This year we have four representatives. Long-time Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy (football and baseball versions) user cgod won a free entry last year to a 2011 NFBC satellite league in our giveaway contest, and another long-time CC/DB user BeanTown won a similar entry for a most excellent showing in our inaugural DraftBuddy.com Whitey Herzog league in 2010.

These two, along with Rick again, and myself, each drafted our teams in separate NFBC satellite leagues in the past few weeks. With the season underway, here are the rosters of our teams for everyone to cheer for all-season long. The rosters are shown with the starting lineup for the first week, followed by the seven bench spots, including who the top five picks were for each team.

Good luck cgod, BeanTown, Rick and, well, good luck to me too. Come on Ian Stewart, stay healthy and keep your job.

This question has come up a few times this year, and that is, “Where is the option for my head-to-head league in the Cheatsheet Compiler? I only see options for roto or fantasy points.” I think this is confusing some people, so I want to clear the air on why there is no head-to-head option in the Compiler.

Head-to-Head and Rotisserie are not mutually exclusive, meaning any particular fantasy baseball league does not distinguish between a head-to-head format, and roto. It can be both, or it can be neither, or it can be one and not the other.

There are two main questions we need answered to understand how a fantasy baseball league is structured. They are:

1. Does the league use head-to-head matchups (usually weekly) or cumulative points (usually for the season, but it can be split regular season and playoffs) to decide what fantasy team ultimately wins or loses the league?

2. Does the league use a rotisserie format or award fantasy points to teams based on how each team’s real world baseball players perform and accumulate real world stats in the box score?

I like to think of these questions and answers in a small two-by-two matrix.

As you can see, these options give us four possible combinations of fantasy league format.

1. Head-to-head, roto
2. Head-to-head, fantasy points
3. Cumulative, roto
4. Cumulative, fantasy points

This is typically not something that comes up with fantasy football leagues because 99% of them are head-to-head, fantasy points. It is generally accepted when discussing fantasy football it will be that format, so no one even mentions it.

Fantasy baseball is much more diversified. Traditionally, roto was king, coupled with cumulative scoring for the season. None of this luck of the draw, playing a different opponent in your league each week whose players may have an exceptionally good or bad streak determining if you get a win or a loss. It would seem roto and cumulative scoring still account for the majority of leagues, but head-to-head and fantasy points are both increasing in popularity. We can likely thank (or jeer) the fantasy football crowd for that as more of them expand their horizons and take up fantasy baseball through the spring and summer.

Getting back to the Cheatsheet Compiler, does this still beg the question where the head-to-head versus cumulative option is on the setup tab? My opinion on that is we would not radically, if at all, change the way we value and rank the players whether it is a head-to-head or cumulative format league.

The projections that the rankings are based off of are for the season, not broken down weekly. It would be hard to imagine breaking down the projections weekly so they had any predictive statistical value. What I mean is, it would be a lot of work, a lot more complex and have no benefit.

So, the projections are for the season whether we are using a head-to-head (weekly) or cumulative (season) league format or not. The measured contributions by each player to your fantasy results are unable to account for weekly fluctuations in a player’s stats that could be relevant for head-to-head.

It is possible for a player with lower total stats for the season to be more valuable in a head-to-head league than a player with higher total stats, because of those fluctuations. Say Player A, whose stats are up and down like a yo-yo, contributes greatly to a bunch of wins your fantasy team earns that they wouldn’t otherwise get, while similarly not hurting you too much on his low off weeks. Player B on the other hand puts up good overall numbers, but is completely average about it. Just chugging along, earning his stats with no highs or lows. Player A is probably more valuable in head-to-head, while Player B is more valuable in cumulative.

This can happen. However, when ranking players for your draft, we are predicting the future, and we are playing the probabilities about that future – what players will be better or worse than others? What is the risk? What is the upside? Is Chase Utley more likely to play 140 games, or 40? Assessing these questions is weighing the probability of each possible outcome and then projecting and ultimately ranking the player accordingly.

My opinion on ranking players for head-to-head versus cumulative is that, playing the probabilities, drafting the players you expect to perform better overall for the season, will most likely (by a wide margin) give you the players who will be more valuable on a weekly basis for head-to-head. Hence, there is no option in the Compiler for head-to-head versus cumulative. It isn’t going to impact anything with respect to ranking players on the cheatsheets.

