.3	1.5	0.9
Comb.	0.5	0.9	0.4	0.9	1.1	0.6	0.7
Fans	1.5	0.9	0.4	-0.4	1.1	0.8	0.7
RC	-0.5	-0.6	0.3	1.1	-0.6	1.0	0.1
PECOTA	0.0	0.1	0.2	-0.6	-1.4	-0.2	-0.3
CAIRO	-1.2	0.8	0.8	-1.0	-0.8	-0.9	-0.4
ZiPS	-1.7	-0.9	0.4	-0.2	0.0	-0.9	-0.6
MORPS	0.6	0.1	-0.2	-1.7	-1.0	-1.4	-0.6
Marcel	0.0	-2.0	-2.6	1.0	0.2	-0.6	-0.7

*RMSE*
	W	K	S	ERA	WHIP	WER	Av
Fans	1.1	0.9	0.2	0.4	1.0	0.7	0.7
Steamer	0.9	0.6	0.3	0.5	-0.4	1.5	0.6
Comb.	0.1	0.5	0.2	0.8	0.5	0.2	0.4
RC	-0.5	-0.3	0.4	0.7	0.7	1.2	0.4
MORPS	1.1	0.8	-0.3	-1.1	0.6	-0.8	0.1
PECOTA	0.3	0.2	0.4	-1.2	-2.0	0.3	-0.3
CAIRO	-1.4	0.6	1.1	-0.9	-0.4	-0.9	-0.3
Marcel	0.0	-2.0	-2.5	1.6	0.9	-1.2	-0.5
ZiPS	-1.6	-1.2	0.2	-0.7	-1.0	-0.9	-0.9

While Steamer is still towards the top of the lists, the Fans from Fangraphs make a strong push towards the top with this group. While this is somewhat surprising, it makes sense since the fans have the best sense of playing time and roles for each of these pitchers. Scientific projection systems have a harder time accounting for such things. Regardless, Steamer does the best job of gauging overall roto value for a player as evidenced by their strong showing in the WERTH category.

Also, you'll notice that ZiPS suffers a big drop here which is surprising. Marcel does a fantastic job with the rate-based stats of ERA and WHIP but suffers badly in all other areas. On the flipside, MORPS does a good job with the counting-based stats (which I somewhat expected since they seem to specifically account for player's projected role) but suffers with the rate-based stats.

Conclusion

This was an interesting battle between the projections and the winner isn't quite as clear as it was for hitters. Steamer is still the champion, no doubt, but the strengths of the other systems are evident. Projecting pitchers for fantasy baseball is a difficult task with the rate-based stats being one animal and the counting-based stats being a totally different one. The counting-based stats rely heavily on getting Innings Pitched correctly identified so accounting for injury and projected role is important there.

All in all, it is somewhat encouraging to see the same projection systems doing well for both hitters and pitchers. That shows how well Steamer is built and also how valuable the Fan projections can be too. For 2013, Fangraphs and Steamer teamed up and introduced a new projection that combines Steamer's base projections with the Fans' playing time projections. I'll be interested to see how that stacks up next year.

Part 1: Analyzing Hitter Projections

Part 3: Weighting Projections

Fantasy Baseball Market for Catchers in 2013

2013-03-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

There's only one single player at the catcher position in 2013 projected to post a roto value that is above average in comparison to the average starting fantasy player. That lone soul is Buster Posey. The position scarcity element is what boosts him to the status of being a pick within the first two rounds of most drafts.

His value is tied to the fact that he can produce at a much higher level than anyone else at his position. In a 12-team league, the average starting fantasy catcher is projected to produce -2.4 WERTH according to Steamer Projections and Posey is projected to be 4.5 WERTH above that mark. There are other players being drafted in the second round who could produce similar value relative to their position. Whether you choose to invest in Posey or not is up to you. But the fact remains that only one person will own him and that everyone else will have to look at see what else is left at the catcher position.

The short answer: there's not much to look at.

In a 12-team league, most fantasy players are grabbing their catcher between rounds 5 to 10 as there are 10 catchers projected to go off the board by the end of the 10th round. There is a notable projected drop-off after those 10 catchers are gone which is likely why everyone is scrambling to get one of those top ten. However, in looking at the values of other positions, I'd hesitate to waste an early pick on a catcher.

After Round 15, there's a big drop in talent at other positions while catcher doesn't have a significant drop-off. Based on initial analysis, it looks like waiting until this point may be the best time to target a catcher in 2013 so you can maximize value at other positions. If you wait until the end, there are certainly options. Steamer projects Alex Avila in Round 17 to give you similar value to Jonathon Lucroy in Round 12. If you prefer ZiPS projections then they show Kurt Suzuki or Yasmani Grandal as tremendous values starting in Round 20. Regardless, there are options later in the drafts that are worth pursuing. The drop in value from a 5th round catcher to a 20th round catcher is not as severe as it is at other positions.

Check out the infographic below for all sorts of statistical goodness about the catcher position market this season. While this seems like yet another year where it may be best to wait on catchers, use the info below to form your own conclusions!

2013 Fantasy Draft Market for Catchers | Infographics

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Version 1.2

2013-02-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

We're hitting the time where projections for fantasy baseball are all being unleashed officially for the year. This is great for the cheatsheets here as that means that they are nearing their completion as far as what data will be available for 2013. This week, the cheatsheets are bursting at the seams with more projections than ever before as some old favorites have been added and some new contenders thrown in too. But, before you get started, I encourage you to read the opening post for more information if you are new to Mr. Cheatsheet.

The updates in this release include:

Added MORPS projections as an option to select
Added Clay Davenport projections
Added ZiPS projections
Updated Steamer projections to reflect their default dataset and added a second option for the Steamer projections using Fangraphs playing time projections
Updated MockDraftCentral and CBS Sportsline ADP data
Added ESPN ADP data and average auction values
Updated RotoChamp and CBS Sportsline auction value data
Updated Player Profile pages to show all ten of the available projections for each player at a glance

Before downloading the cheatsheets below, please be forewarned that these cheatsheets are designed to work in Excel 2007-2010 and were designed in Windows. The Mac version of Excel (and older versions of Excel) has been known to have problems when trying to operate these cheatsheets. Also, Microsoft has a few security features which makes opening these spreadsheets more annoying than it should be. If you have the default security settings, you'll be asked if you want to enable macros when opening this spreadsheet and you must enable macros in order for this cheatsheet to work! In addition, Microsoft may point out that the file originated from an internet location so you will have to click the button that says Enable Editing. You can always change your settings in Excel so you don't get asked that again but those are two hiccups you might encounter before you get to play around in the sandbox here. Now that you've been prepped, go ahead and download your cheatsheet of choice:

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

Data included for this v1.2 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Steamer (with Fan playing time) projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
Oliver projections
ZiPS projections
MORPS projections
Clay Davenport projections
MockDraftCentral ADP data
CBS ADP data
Yahoo ADP data
ESPN ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
Yahoo dollar values
ESPN dollar values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
David Gonos rankings
Mr. Cheatsheet rankings
Combined rankings (average of available rankings)

Marco Estrada | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-02-21T11:36:00.001-05:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. When I look for undervalued pitchers, there are a few statistical benchmarks that I identified as being good ways to identify the pitchers who should be among the best in a luck-neutral world. While we know that pitchers like Justin Verlander should be in there, these benchmarks also identify some unheralded pitchers each year which can be found at a much cheaper price tag in your drafts. Based on past years, those unheralded pitchers often stand a good chance of being breakout players. Today, we'll look at one of the players that is on the list for 2013 and we'll see if Marco Estrada (SP, MIL) has what it takes to be a real sleeper.