Now, I understand there are some small considerations you may make strategy-wise that are unique for head-to-head leagues. You may want to stream pitchers more, if the league allows for that flexibility with your waivers, so can get more two-start pitchers into your lineup on any given week. You may be more apt to punt a category (roto scoring) if you feel it gives you a better shot at building a lineup to win the majority of other categories each week.

These factors are not enough to sway me from the prior thought though. I’m not going to rank players any differently whether a head-to-head or cumulative format, which is why the Compiler doesn’t do it. The Cheatsheet Compiler does rank players for head-to-head leagues (and cumulative format leagues). There just isn’t an explicit option to choose between them, because it isn’t necessary.

Probably not, but after three long years since Microsoft’s fateful decision that rendered the Compiler & Draft Buddy unable to function in the newest Mac Office at the time, Office 2008, a new day is born and we are, as they say, back in business with the now newest Mac Office, Office 2011.

Here is some history for those who don’t know the sordid tale. The Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy have been around since, oh, the year 2000 I believe. In fact, it was probably earlier under a different name and resided solely on my own home computer and no where else, and Draft Buddy didn’t even exist at the time. At any rate, from the time the fantasy football version made its first public appearance via the World Wide Web, it worked on Windows computers with Excel, and Mac computers with Excel.

The Compiler, and then Draft Buddy, always had backend programming in Visual Basic (macros) that they each required to do all of the amazing things they do with relative easy, like go through all the steps crunching the numbers to generate the cheatsheets, or simply draft a player in Buddy with the touch of a button.

Things were running along hunky-dory for our Windows users and our Mac users, and it is safe to say we were the only fantasy draft tool that serviced both sets of users. Other fantasy draft tools that appeared on the scene after ours were Windows software, meaning Windows only. As far as I know, there was no similar software developed for Mac-toting fantasy players.

There is software for Mac that allows the installation of Windows and related programs, but really, who wants to bastardize their Mac that way? Aren’t you on a Mac in the first place to get away from Windows? (Or is it to get away from Microsoft and Office defeats the purpose of that? Hmm…)

Anyway, getting back to the story, in late 2007 to early 2008 Microsoft, to put it bluntly, screwed us. The release of Mac Office 2008 did not support existing Visual Basic macros in any way, shape or form. They just wouldn’t work. Any Word document or Excel file (ah!) that used macros to perform some all important tasks were essentially rendered useless on Macs.

Microsoft had their reasons, both public and private I’m sure. That didn’t help us any. Many long hours tirelessly researching this issue offered zero practical solution short of rebuilding the Compiler & Draft Buddy from the ground up with something else, which for a variety of reasons that I don’t want to get into couldn’t happen, or telling people, “sorry, it doesn’t work on a Mac if you have Mac Office 2008.” Still have an older version of Excel on your Mac? Great. No? Damn.

So, we’ve been stuck with that disclaimer on our favorite fantasy draft tools, again, both baseball and football, for three years. That is the history. Today it truly is history, because Office 2008 is off the shelves and it has been replaced with Mac Office 2011. Mac Office 2011 supports Visual Basic, so the macros work once again. Hooray!

Although I guess we still have the disclaimer for those of you still on Mac Office 2008. Certainly I believe owning the flawed version of Office should automatically entitle people to a free upgrade to the now correct working version, Microsoft doesn’t see it that way of course. While I don’t expect everyone to instantly go and upgrade from Office 2008 to Office 2011, and that really might not fly in a corporate environment, I will offer up that Mac Office 2011 is not prohibitively expensive. The S.R.P. on the Home & Student version is $150. That isn’t too bad for an office suite depending on your circumstances.

If your work computer is also your primary, ahem, fantasy baseball computer, then perhaps you can sell your IT department how you need macro support to make preparing the monthly BABIP reports much more efficient. “The BABIP reports! The executive committee needs the BABIP reports!” Voila, upgraded Mac Office.

Failing these first two options, there is a great third option which works wonders for one year, or one year per computer. You can download a fully-functioning trial version of Mac Office (Windows Office too) which works for 30 days. Check your calendar, and at this point I would wager 90% of fantasy baseball drafts will be complete prior to 30 days from now. In another week, that number should be nearly 100%.

Now I’ve given you this history, and more importantly, the great news that there is a fantasy baseball custom ranking and draft tool that works on a Mac, let’s celebrate. Anyone up for a mock draft… on their Mac?

I was editing Rick’s article about overvalued and undervalued hitters, and it included a lot of Average Draft Position (ADP) numbers referenced from Mock Draft Central (MDC). Upon close inspection, Rick’s numbers, converted to a round and draft pick, didn’t match the numbers from the Cheatsheet Compiler, and that got me to take an even closer look at what the heck was going on to cause the discrepancy.

All players in the ADP table are sorted by their ADP from lowest to highest, representing which players are, on average, drafted earlier than other players. This creates essentially a ranking list from number one – first to get drafted on average – all the way down to as far as the ADP data travels – last to get drafted on average.

Average Draft Position (ADP) from the Cheatsheet Compiler, updated February 14, 2011

At the top end of the ADP table included in the Compiler and with data from MDC, we have Albert Pujols: Rank 1st, ADP 1.0, High 1, Low 2, Adjusted 1.01

The adjusted number is a formula in the Compiler which converts the ADP number to an equivalent draft pick based on the number of teams in your league.

Next in line, Hanley Ramirez: Rank 2nd, ADP 2.2, High 2, Low 4, Adjusted 1.02

This all seems fine and dandy. Pujols is on average the first player drafted and therefore has an expected draft pick of 1.01. Ramirez is on average the second player drafted, giving him an expected draft pick of 1.02.

This goes on and on like this down the table until we get to the later drafted players. Particularly, the players who have a Low drafted of “ND”, or not drafted, in some mock drafts.

For these players, a wide spread is being created between the ranking and the calculated ADP from MDC. The further down the list we go, these key numbers – Rank and ADP – are getting further and further apart.

ADP with the Adjusted column calculated using the old method, based on ADP.

When players aren’t drafted in a particular mock draft, they receive a penalty addition to their ADP calculation, to ensure their ADP is not too low (i.e. which would indicate they are drafted earlier than they actually are on average), which I agree with, but it seems to be inflating the ADP number. Check the spread between Rank and ADP for players drafted beyond pick 200 overall. Some examples:

Jaime Garcia: Rank 200, ADP 265.6, High 147, Low ND, Adjusted 19.14

Ty Wigginton: Rank 218, ADP 311.3, High 190, Low ND, Adjusted 23.03

Luke Scott: Rank 281, ADP 435.1, High 199, Low ND, Adjusted 32.01

The reason I’m pointing this out is because it impacts the Adjusted calculation, which is the number that means the most to us in terms of referencing where a player is expected to be drafted. The Adjusted numbers get translated to the cheatsheets.

In prior years, and version 1.0 of the 2011 Cheatsheet Compiler, the Adjusted calc was based on the ADP number. I mean, that is the ADP, so why would we think it shouldn’t be based on the ADP? It says right there that Ty Wigginton is on average the 311th player off the board, which translates to an early 23rd round pick (14-team league).

Wait a second though. He isn’t on average the 311th player off the board. There are only 217 players ranked in front of him with a lower ADP. He’s on average the 218th player off the board. That translates to a mid-16th round pick. That is a huge difference, a 23rd versus a 16th round pick.

ADP with the Adjusted column calculated using the new method, based on Rank.

So which is it? Logically, the Rank has more relevance in determining the projected round and draft pick for a particular player. I still trust the order that MDC has developed as a result of its ADP calculations, but effective with version 1.5 of the 2011 Cheatsheet Compiler, the Adjusted calculation is now based on Rank, not ADP. The chart on the right shows the same table as above, but with the new ADP formula based on Rank.

This should result in little to no difference for players in the top half of the ADP table, because their Rank and ADP are very similar. Where we will see major differences are later drafted players. Ultimately, this will provide better information on our cheatsheets from which to make our draft day decisions.

The picture on the left is the view out my front door. The one on the right is out the back porch, showing a nice accumulation of snow on the patio furniture. We had intentions of covering the furniture with a tarp for winter, but since its been in roughly this state since early November we’ll just roll with it uncovered until spring and see what happens. At any rate, in this winter wonderland surrounding me, now is the perfect time to think about spring (please spring, come any time now) and … fantasy baseball!