Why He's Here

Marco Estrada's journey started as a 6th round draft pick by the Washington Nationals in 2005. Throughout his first three years in the minors, he bounced around the Rookie Leagues and Single-A levels without posting any numbers worth talking about. He posted a 4.64 ERA over those three seasons but he did have encouraging strikeout ability as evidenced by his 8.8 K/9. He didn't show pinpoint control in his promotion to Double-A in 2008 but he posted a 2.66 ERA and 1.27 WHIP which prompted another promotion to Triple-A that same year. With each promotion, he cut back on his strikeout numbers a bit but he continued to show promise and got called up to the Nats roster in 2008 to help in relief duty. The results were not pretty over 12 innings so he went back to Triple-A in 2009 and dominated again as a starter before being called up to the Nats roster as a reliever where he struggled again. The Nats put him on waivers following that season and the Brewers claimed him to their roster.

He spent a bit of time in Triple-A there where he dominated and then floundered a bit as a reliever in the majors for the Brewers again. In 2011, he finally got the chance to not only pitch in relief in the majors but start as well. He was finally good as a reliever but even better as a starter over 7 starts (3.70 ERA, 1.09 WHIP). In 2012, the Brewers let him loose as a starter throughout most of the year and he posted a 3.76 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 9.3 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 through 23 starts.

He's now had 176 IP as a starter and posted good numbers in that role but he'll turn 30 this season which gives folks hesitation to think he's actually worth a damn. Expecting an older pitcher to be a "breakout" player is rare and Estrada is actually one of just ten pitchers in history who didn't top 100 innings pitched until age 28 and he was the first one to do with with a K/9 above 9.0. So, we are definitely talking about a rare situation. That being said, his age is one Estrada's few blemishes and it is likely the main factor for him having an ADP in the 250-range this year. He's a low risk player with a high ceiling which makes him a perfect narco candidate.

Why He Might Fail

Regression. One of the main reasons for Estrada's success was his ridiculous control of the strike zone last year. His 4.9 K/BB ratio was among the top five in the entire league. The concern is that he will not be able to keep that up as his 1.89 BB/9 was far better than any year he had previously in the majors or minors. It's not a stretch at all to expect his BB/9 to rise quite a bit. At the same time, his strikeouts may fall a bit. He had a 9.1 K/9 ratio last year but minor league numbers indicate that somewhere around 7 to 8 K/9 is more of the norm for him. If both areas regress and he becomes a 7.5 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 pitcher then we're not really looking at anything special for fantasy baseball. With those numbers, he'd likely have an ERA hovering around 4.00 and a WHIP at around 1.30.

While he has been successful recently in the majors, he's also shown a lot of weaknesses prior to this as evidenced by his 8.04 ERA in his first three stints at the majors. Which pitcher will we get this year? That uncertainty is what makes him a risky pick.

Why He Might Come Through

Last year wasn't a fluke. Since joining the Brewers, he's seen more success as a pitcher and it could be because they've learned to focus on his strengths. He's not a high velocity pitcher so his skills weren't quite suited for bullpen work as the Brewers noticed. Despite that, his fastball is his most valuable pitch and he has increased usage of that in each year with the Brewers. That slight adjustment in style has yielded a Swinging Strike Percentage well above the league average each year as a Brewer (and a Contact Percentage well below league average as well). In addition to the accentuating his ability to create swings-and-misses, the Brewers have helped coach better control for Estrada. While his minor league numbers show a tendency to have a higher walk rate, he has shown much better control since joining the Brewers and that is no coincidence.

With his excellent command and strikeout potential, he could easily have an ERA at around 3.50 with a low WHIP and good strikeout numbers again. Despite his nice 3.64 ERA last year, he had a SIERA of 3.19 so he probably should have been even better than his numbers suggest.

Since he didn't have a full season of numbers to his name last year, fantasy drafters still don't have him on their radar but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't.

Conclusion

The price tag is quite low. He is being taken about 20 rounds into drafts when the other names on the board are Ross Detwiler and Welington Castillo. There certainly isn't a high amount of risk despite his high amount of upside. Estrada has the ability to be a reliable fantasy starter for your team despite being drafted as a bench player. Given the low risk, there's no reason not to reach for Estrada in your drafts and hope to get a low ERA pitcher with strikeout potential. By the end of the year, he may end up being one of the better pitchers on your team.

2013 Fallback Players | xAVG vs AVG

2013-02-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Of all of the stats that are used in rotisserie leagues, batting average is the one that is most able to be fluctuated by good luck or bad luck. As a fantasy baseball owner, it is extremely valuable to be able to highlight those times were luck played a key role in a player's stats. One of the tools that helps us identify the lucky players is a player's batting average on balls in play (BABIP). But, we can take steps beyond that by looking at a player's expected BABIP (xBABIP) and then use that to create an expected AVG (xAVG) for a player. I lay this out in greater detail in my post on evaluating batting averages. In this post, we're going to take a look at players who had batting averages in 2012 that were way higher than their xAVG and thus should have red flags associated with them on your draft days.

Good Years That Should Have Been Bad

When trying to identify some of the players who had unsustainable batting averages and are due for a regression, I decided to not only compare xAVG to AVG but also look at the player's career batting average prior to last year. Though Miguel Montero had a .286 AVG versus a .237 xAVG, he had a .271 career AVG prior to last year so a drop all the way down to .237 seems a bit less likely. So, here are some of the players who had the biggest differences between AVG and xAVG in addition to a lower career AVG:

Justin Ruggiano, .313 AVG, .248 xAVG (.226 career AVG prior to 2012)
Jayson Werth, .300 AVG, .244 xAVG (.264 career AVG prior)
Torii Hunter, .313 AVG, .256 xAVG (.273 career AVG prior)
Alex Gordon, .294 AVG, .258 xAVG (.262 career AVG prior)
Austin Jackson, .300 AVG, .265 xAVG (.271 career AVG prior)
Ian Desmond, .292 AVG, .257 xAVG (.262 career AVG prior)
Chase Headley, .286 AVG, .253 xAVG (.269 career AVG prior)

While I'm fairly high on Justin Ruggiano this year (full profile here), the disparity between his AVG and xAVG is certanly offputting. His minor league numbers indicate a likelihood to hit better than .248 but .313 is definitely a bit of stretch to repeat.