Yes, consider this your pre-official introduction to the introduction to fantasy baseball season at DraftBuddy.com. The official welcome back is yet to come, but as some fantasy sites are starting to roll we wanted to get the word out that we will be back after a nice pre-season of fantasy baseball content a year ago.

Last year represented a step up from previous efforts providing the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy, Fantasy Baseball Version, to our CC/DB Fantasy Football Version users. In 2010 we created our own modest Draft Kit including Rick Milleman’s projections (included in the Compiler of course), rankings, sleepers, busts and a handful of articles such as his popular Consensus Top Prospects chart.

We also had the honor of publishing Scott Rudicil’s (a.k.a. Bodhizefa) Tiers of Starting Pitching, your ultimate pre-season guide to help draft your fantasy pitching rotation. Antonio D’Arcangelis helped us out tremendously with his Tiers of Relief Pitching, including closer rankings.

For my part, in addition to the Compiler, Draft Buddy, Projection Pal and all the tech support that went with that, I created some demo videos on YouTube which were popular (and not as easy to do as my natural acting talent made it look). We added player stats, player pages and depth charts to the website, plus games played by position. The stats pages are now updated for the 2010 season.

We also had some great discussion in the baseball forum and sponsored the inaugural DB.com Whitey Herzog fantasy baseball league, which was hotly contested all season by CC/DB customers and went right down to the wire with yours truly finally finishing in top spot. Wow, it was a great league last year and seriously was a battle at the top with a new number one team swapping into that first spot almost daily for a long stretch. I feel lucky to have pulled that one out at the end.

Okay, that is the review of what we accomplished in 2010. For 2011, we plan to take another step forward with our fantasy baseball content to make it an even better year than last year. Without giving too much away, and mostly, because nothing is set in stone and I don’t want to over-promise, let me just tell you where we are at now and when to expect we’ll get ourselves really rolling:

• Compiler and Draft Buddy for 2011 are in development currently. I always feel like mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein when I’m in this stage rolling over the prior year CC/DB to the new year. “It’s alive!”
• As mentioned, player stats are up from the 2010 season.
• We are working on the depth charts as I type this. They will be continuously updated through spring training and the updates included in the Compiler.
• Mock Draft Central agreed to give us access to their Average Draft Position (ADP) data to include in the Compiler this year. That will be great, and thanks MDC!
• In case you haven’t noticed, Rick continued to provide some fantasy articles the past couple months with his deep prospects series, the latest of which profiled Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.
• Rick is working on the projections and we’re going to get him cued up to fill the 2011 Draft Kit with as much content as his students, wife and kids will let him accomplish the next three months. At least he doesn’t have to shovel any snow – much.
• I would love us to have another fantasy baseball league or leagues with CC/DB customers. We’ll fill the Robbie Alomar league first and if we have enough interest, the Bert Byleven league after that.

Okay, I’d better get back to work. If you’d like to help contribute to DraftBuddy.com to get your baseball acumen published, then drop me an email so we can discuss it. Or if you just see something that isn’t working right let me know that too. Feedback is always welcome and helps us improve to get where we are going. Thanks for your time.

Mike MacGregor, owner/operator of DraftBuddy.com, started the Herzog league and is the commissioner. He opened it up to all of his Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy customers, and 14 stepped up to the challenge to take on Mike, with me his draft day conscience to prevent him from drafting Toronto Blue Jays rounds ahead of their average draft position, if at all.

The league is a 15-team 5X5 roto, mixed (AL + NL) format. Given the difficulties coordinating 15 middle aged guys each with a wife, kids and a job (sometimes all three) to find time for a live draft, we arranged for a slow draft using a timer running Monday to Friday, morning to night. The timer turned off on the weekend and overnight.

Choosing Our League Management Software

To our surprise, the only major player amongst the online fantasy baseball league managers—CBS, ESPN and Yahoo—that offered a slow draft option, with a timer and the ability for owners to input pre-draft selections, was CBS. For this reason, CBS clearly met our needs better than the rest.

CBS also has the ability to input weekly lineups with exceptions, the exceptions being swapping starters midweek who unexpectedly go on the disabled list. That was one of the planned rules for this league. The starting lineup options for the other league managers were much more restrictive in this respect. It was daily or weekly, and that is it.