The remaining names on the list all are being drafted within the top 150 players overall. And much of the reason for their high draft slots is because of their AVGs from last season. As you can see, these were all players who had averages over .300 or close to it in 2012 but the highest xAVG among them was a mere .265. Meanwhile, all of their career AVG's are fairly pedestrian as well. They are all players who I would expect to see some regression for and would thus move down on your rankings a bit.

Great Years That Should Have Been Less Great

While sometimes a player can have an above average xAVG, he can still be due for a regression due to getting some additional luck that made his AVG superhuman.

Melky Cabrera, .346 AVG, .295 xAVG (.275 career AVG prior to 2012)
Andrew McCutchen, .327 AVG, .282 xAVG (.276 career AVG prior)
Jonathon Lucroy, .320 AVG, .286 xAVG (.260 career AVG prior)
Mike Trout, .326 AVG, .290 xAVG (.220 career AVG prior)
David Murphy, .304 AVG, .276 xAVG (.280 career AVG prior)

Melky Cabrera wasn't only aided by some performance-enhancing drugs last season. He also had some performance-enhancing luck on his side. He hit a ridiculous .346 despite his career average being 71 points lower than that. While his xAVG was still a very nice .295, it was far below his performance level from last year. He's being drafted quite high this year and I don't see him repeating last year's success so I'd avoid him in drafts unless he falls far in your league.

McCutchen and Trout are among the top players being taken in the entire league and they should still hit for high AVG but hitting above .325 again does not seem likely for the both of them. That adjustment alone should cause a drop in their value to take them out of the elite tier. For your first picks in the draft, minimizing risk is highly important and the fact that there's even a slight red flag causes me some hesitation with the both of them.

Lucroy and Murphy aren't necessarily high draft picks but there will come a point in your draft where you will consider drafting them and might see that high AVG from last year and think you might be getting a steal. Consider this a word of warning to not be drawn in by that.

For the full list of AVG and xAVG data from the 2012 season, check out this spreadsheet here.

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Version 1.1

2013-02-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

As the fantasy baseball draft preparation season gears up, we start to get access to more and more information which means these spreadsheets need to stay up-to-date for your drafting needs. In this week's update, there are a few key updates that should help you out. First and foremost, if you are unfamiliar with these cheatsheets, I encourage you to read the opening post for more information.

The updates in this release include:

Added Oliver projections
Updated Steamer and Fangraphs projections
Added Yahoo and CBS average draft position data
Added an Average ADP option to average the three choices
For auction drafters, added Yahoo auction values
For auction drafters, updated CBS and RotoChamp values
For H2H Pts drafters, added three new stat categories (Holds, Complete Games, Shutouts)
Added new expert rankings

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

Data included for this v1.1 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
Oliver projections
MockDraftCentral ADP data
CBS ADP data
Yahoo ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
Yahoo dollar values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
David Gonos rankings
Mr. Cheatsheet rankings
Combined rankings (average of available rankings)

If there are any new feature suggestions, now is the time to suggest them! Hit me up in the comments with any thoughts on these sheets.

Justin Ruggiano | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-02-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. As I laid out in the research behind this, my method here has been successful in finding breakout players with 64% of the sleeper candidates identified over the past five years returning value much greater than expected from their draft slots. In 2013, there are four players who meet the criteria. Today, we'll look at one of those four as I try to determine if Justin Ruggiano (OF, MIA) could be among the 64% of successes.

Why He's Here

Let's be clear right away: Ruggiano will be 31 this season so he is not a young prospect bursting onto the scene. He bounced around in a few minor league systems throughout the past nine seasons but spent most of his time as a member of Tampa Bay's Triple-A team. In his many Triple-A seasons, he posted numbers that would make most fantasy owners happy as he consistently showed potential to be a player who could hit 20 HR with 30 SB and a good batting average. He broke free of Tampa last year by declining to be sent back to the minors. He ended up in the Astros organization in... Triple-A again. However, he was traded to the Marlins in May where the Marlins wasted no time by calling him up to the majors the next day to finally give him the shot that he deserved.

He rewarded them for their faith with huge offensive outputs from June through August. In those three months, he hit .330 with 13 HR's, 31 RBI's, 22 R's and 11 SB's over 215 AB's. If he could keep that pace over 600 AB's in a season, we'd be drafting Ruggiano in the first round of drafts this year as that would be a 30/30 player with one of the best AVG's in the league. Of course, that's not realistic to expect and he came back down to Earth in the final month of the season by hitting .264 AVG with 0 HR's and 3 SB's.

Regardless, for a long stretch, Ruggiano showed the ability to produce at an elite level and has minor league numbers to back that up. His age is a concern and the fact that he was never a "top prospect" keeps him under the radar as well. The fact still remains that he is slated to possibly be the starting CF for Miami this season yet, despite that, his ADP is 202 at this point. We have a player who shows us the potential for elite numbers without a hefty price tag on draft day and that is what makes him a potential narco candidate.

Why He Might Fail

Ruggiano is a player who has basically been stuck in Triple-A since 2007. In that 2007 season, he hit .309 with 20 HR's and 26 SB's and was given a short look in the majors over 2007 and 2008 but he didn't impress the Rays and then was locked away in Triple-A again for the next few years. Despite his gaudy minor league numbers, he couldn't translate that to MLB success for the Rays despite them giving him 98 games of big league experience. He hit .225 with 6 HR, 3 SB and a ton of strikeouts (28% k-rate) over 207 PA's. While he seemed to put it together last year, that was only over a short stretch.

One of the biggest components of his success last year was his high batting average (.313) but that was boosted by a possibly unsustainable BABIP. His BABIP was .401 last year and xBABIP calculations say it should have been around .322 in a luck-neutral world. With that dip in BABIP, he would have dropped his AVG down to .259. Less hits mean less runs, less RBI's and less stolen bases. Suddenly, Ruggiano's miracle season would have looked a lot less appealing. In the last month of the season, Ruggiano's AVG was closer to that xAVG mark which is further proof that it is likely closer to his true talent level.

On a depleted Marlins squad, it would seem that Ruggiano is going to at least get a large share of at-bats this year. However, that may not be the case. To get the starting job, he's going to have to compete for it against Gorkys Hernandez and Bryan Peterson according to the team. The fact that there are other options there may mean that the Marlins won't go all-in on Ruggiano regardless. With his high strikeout rate, they may be quick to pull the plug on him if there is any sign of struggle.

Why He Might Come Through

The previously cited xAVG does indicate that Ruggiano's AVG may not be sustainable and that's hard to argue against. But, while it may drop, his minor league numbers do indicate that he has the ability to hit for a high AVG regardless as he hit .296 throughout his minor league career. And, yes, that's quite a long history of minor league at-bats so that should be a pretty good indication of his talent level. Expect a drop in AVG but don't expect the floor to fall out from beneath him.

Ruggiano is an attractive option because he has the ability to contribute in all five roto categories. The speed is definitely there to stay and all signs point to him being able to get 20 to 30 SB's. The bonus is that he hits for good power too. Based on data from HitTracker, it seems that the power is legit. One of the better predictors for future HR totals is the Avg Speed Off Bat from HitTracker and Ruggiano had an Avg SOB of 105.6 MPH which would put him among the top tier power hitters in the league. So, by those indications, the power is legit and a 20 HR season is definitely within reason.

If we peek at the projections, we see that Bill James is predicting a nice year for Ruggiano too. He has him projected to hit .278 with 19 HR and 24 SB. That is a more optimistic projection than most but it does indicate that even the stat-based projections aren't discounting Ruggiano's 2012 numbers as a fluke.

Conclusion

There's definitely some concern about Ruggiano's age in addition to the fact that he was quite lucky last year. But, there are still some good core skills beneath all of that. He certainly does have the potential to hit 20/20 with a decent AVG on the year. If the asking price for Ruggiano was in the top 100 then there might be reason to pass on him. But, with his ADP outside of the top 200, there is little risk to adding Ruggiano as a backup outfielder and hoping for the best. I see enough positive here that makes him worth targeting as a sleeper in the later rounds.

I'm just speculating here though. Let's go right to the source and see if Justin Ruggiano himself has any advice for fantasy owners in 2013!

@mrcheatsheet yeah, if its between me and @giancarlo818, I'd go with him!
— Justin Ruggiano (@justinruggiano) February 14, 2013

Public Opinion Check via 2013 ADP | Early February Edition

2013-02-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to read the minds of your leaguemates on draft day? By looking at the results of mock drafts throughout the country, that's essentially what we're trying to do. The average draft position (ADP) data that comes out of those drafts is plastered about online as a way of representing public opinion. That's wrong though.

As I've talked about on this site before, ADP data is traditionally flawed as it is very biased. Drafters try not to stray too far from the default rankings that the mock draft site presents to them so the ADP results mimic the site rankings. Last year, I pointed out that a player's default ranking at MockDraftCentral is 98% of what goes into their resulting ADP, leaving only 2% of their ADP value really showing public opinion. This year, I ran the numbers again as of early February and there is slight improvement as the new r-squared value for the Top 150 is 0.91 but that still means that 91% of what goes into their ADP is their default ranking.

There's still some valuable information to be found though. If we compare each player's ADP to the site rankings, we can start to see where the general public disagrees with MDC's rankings. Knowing who the public is reaching for or passing on is the best gauge of public opinion that we can get from ADP data.

Players That The Public Is Passing On

	ADP	MDC Rank	Diff
Justin Upton	13.29	9	-48%
Curtis Granderson	13.35	8	-67%
Bryce Harper	17.93	14	-28%
Paul Goldschmidt	23.16	17	-36%
Adam Jones	24.82	20	-24%
B.J. Upton	27.26	19	-43%
Craig Kimbrel	31.65	22	-44%
Jay Bruce	31.65	23	-38%
Allen Craig	36.81	29	-27%
Yadier Molina	41.14	31	-33%
Cliff Lee	41.34	34	-22%
Aramis Ramirez	41.46	33	-26%
Chase Headley	44.58	36	-24%
Mark Teixeira	49.18	37	-33%
Anthony Rizzo	52.68	39	-35%
Carlos Santana	52.89	43	-23%
Matt Wieters	58.62	48	-22%
Miguel Montero	65.74	50	-31%
Ryan Howard	77.83	62	-26%
Jesus Montero	96.87	79	-23%
Alfonso Soriano	131.67	107	-23%

When it comes to players that have a worse ADP than the default site ranking, it seems that the major theme is that the public wants to wait on catchers despite MockDraftCentral's high rankings of catchers. That doesn't surprise me. In addition, the public isn't agreeing with MDC's idea to take a closer in the second round. Um, yes, rightly so.

Usually, I think the public wants to reach for the young guys but these results seem to show that the public isn't ready to fully trust guys like Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, Adam Jones or Anthony Rizzo. This surprises me a bit but MDC had ridiculously high rankings for some of the guys so they public seems to be making a wise move.

I'm a pretty big fan of Jay Bruce, Anthony Rizzo, Justin Upton and even Adam Jones but I do agree with the public that MDC was ranking them all a bit too high as well. I don't think the public is necessarily passing on these guys but they certainly don't agree with the high rankings that MDC gave them.

Players That The Public Is Reaching For

	ADP	MDC Rank	Diff
Robinson Cano	7.44	12	38%
Joey Votto	10.34	13	20%
Prince Fielder	13.00	16	19%
Giancarlo Stanton	18.42	26	29%
Troy Tulowitzki	18.67	25	25%
Justin Verlander	22.79	30	24%
Evan Longoria	29.01	40	27%
Stephen Strasburg	30.99	45	31%
Jason Heyward	35.31	42	16%
Dustin Pedroia	39.67	51	22%
Jose Reyes	40.09	71	44%
Matt Holliday	53.26	64	17%
Matt Cain	62.72	78	20%
Ben Zobrist	64.73	91	29%
Zack Greinke	83.06	117	29%
Ian Desmond	92.06	111	17%
CC Sabathia	92.31	114	19%
Victor Martinez	107.02	160	33%
Pablo Sandoval	112.21	169	34%
Elvis Andrus	121.93	172	29%
Aroldis Chapman	127.12	150	15%
Matt Moore	129.57	155	16%
Salvador Perez	138.01	167	17%

In regards to those with better ADP's than rankings, a lot of these big jumps also seem to be rating corrections. MDC's default rankings have Justin Verlander as a third round pick which seems a bit low and the public agrees. The other takeaway here is the opposite of what we just found because we see that the public seems to favor veterans. There's a level of trust with those guys and the public will reach for that familiarity (especially inexperienced drafters who may rely on name recognition alone). Also, there seem to be quite a few pitchers here which is either evidence that the public doesn't like MDC's rankings or that they see the pool of hitters being fairly shallow this year.

I'll continue to check in with these results and results from other sites to look for common themes throughout the preseason.

Analyzing the Accuracy of the 2012 Projections | Part 1: Hitters

2013-02-09T06:30:00.000-05:00

Unlike other fantasy sports, baseball has the luxury of having lots of really advanced projection systems to look at prior to your drafts. If you're a person who relies on one set of projections then you put yourself at risk because you're only as good as the projection system that you choose. Projections represent the lens in which you view the baseball universe so picking the correct set of lenses is paramount for fantasy baseball success. So, let's look back at the 2012 projections and see how successful they were in projecting batting statistics for our roto leagues.

For the 2012 draft cheatsheets, I offered up seven different projection choices and here's a rundown on who they are and what they do:

Marcel: The most basic forecasting system around - it takes three years of player data, weights the most recent years heaviest and regresses the players towards a mean (age factor included)
Steamer: For hitters, Steamer takes five years of player data and regresses certain stats more heavily than others using an aging factor as well. Each component within their projections uses a different projection system.
ZiPS: Does a little of the weighted regression like Marcel but for four years and does a bit of the comparable player regression based on aging trends
Cairo: It's like Marcel but with more bells and whistles (stat-specific regression and position-specific regression for instance)
Fangraphs Fans: These are user-entered projections for a player that are entered into the Fangraphs site. They average out all of those user-entered projections for a look at how the public views a player as opposed to a computer algorithm. A minimum of 8 "fans" must have submitted a projection for a player in order for them to be eligible.
RotoChamp: Also takes three years of player data and weights the most recent years heavier but has more tricks such as looking at batted ball type (line drive percentage, fly ball percentage, etc) and lineup projections and more.
Combined (MSZC): Averaging the four main free projections for a player into one projection

In order to analyze who did the best job in helping fantasy baseball drafters select hitters, I took a few steps here. The first step was to merge all of these projections, the actual 2012 stats and the ADP data from the preseason. I only included players who were in all seven projections, had at least 100 plate appearances and had an 2012 ADP under 400 so that we were only looking at players who were relevant on fantasy baseball draft days last preseason. This left a player pool of 236 batters to analyze.