Plus, CBS has all the bells and whistles that make it the fantasy sports leader that is it—live scoring, integrated chat, quick and helpful customer service and the ability to manage our teams from mobile devices like the iPhone.

CBS also offers keeper league support, although we didn’t need that this year. If you want to start your own fantasy baseball league on CBS, make sure to use the 50% off discount available through Bleacher Report.

Unique Draft Order Selection

One unique thing incorporated into this league is what is called a Kentucky Derby Style draft preference, or KDS for short. Each owner submitted a list of what pick in the draft they prefer to have the most, then second most, third most, etc. for all 15 potential draft spots.

Once every owner submitted their preferences, then a random draw was held of all owners, and the owner who won the random draw got their first preference, which was not necessarily the first pick in the draft.

The second name out of the hat got their first preference if it wasn’t taken, and if it was then they got their second preference.

This is a really great system, because at the end of the day, most if not all owners end up with a draft pick closer to what they prefer to have than what they would have ended up via the commonly used, complete random draft order.

In this league, the first four teams out of the hat got their first preference. The first team got their second preference. Even the ninth team out of the hat happened to get their first choice for draft pick. Here is how it all fleshed out, so you can see the advantage of using KDS:

1 – mhilt11 …… will draft 1st
2 – cdeboer …… will draft 3rd (first choice)
3 – Cubbiesyear .. will draft 6th (first choice)
4 – garf112 …… will draft 2nd (first choice)
5 – cpsilo1 …… will draft 3 13th (second choice)
6 – parvinator … will draft 1 2 3 4th (fourth choice)
7 – posbaby …… will draft 1 2 3 4 5th (fifth choice)
8 – Mike ……… will draft 2 3 1 11th (fourth choice)
9 – bump14057 …. will draft 7th (first choice)
10 – ezcollectibles . will draft 4 3 5 6 2 1 8th (seventh choice)
11 – katanga …….. will draft 1 2 15th (third choice)
12 – rightwingtroll . will draft 1 2 3 15 14th (fifth choice)
13 – mvayp1 ……… will draft 3 2 1 15 14 6 8 4 5 9th (10th choice)
14 – therobsclub …. will draft 1 2 3 4 5 7 6 8 15 14 9 10th (12th choice)
15 – BeanTown ……. will draft 12th (15th choice – sorry JB!)

Draft Results

Finally, we were ready for the draft to begin. It kicked off on Wednesday March 17 in the morning and finished off just over eight days later, the evening of Wednesday March 24.

That is a pretty good clip at almost four rounds a day, and shows that even a fairly large and deep league—with a commissioner who is on people to pre-draft often—can finish a slow draft in time for the start of baseball season. A league of 10 or 12 teams, with 23-24 starters could even go much quicker.

Here is an image of the draft results through the first three rounds, and no surprise, Albert Pujols is first off the board with Hanley Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez following right after him.

The league starting lineup requirements are as follows:

2-C, 1-1B, 1-2B, 1-3B, 1-SS, 5-OF, 1-CI, 1-MI, 1-UT and 9-P (any mix of starters and relievers)

The two catcher requirement, especially in a 15-team league, does bump the value of that position a fair bit. Finding five starting quality OF is not insignificant, and having no requirements on starting versus relief pitching does open that up for owners to try a LIMA approach, as long as they meet the minimum innings mark of 700 IP for the season.

There was definitely a difference of opinion on the importance of getting an ace on your staff. Tim Lincecum was the only pitcher pulled in the first round, but then Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez and Adam Wainright went in the top half of Round 2.

Through three rounds it gets interesting, because at that point two teams each owned two starting pitchers, and then one of those teams grabbed a third in Round 4. Team mvayp1 is building his team with pitching starting with Wainright, C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee to go with Ryan Howard drafted in Round 1.

The first relief pitchers went in the fourth—Jonathan Papelbon, Jonathan Broxton and Mariano Rivera. Then teams seemed to pick away at the relievers a bit at a time at one to two per round through the next dozen rounds until nearly all of the projected starting closers were taken.

Jays’ 2B Aaron Hill, a player everyone and their mother is predicting to seriously regress from his career year last season, went at the end of Round 4. There is sure to be one person in most leagues who will still take a chance on Hill that last year wasn’t a fluke. Similarly, 2B Ben Zobrist went at the top of Round 4.