There are a few statistics which could help us compare actual results to projected results. The two statistics that I used in this analysis were the correlation coefficients of the projections related to actual results and the root mean square error (RMSE). The correlation coefficient shows how closely related the the projection is with the actual result and is a measure of the linear relationship between the two variables. On the other hand, the RMSE value analyzes the misses and the extent to which the projections varied from the actual results. Good RMSE results indicate a better agreement between the projected and actual results.

When doing my analysis, I standardized all of the stats within their own universe because it ends up being irrelevant if the actual fantasy league average was 15 HR's per player yet a projection system had the league average set higher or lower. On draft day, we're comparing players within their own projection systems and if the system projects Miguel Cabrera to be 3 standard deviations above the mean in HR's then it doesn't matter if that equates to 35 or 45 HR's.

After running the tests for correlation and RMSE, I could have ranked the results and displayed them here as rankings in each category. However, that wouldn't recognize the times when 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for a category were a virtual tie and when last place was far, far behind the others. To account for that, I converted the rankings to standardized z-scores to show how far above or below average each projection was for each stat.

So, now that you know the method, let's see those results for how each projection system ranked above or below average in each roto 5x5 category, the overall total WERTH ranking as well as an average of those six z-scores.

*Correlation rankings (results converted to z-scores)*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	1.4	1.3	1.5	0.5	1.2	1.1
Steamer	1.0	1.1	1.2	1.4	0.4	1.3	1.1
Fans	1.0	-0.5	0.2	-0.5	0.6	0.1	0.2
Zips	0.2	0.3	-0.8	-0.6	1.0	0.0	0.0
RC	-0.9	-1.3	0.0	-0.1	0.3	-0.4	-0.4
CAIRO	-0.4	-0.7	-1.0	-0.6	-1.3	-1.2	-0.9
Marcel	-1.6	-0.3	-1.1	-1.0	-1.6	-1.1	-1.1

*RMSE rankings (results converted to z-scores)*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	1.4	1.3	1.5	0.5	1.2	1.1
Steamer	1.0	1.1	1.2	1.4	0.4	1.3	1.1
Fans	1.0	-0.5	0.2	-0.5	0.6	0.1	0.1
Zips	0.2	0.3	-0.8	-0.6	1.0	0.0	0.0
RC	-0.9	-1.3	0.0	-0.2	0.3	-0.4	-0.4
CAIRO	-0.4	-0.7	-1.0	-0.6	-1.3	-1.2	-0.9
Marcel	-1.5	-0.3	-1.1	-1.0	-1.6	-1.1	-1.1

When looking at all 236 draftable hitters from last preseason, the Combined and Steamer projections were #1 and #2 by quite a bit in regards to both correlation and RMSE. That's the same top two as 2011 but a reversal as Steamer was #1 with a 1.0 average z-score for RMSE ranking and the Combined projections were #2 with a 0.9 average z-score for the same. The other positions shifted around in comparison to last year but it is enlightening to see that the champions stayed the same. Seeing that the success of Steamer was not a just a one-year wonder last year is valuable as it shows we're looking at a very strong and consistent projection system.

Looking at the entire draft pool tells us one story for fantasy baseball but not all leagues are concerned with all 200+ draftable hitters. So I also wanted to specifically look at those who were among the top portion of draft boards since those are often who we are most concerned about on draft day. When looking at those within the top 200 ADP last year, we had 117 hitters to look at.

*Correlation*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.2	1.1	1.8	1.4	0.2	1.2	1.0
Steamer	0.6	0.5	0.4	0.5	0.8	1.3	0.7
Fans	1.5	-0.6	-0.2	-1.2	1.0	0.1	0.1
RC	0.5	-0.5	-1.4	-0.1	0.8	-0.4	-0.2
Zips	-0.8	-1.8	-0.3	0.8	-0.1	0.0	-0.3
CAIRO	-0.7	0.6	0.2	-0.3	-1.7	-1.2	-0.5
Marcel	-1.4	0.6	-0.5	-1.2	-0.9	-1.1	-0.8

*RMSE*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Steamer	0.7	0.7	1.0	1.2	0.6	1.3	0.9
Comb	0.0	1.0	0.5	0.7	0.1	1.2	0.6
RC	0.8	0.6	1.0	0.7	0.7	-0.4	0.6
Fans	1.4	-1.2	0.2	-0.6	0.9	0.1	0.1
Zips	-0.6	-1.5	0.0	0.4	0.5	0.0	-0.2
Marcel	-1.2	0.6	-1.0	-1.0	-0.9	-1.1	-0.8
CAIRO	-1.1	-0.1	-1.7	-1.4	-1.8	-1.2	-1.2

With this dataset trimmed down to those 117, we see a bit more variety in the results. the Combined projections and Steamer are still tops in correlation and RMSE. RotoChamp makes a push to contend in RMSE but is still lagging a little bit.

We can trim that pool even further by only looking at those with an ADP in the top 100. By doing this, we start to get into dangerous territory as the sample size gets very small with only 66 batters to analyze.

*Correlation*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	1.1	1.8	1.4	0.2	1.2	1.1
Steamer	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.5	0.8	1.3	0.7
Fans	0.5	-0.6	-0.2	-1.2	1.0	0.1	-0.1
CAIRO	0.9	0.6	0.2	-0.3	-1.7	-1.2	-0.2
Zips	-1.0	-1.8	-0.3	0.8	-0.1	0.0	-0.4
Marcel	0.1	0.6	-0.5	-1.2	-0.9	-1.1	-0.5
RC	-1.8	-0.5	-1.4	-0.1	0.8	-0.4	-0.6

*RMSE*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Steamer	0.8	0.7	1.0	1.2	0.6	1.3	0.9
Comb	0.8	1.0	0.5	0.7	0.1	1.2	0.7
RC	-2.1	0.6	1.0	0.7	0.7	-0.4	0.1
Fans	0.4	-1.2	0.2	-0.6	0.9	0.1	-0.1
Zips	-0.2	-1.5	0.0	0.4	0.5	0.0	-0.1
Marcel	-0.1	0.6	-1.0	-1.0	-0.9	-1.1	-0.6
CAIRO	0.4	-0.1	-1.7	-1.4	-1.8	-1.2	-1.0

In these results, we see some more shifting in the rankings all over the place but Steamer and the Combined projections are still the top two by a large margin in both areas. The success of these two systems is starting to embarrass the other contenders at this point so let's just call the fight.

Conclusion

The takeaway that I have from these results is that some projections are better than others in certain ways but Steamer and the Combined projections are the two that consistently are at the top in each scenario. This is not a one-year occurrence either as they were also consistently at the top if you look at last year's results as well. So, when it comes to hitters, I feel very safe in saying that the Steamer projections seem to be your best bet for projections in fantasy baseball and, well, they're free! I highly recommend utilizing them when loading up your cheatsheets here but pay special attention to the Combined projections as well for a nice second opinion when analyzing a player.

Update on 2/27/13

It was suggested by a few of the friendly readers from around these parts that I should add in a few other projection systems to this analysis. Previously, I had not heard of MORPS but was happy to bring another contender into the ring here. Also, I had used PECOTA in the analysis last year so it was only fair to bring it back. I ran the analysis using the same process as above and the results weren't wildly different as the Combined projections and Steamer projections continued their dominance. However, MORPS and PECOTA showed themselves to be strong contenders for fantasy usage.

Looking at all 236 draftable hitters again, PECOTA was better than average in correlation and RMSE while MORPS was lagging towards the bottom.

*Correlation*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	1.5	1.5	1.6	0.7	1.4	1.3
Steamer	1.0	1.2	1.4	1.5	0.6	1.4	1.2
Fans	1.1	-0.3	0.2	-0.6	0.8	0.1	0.2
PECOTA	0.6	0.4	0.0	0.6	-1.2	0.4	0.1
Zips	0.2	0.4	-0.9	-0.7	1.2	0.0	0.0
RC	-1.0	-1.1	0.0	-0.2	0.5	-0.5	-0.4
MORPS	-0.5	-1.5	0.2	-0.3	-0.2	-0.1	-0.4
CAIRO	-0.5	-0.5	-1.1	-0.8	-1.1	-1.4	-0.9
Marcel	-1.7	-0.1	-1.3	-1.2	-1.4	-1.3	-1.2

*RMSE*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	1.6	1.5	1.6	0.7	1.4	1.3
Steamer	1.1	1.2	1.4	1.5	0.6	1.5	1.2
Fans	1.1	-0.3	0.2	-0.6	0.8	0.1	0.2
PECOTA	0.6	0.4	0.0	0.6	-1.2	0.3	0.1
Zips	0.2	0.4	-0.9	-0.7	1.2	0.0	0.0
RC	-1.0	-1.1	0.0	-0.2	0.5	-0.5	-0.4
MORPS	-0.5	-1.5	0.2	-0.3	-0.2	-0.1	-0.4
CAIRO	-0.5	-0.5	-1.1	-0.8	-1.1	-1.4	-0.9
Marcel	-1.7	-0.2	-1.3	-1.1	-1.4	-1.3	-1.2

When trimming the pool down and only looking at the top 200 drafted hitters from last year, MORPS and PECOTA both fare even better. PECOTA doesn't necessarily top Steamer but definitely creeps up as a strong silver medalist.

*Correlation*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.3	1.2	1.7	1.5	0.0	0.9	0.9
Steamer	0.6	1.0	-0.1	0.8	0.7	0.8	0.6
PECOTA	0.4	-0.1	1.4	0.1	-0.1	1.8	0.6
Fans	1.8	-0.4	-0.4	-1.0	0.8	-0.4	0.1
RC	0.7	-0.3	-1.6	0.1	0.7	-1.5	-0.3
CAIRO	-0.7	0.7	0.0	0.0	-1.9	-0.4	-0.4
MORPS	-0.8	-1.3	0.0	-1.5	1.2	0.0	-0.4
Zips	-0.8	-1.5	-0.5	0.9	-0.3	-0.9	-0.5
Marcel	-1.5	0.7	-0.6	-0.9	-1.1	-0.3	-0.6

*RMSE*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Steamer	1.1	1.3	1.3	1.7	0.5	1.5	1.2
PECOTA	0.6	-0.8	1.3	1.1	-0.4	1.2	0.5
RC	0.7	0.7	0.3	0.2	0.6	-0.1	0.4
MORPS	-0.2	-1.3	0.6	0.1	1.2	0.7	0.2
Comb	-0.2	1.1	0.0	0.2	0.0	-0.1	0.2
Fans	1.3	-0.8	-0.2	-0.8	0.8	-0.2	0.0
Zips	-0.7	-1.1	-0.4	0.0	0.4	-0.4	-0.4
Marcel	-1.4	0.7	-1.1	-1.1	-1.0	-0.8	-0.8
CAIRO	-1.3	0.1	-1.7	-1.4	-2.0	-1.7	-1.3

Then, when we go down to just the top 100, we see MORPS and PECOTA continue to grow stronger. They both pass Steamer in regards to correlation power but Steamer still does the best job of aligning with the actual results.

*Correlation*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Comb	0.8	0.4	0.8	1.2	0.1	0.6	0.6
MORPS	-0.3	0.5	0.9	-0.1	1.2	1.0	0.5
PECOTA	0.9	-0.9	0.0	0.7	-0.1	0.9	0.2
Marcel	0.0	1.1	0.4	0.0	-1.4	0.3	0.1
Steamer	0.5	0.0	-1.0	0.0	0.8	-0.2	0.0
Zips	-1.2	-1.7	1.0	1.1	0.4	0.2	0.0
Fans	0.5	0.7	-1.1	-1.3	0.9	-0.7	-0.2
CAIRO	0.8	-1.0	0.6	0.2	-1.8	0.1	-0.2
RC	-2.0	0.9	-1.7	-1.8	0.0	-2.3	-1.1

*RMSE*
	HR	AVG	R	RBI	SB	WER	Av
Steamer	1.1	1.3	1.3	1.7	0.5	1.5	1.2
PECOTA	0.6	-0.8	1.3	1.1	-0.4	1.2	0.5
RC	0.7	0.7	0.3	0.2	0.6	-0.1	0.4
MORPS	-0.2	-1.3	0.6	0.1	1.2	0.7	0.2
Comb	-0.2	1.1	0.0	0.2	0.0	-0.1	0.2
Fans	1.3	-0.8	-0.2	-0.8	0.8	-0.2	0.0
Zips	-0.7	-1.1	-0.4	0.0	0.4	-0.4	-0.4
Marcel	-1.4	0.7	-1.1	-1.1	-1.0	-0.8	-0.8
CAIRO	-1.3	0.1	-1.7	-1.4	-2.0	-1.7	-1.3

All in all, MORPS shows itself as being a solid new contender when it comes to the top players in baseball (though a bit weaker in the later portions of the draft) and PECOTA shows why it may be worth plopping some money down for. However, when all is said and done, the refrain remains the same as Steamer continues to top the field.

Part 2: Analyzing Pitcher Projections

Part 3: Weighting Projections

Dillon Gee | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-02-07T10:11:00.002-05:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. When I look for undervalued pitchers, there are a few statistical benchmarks that I identified as being good ways to identify the pitchers who should be among the best in a luck-neutral world. While we know that pitchers like Justin Verlander should be in there, these benchmarks also identify some unheralded pitchers each year which can be found at a much cheaper price tag in your drafts. Based on past years, those unheralded pitchers often stand a good chance of being breakout players. Today, we'll look at one of the players that is on the list for 2013 and we'll see if Dillon Gee (SP, NYM) has what it takes to be a real sleeper.