Sophomore C Matt Wieters went in the middle of Round 7. Superstar in waiting OF Jason Heyward went in the eighth round. If you want the upside these guys offer then you are probably going to have to pay a premium in drafts this weekend and next week.

At the time of this draft, there were a lot of uncertainty about the health and expected playing time of Mets SS Jose Reyes. Reyes amazingly dropped all the way to the 9th round, which looks like an absolute bargain right now.

There are a lot of comments that could be made on many specific players and picks, but you can review the complete draft results for yourself. Also review the team rosters to see how each team came together.

The Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy provides projected team stats and roto standings, based on projected starters. The results are shown below.

Good luck to everyone drafting this weekend, and if you don’t have your league setup online yet, or aren’t happy with the league manager you’re using now, check out CBS with the special Bleacher Report discount offer.

I’d like to do something similar for fantasy baseball as a thank you for supporting the cause in 2010. I have two problems that prevent me from doing it along exactly the same lines though. One, with a much smaller customer base the big money contest is not really an option. “Win $50!” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Two, I can’t think of a contest idea that groups us all together in one big competition for baseball season. Hold that, I actually do have an idea to convert one of my football contests to baseball, but the program is not ready, I don’t have a stats feed, and, and, and… no time to put it together right now. That idea is on the shelve for now.

Here is what I want to do though—let’s run some fantasy baseball leagues at DraftBuddy.com.

Now, while I’m sure the competition and trash talking will be nice enough on its own, we aren’t going to just play for pride. I want to start sending some of you—the best of our best—on the road to the National Fantasy Baseball Championship.

First, since we don’t know the best of our best right now, we are going to have a random draw for an entry in a 2010 $125 NFBC Satellite League, with first prize being an entry in the 2011 NFBC Classic, otherwise known as the mother of all fantasy baseball championships. Entry into the 2010 NFBC Classic is $1,300 where the winner amongst 405 teams walks away with a $100,000 grand prize.

Second, we’re going to play one or more sub-satellite leagues amongst Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy customers. We’ll start forming the leagues this week and get drafting soon. The winner (if we have one league) or draw amongst the winners (if we have more than one league) wins an entry in a 2011 $125 NFBC Satellite League.

For obvious reasons, I’d like to replicate the NFBC Satellites as close as possible. They are 15 team, 5X5 mixed roto leagues. We might not get to 15 teams, but the nice thing about not playing head-to-head is we have some flexibility there. There will be no trading, the same as the NFBC.

I’m likely to run the leagues on Yahoo! given the cost and I do believe it is a pretty reliable and slick system. Plus live scoring is free this year as an added bonus. It probably won’t allow us to do all the things we need, like FAAB waivers, but if it lets me make add/drops as commissioner when I want then I could run the FAAB offline. ESPN’s league manager is also a possibility I’m looking at if the drafting options are more flexible (slow draft with pre-selects).

Okay, that is the offer. What I need YOU to do is tell me if you are in or out. We don’t want to wait too long to get this going. If you’re on the fence about buying the Compiler & Draft Buddy Baseball, then maybe this is a little more incentive to get in. Drop a comment here, or on the message board, or shoot me an email.

I hope to see all of you in the leagues! Rick and I will also be playing, so come school us on your fantasy baseball knowledge, if you’re up for the challenge!

Family Day is a made up holiday to celebrate family and to promote time together and family values. After already spending three full days together—the kids had Friday off from school as well—a fourth day of togetherness was more than enough. Hello Tuesday! Let’s get to some baseball chatter.

Or in this case, let’s kick things off specifically with some Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy Baseball chatter. I’ve already received some great feedback on the 2010 Compiler & Draft Buddy, which I’m going to share with you. In the case of that feedback requiring some action by myself, I’ll tell you what I’ve done to remedy it or what I plan to do.

Trash talking sound effects play box found on the summary tab in Draft Buddy.

• Exspell sent me a bunch of feedback, not the least of which was, “hey, there are no sound files for Draft Buddy.”

  Whoops. Normally I package up the Compiler & Draft Buddy together into a zipped archive, including the sound files for Buddy. This year I decided just to upload unzipped versions so people can just copy the files anywhere on their computer and not have to deal with the confusion of running an install or unzipping the files, but I just plain forgot about the sound files.