Why He's Here

Dillon Gee was not an early round draft pick by the Mets as he was taken in the 21st round back in 2007. Throughout his first year and half in their minor league system, he was posting some ridiculous numbers which eventually resulted in an all-star award in 2008. Despite posting a sub-3.00 ERA, the concern was that his pitching style would not translate to MLB success as he lacked a dominating fastball. Gee wouldn't let that get him down and he continued to show promise as he rose up the ranks. He garnered some attention when he set his AAA team's record for strikeouts in 2010 (despite having his worst season by ERA standards).

That season, he got a shot at the majors and delivered a nice ERA over four starts but very poor strikeout and walk numbers. That was very dissimilar to his minor league career where his K/BB ratio was his best asset. He was able to break camp with the team in 2011 and started the whole season for the Mets. However, he only delivered fairly average results with a 4.43 ERA, 6.4 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9. That did nothing to excite the fantasy baseball world and he was on the road to Mediocre Pitcher Land.

In 2012, he was tabbed as a starter for the Mets again but delivered very different results. Suddenly, he was striking out more and walking less (8.0 K/9, 2.4 BB/9) and his xFIP and SIERA were both around 3.50 after 17 starts and 109 innings. But, his season ended early when he had a blood clot in his shoulder and he elected for surgery to remove it. As a result, we didn't get to see that full season of the new-and-improved Dillon Gee which is why he's still being relatively ignored in drafts (250 ADP) coming into 2013. Those question marks but also that potential to continue his breakout are what make him a possible narco candidate for the year ahead.

Why He Might Fail

The major knock on Gee has been the lack of a dominating fastball and that hasn't changed despite his better season in 2012. He's a right-handed pitcher with a fastball that barely tops out at 90 MPH; those are not the typical tools for success in the MLB. Gee was at his best at the Single-A level of the minors where he posted a 2.99 ERA and had a 5.4 K/BB ratio. But, without a dominating fastball, it comes as no surprise that he struggled more as he rose up in the minors, posting a 4.47 ERA in Triple-A. He may have been striking out a lot of batters in Triple-A but his walk rate was also going up too. Once in the majors, that walk rate continue to grow and his ERA looked more similar to his Triple-A numbers than his Single-A numbers. Unfortunately, his affinity for letting up the home run ball has also been an issue as he has continued to average around one home run per 9 innings while transitioning the majors.

He started to see some success in 2012 but it was only over 17 starts and there's many more starts from previous years that show evidence of him being a fairly average pitcher. That gets coupled with the fact that his season ended with his scary blood clot issue. It was an injury that prevented him from even being able to throw for a few months. While they are lucky to have caught the clot early on, the clot can sometimes be the sign of further damage ahead.

Why He Might Come Through

Gee's minor league career had some ups and down if you look at his ERA alone but, as we know, that doesn't tell the whole story. In the year he broke the strikeout record in Triple-A, he had a 4.96 ERA but posted a 4.01 FIP and a 4.0 K/BB ratio (which would be among the tops in the majors, for reference). He was showing the statistical peripherals that go along with being a good major league starter. In addition, the scouts seemed to notice as BaseballAmerica gave him the designation of having the Best Control in the Mets minor league system in two of his three ML years and they awarded him Best Changeup in all three years.

In Gee's first season and a half of pitching in the majors, the stats didn't quite look like his minor league numbers. In 2012, he started to regain that magic though and showed great control and strikeout ability despite his slower fastball. He changed his repertoire a little bit in 2012 versus 2011 as he threw his fastball less and threw his slider and curveball much more with his slider being particularly effective. That change seemed to make a big difference. Gee's 2012 season only really boasted two bad games and he posted a 3.11 ERA in his 15 of his 17 starts (removing those two bad games). With his style of pitching, he generates a lot of swinging strikes and has shown good control in limiting walks as well. He can't control luck factors, as we've seen, but he has shown the elements required of being a solid major league pitcher

The shoulder injury sounds scary for a pitcher at first but keep in mind that this was an elective surgery and other pitchers have returned in a few months from the injury. The surgery happened in July and he will have had more than enough recovery time to return at full strength in 2013. Much like every player in the world is optimistic this time of year, Gee claims that the surgery will only help him in the year ahead.

Conclusion

The only major blemish on his record is a sub-par 2011 season in the majors. The stats he posted in 2011 do not look like the numbers he was posting in the minors. On the flipside, the 2012 season looked much more promising and much more similar to his minor league stats. In 2013, it's not a stretch at all to say that he has the potential to post a line of: 3.50 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 8 K/9. For a point of reference, those would be similar to the numbers of Mat Latos, who is being drafted 130 spots ahead of Gee. The concern about Gee missing half of last season shouldn't cause fear in drafters as it was due to a preventative surgery that he's had more than enough time to recover from. If you can look past his 2011 numbers then you're a step ahead of the rest of your league. You should confidently look at Gee as a sleeper pitcher to target in the later rounds of your draft.

The Most Epic 2013 Fantasy Baseball Rankings Around

2013-02-05T10:45:00.001-05:00

There are many tools at the disposal of fantasy baseball owners during draft prep season. We have so many wonderful projection systems to predict player performance; we have average draft position data to see how the public may feel about a player; and we have rankings from the fantasy baseball expert community. I had steered clear from entering the ranking community previously as it is flooded with a variety of opinions already. I'm jumping into the fray this year though. As readers here know, I have unique methodologies for identifying sleepers and undervalued players and it is time to put those tricks of my trade to good use. So, for 2013, be prepared to have your jaws drop as I unveil the Top 350 players in 5x5 Roto according to Mr. Cheatsheet.

Take a look through the rankings (provided in partnership with the fine folks at FantasyPros) and post any questions you may have in the comments below. Enjoy and happy drafting!

Fantasy Baseball Rankings powered by FantasyPros

2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft Cheatsheets (Roto, Auction, H2H) | Version 1.0

2013-02-01T08:57:00.000-05:00

You can now officially say that the 2013 fantasy baseball season has begun because the first batch of Mr. Cheatsheet's fantasy baseball draft spreadsheets is ready for public consumption!

For the uninitiated, these cheatsheets are powerful Excel spreadsheets which are completely and utterly customizable to your exact league type. They pull data from a wide variety of sources so that you have lots of expert opinions, public opinions and advanced projections at your disposal with merely a few clicks here and there. You can easily compare players and see live updates on your league standings as the draft progresses.

There are three different spreadsheet options for you. The Roto Cheatsheet is designed for rotisserie league drafts and uses ADP data and also converts projections into WERTH roto values. Aside from the standard 5x5 categories, there are 18 additional categories that you can select for your own unique league type when setting up your cheatsheet. The Roto Auction Cheatsheet has some additional functionality for converting expert dollar values to your league type and has a dollar values calculated based off your projections of choice. Those projected dollar values continuously update through the draft as the values change based on the available league money left. The Points League Cheatsheet is for H2H point-based leagues and allows you to input your league settings so that the cheatsheet automatically calculates projected point totals for each player based on the advanced projections that you choose.

Be forewarned that these cheatsheets are designed to work in Excel 2007-2010 and were designed in Windows. The Mac version of Excel (and older versions of Excel) have been known to have problems when trying to operate these cheatsheets. Also, Microsoft has a few security features which makes opening these spreadsheets more annoying than it should be. If you have the default security settings, you'll be asked if you want to enable macros when opening this spreadsheet and you must enable macros in order for this cheatsheet to work! In addition, Microsoft may point out that the file originated from an internet location so you will have to click the button that says Enable Editing. You can always change your settings in Excel so you don't get asked that again but those are two hiccups you might encounter before you get to play around in the sandbox here. Now that you've been prepped, go ahead and download your cheatsheet of choice:

2013 Roto Cheatsheet

2013 Roto Auction Cheatsheet

2013 Points League Cheatsheet

Data included for this v1.0 release:

CAIRO projections
Steamer projections
Fangraphs Fan projections
MockDraftCentral ADP data
RotoChamp dollar values
CBS Sportsline dollar values
ESPN rankings
RotoChamp rankings
Hardball Times rankings
CBS Sportsline rankings
Combined rankings (average of available rankings)

While most drafts haven't started yet, please feel free to test these out and suggest new features or possible fixes prior to the final releases of these sheets in March.

Will Middlebrooks | 2013 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

2013-01-30T10:00:00.002-05:00

When it comes to identifying the next fantasy baseball breakout players, Mr. Cheatsheet's method helps narrow the field. I use a data-driven method to filter the draft pool to a small number of potential sleepers that are worthy of deeper consideration. As I laid out in the research behind this, my method here has been successful in finding breakout players as 64% of the sleeper candidates identified over the past five years returned value much greater than expected from their draft slots. In 2013, there are four players who meet the criteria. Today, we'll look at one of those four as we try to determine if Will Middlebrooks (3B, BOS) could be one of the 64%.

Why He's Here

A fifth round draft pick in 2007, Middlebrooks grew into a monster prospect over the past few years which culminated with him being crowned the top prospect in the Red Sox organization going into 2012. The only problem was that Kevin Youkilis, the Greek God of Walks, was blocking his path at 3B. That soon worked itself out as Middlebrooks was called up in May this past year when Youkilis went on the DL. He came out swinging a hot bat as he had a .316 AVG with 6 HR's in his first month in the bigs. By the end of June, the Red Sox saw enough to put their trust fully in Middlebrooks and traded Youkilis away. He continued his hot play but unfortunately found his season over in August after breaking his wrist.

Despite the shortened season, Middlebrooks made quite the case for himself in 286 PA's as he crushed 15 HR's while hitting .288 over half a season. Keeping that pace over the course of a full season would certainly put him among the elite producers in fantasy baseball at a thin position. Despite his sky-high potential, his ADP is currently 166 which makes him a 14th round pick in a 12 team league. Huge potential with low risk: this is what we look for in our sleepers. And that is why he is a potential narco candidate.

Why He Might Fail

The main thing that makes Middlebrooks an attractive player is his power. The decent batting average and scattering of stolen bases are fine but if he hits 15 HR's then those suddenly look a lot less valuable. His potential RBI numbers look good but those also hinge on the premise that he can hit gaudy HR numbers.

The unfortunate thing is that the HitTracker HR data doesn't paint the picture of Middlebrooks being a natural power hitter during his major league career thus far. Despite hitting 15 HR's last year, more than half of them were Just Enough HR's which is far above the MLB average and is usually evidence of a player getting quite lucky with his HR's. In addition, the average speed of his HR's (another indicator of power potential) was merely at the MLB average as opposed to being among the top hitters in the game that regularly hit 30 HR's. These are red flags which point to Middlebrooks maybe being lucky to even hit 20 HR's next year and definitely not a candidate to hit 30 HR's.

However, the biggest concern for Middlebrooks is his wrist injury. Power hitters and wrist injuries do not mix well. One common theory when it comes to recovering from a wrist injury is that it takes a full year for a player to return to hitting normally. If that's the case then we might not see Middlebrooks hitting to his full potential until around August of this season. If he struggles out of the gate due to the injured wrist then we could see a myriad of things happen (more DL time? send him back to the minors to work on his swing? bench him? loss of confidence?). No matter what happens as he recovers, fantasy owners don't want to have to deal with it for over half the season.

Why He Might Come Through

In roto leagues, he has the potential to give you positive value across the board. He shows big power potential with decent batting average and enough speed to add some value in SB's too. The fact that he is playing at the thin 3B position is just icing on the cake.

While his AVG isn't anything to make a roto team owner salivate, he should hit somewhere in the .275 to .290 range and that's good enough for a roto team considering his other skills. Last year, his AVG was .288 and we really shouldn't expect that to rise any higher nor should we expect a huge dip from that though. His BABIP was about where you'd expect it to be last year which indicates that his AVG wasn't inflated by luck and his xAVG based on last year's batted ball profile calculated to .279 which shows further evidence of that as well. Hitting at around that mark would certainly be fine if he can continue to hit for power and steal some bases.

We have a rather small sample size of major league data to go off of so it is hard to draw complete conclusions yet. However, initial scouting reports for Middlebrooks tell the tale of a player who should hit for power regularly. Early on, most scouting reports tabbed him as having 25+ HR power potential with one report saying "I see him as a .280 hitter with the potential for 30 HR seasons and full time starter defense at 3B."

But, who cares about scouts? What do the stat geeks think?

Well, Bill James is on board. His projections show Middlebrooks coming up with the following numbers in 565 PA: .277 AVG, 29 HR, 99 RBI, 75 R, 11 SB. That seems extremely optimistic at first glance but it wouldn't be far off from Middlebrooks' 2011 minor league numbers. If we stretch out his 472 minor league PA's in 2011 to be 565 PA's like James projects then his numbers would have been: .285 AVG, 27.5 HR, 112.5 RBI, 74 R, 12 SB. So, there is some rationale for James' projection. In regards to his power potential, we still haven't touch upon the fact that he was crushing the ball in the minors last year prior to getting called up as he hit 9 HR's in 24 games there.

Scouting reports and stat geeks agree that Middlebrooks is an above average offensive force and the Red Sox showed a lot of faith in him as well by trading Youkilis. Despite all of this, his price tag is relatively cheap for fantasy owners right now. That may be the last time we say that for a while though if he produces as expected.

Conclusion

I think the good outweighs the bad here. While he is certainly not a lock to be a stud 3B, there are a lot of good signs here and his current ADP makes him fairly low risk. Even if Middlebrooks doesn't pan out, you could easily recover from your 14th round pick being a bust. However, I do think that he has the potential to deliver early-round value from that draft spot and is definitely worth reaching for given his offensive potential and the fact that he is at a thin fantasy position.