  As soon as I’m done this blog post I will upload the sound files by themselves in a zip to the Compiler download page. Download to your computer and unzip so a /sounds/ folder (which will include the sound files in it) is in the same folder as you saved Draft Buddy. From there, the sounds should play in Buddy.

  Note the sounds still do not work on a Mac. Sorry Mac users.

• frankbama has an auction keeper league. He wants to input the keepers into Draft Buddy in advance, but doesn’t know the auction nomination order until draft night, so how does he handle that?

  I believe the best way to handle this is going to be to show you guys how to quickly alter the nomination order in Draft Buddy. It will be a custom (i.e. manual) inputting of the nomination order, or draft order for non-auctions, but instead of using every single drop-down which would take forever, some copy-paste action will get it done in a matter of a couple minutes.

  Lobby for the draft order or nomination order as soon as you arrive for your live draft, and you should have plenty of time to input the proper order without having to change the keepers already input in advance before people settle in for the draft.



Top ranked players available based on average draft position info box from the summary tab in Draft Buddy.

• Luis has an NL-only league, but noticed that Alex Rodriguez shows up in the “Top ADP Players Available” box on the summary tab in Draft Buddy.

  And it isn’t only A-Rod, but as the draft goes on other American League players will show up there. Basically, the ADP does not distinguish between AL-only and NL-only leagues. I’m going to have to fiddle with formulas in each of the Compiler and Buddy so we get a AL-only or NL-only ADP list for those leagues.

  If I get anything accomplished with regards to this for this season, then it will probably be on the simple side of things and just blank out the opposite league players, and won’t adjust the expected draft round of each player. Definitely something to work on for the future though.

• Cubbiesyear asked a simple enough question yesterday—where is the download link?

  I am still working out the kinks of this new website design and subscription management software. However, not too many people have gotten lost yet so it seems to work pretty well, for the most part.

  If you are logged in, then you can click on your username which is in what I call the member bar, located to the right of the logo and just below the navigation links. That will take you to your member page. This shows you your current subscription status (free or free + Compiler & Draft Buddy), plus links to change your password and profile, and a link to the download page for the Compiler, Draft Buddy and Projection Pal.

  Eventually what I would like to do is have the website better recognize you are logged in (or not) and if you are and you’ve already purchased, then show the download link and not continue to show the order links.

• Last one. elephantman1237 asked if the Compiler & Draft Buddy will work on a Mac with Microsoft Office 2004.

  Absolutely. Any Mac Office version prior to Mac Office 2008 is fine. It is the newest Office, Mac Office 2008, which we have issues with because Microsoft stripped out the Visual Basic support, so those dandy macros which are kind of crucial—Compile Cheatsheets, Update Projections, Setup Draft Buddy, etc., etc.—do not work.

  I am currently in discussions with a developer to help fix this problem for future versions of the CC/DB, and I’ll give you progress updates as there are updates to give.

To everyone who has already purchased the 2010 Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy Baseball, thanks a bunch! Your support helps us keep doing what we’re doing, trying to help you win your fantasy league(s), something we are very passionate about.

Its weird, I feel like we’re behind, when in fact we usually release the Baseball Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy in late, late February or early March.

Last year Rick and I agreed for him to get the projections done earlier, and for me to get the software done earlier, because it seemed like a lot of fantasy baseball sites were already going steady last year at this time. Now when I look around, it seems like a lot of fantasy baseball sites are already going steady.

Football season is now officially over though, so toss your helmet and grab your cap and glove. Spring is in the air (ignoring the sub-freezing temperatures outside my door for a minute). Here is where we stand on the baseball front as of today, two days after the Super Bowl:

• Rick’s player projections are up on the website. Sortable, deep, and I pushed Rick to include Blown Saves and Holds this year. Thanks Rick!
• Version 1.0 of the Baseball Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy are available for download. We’ve already had a few eager beavers wander over and sign up for 2010. Thanks to you guys!
• Rick is updating the ever changing depth charts, and he’s written a few team overviews in the fantasy baseball blog.
• Don’t forget the player stats, games played by position and player pages.

All in all, that is not a bad start I think. Over the next two months however, we plan to get a whole lot better.

Rick will be consistently updating the projections and depth charts, which will also provide updates for the Cheatsheet Compiler. As usual I’ll tackle the Compiler & Draft Buddy tech support via email and our message board.

We are working towards a complete draft kit this year, complementing the projections plus Compiler & Draft Buddy with player rankings, average draft position data (already included in the CC/DB), mock draft results, sleepers, busts and other articles.

If you feel like you (a) know your fantasy baseball, (b) can write with nearly perfect spelling and grammar, and (c) can entertain us in the process, and want to contribute to the cause, then drop me an email with your idea.

Also, in terms of feedback and new feature suggestions for the Compiler, Draft Buddy or the website, I’d love to hear those as well.

How to contact me? A few ways. I have yet another email address for this website, mike@draftbuddy.com. The message board works too, but you’ll need to register an account (for free) if you don’t already have one.

You can also connect with us for updates via the new Compiler & Draft Buddy Facebook Fan Page, and Twitter @DraftBuddy.

Anyone who registers at the website will be included in our semi-regular newsletter, which you can specify by topic or topics you are interested in – fantasy baseball, fantasy football, fantasy hockey or sports pools from former home of the CC/DB and sister site MyOfficePool.ca.

Okay, enough talk and time for me to get back to work. Enjoy the baseball stuff we have right now, especially the Compiler & Draft Buddy, and expect more and more baseball content to fill up this website as we countdown to your fantasy baseball drafts. Are you ready?

The reason for the move is because, well, it is time. Our flagship product is and always will be the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy fantasy baseball and fantasy football draft tools. The football version is 10 years old if you can believe it. Where has the time gone?

I somewhat regret putting the CC/DB at MyOfficePool.ca a few years ago when I needed a home for them, but MOP was active and I didn’t relish the idea of maintaining two websites.

They truly deserve a site in their own name though. I wouldn’t still be doing this today if it wasn’t for the success of the Compiler and Draft Buddy. I’d be back doing accounting, likely, the thought of which sends a chill up my spine.

More importantly (I couldn’t help myself from taking a dig at accounting), since we’ve ramped up our fantasy sports coverage in the past year thanks in large part to the contributions of Dave, Rick, John, Iain, Craig and others, now is as good a time as any.

What does this mean? Simply, if you’re thinking the Compiler, Draft Buddy or fantasy sports information, head over to DraftBuddy.com. Note CheatsheetCompiler.com also works, but DraftBuddy.com got the nod given it is shorter and catchier.

If you’re thinking office pools like we’ve always had here, come to MyOfficePool.ca. If you want to play fantasy football, try Fantasy Throwdown. Maybe you’ve noticed the new images with links at the bottom of the page?

That is my (and by my, I mean ours to share) fantasy network. Yep, good thing I didn’t want to maintain two separate websites…

Updated Login, or “Why Doesn’t My Password Work Anymore?”

What else does this mean? Well, first off, your old login doesn’t work anymore. Sorry, but my hands were tied on that one. I installed some new member management software on DraftBuddy.com and one major benefit is that it tied together our forums and blog software so everyone could have a single username across each.

The downfall was that it couldn’t import your current passwords since they are encrypted (i.e. I can’t read them). Your existing username will work across both DraftBuddy.com and MyOfficePool.ca, but the password had to change.

To solve this, for now, try the get password box at DraftBuddy.com to retreive your password. Then you can login on that same page and update your password.

Failing that, email me with the password you’d like to reset your account to, and I’ll do that for you.

Send Your Feedback, Lend Us A Hand

What else does this mean? That is the bulk of it. Soon links to fantasy content at MyOfficePool.ca, including stat and player pages, should redirect to the same page at DraftBuddy.com. If you notice any flaws in this whole process with dead links or what have you, then please let me know.

We are continuing to try to expand our fantasy sports coverage for baseball, football and hockey. If you want to help contribute, then shoot me an email. If you have ideas to improve our fantasy sports content, Compiler, Draft Buddy or otherwise, then I want to hear about that too. I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head but as with all of us, only so much time on my hands. Your help and/or voice will help prioritize and make some of these ideas reality.

Thanks for listening. The next big thing on the agenda of course is the baseball version of the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy. Coming soon, to DraftBuddy.com!