2011 - Draft Kits, Dollar Values, Draft Software

[bookiebob]

We did this each year at our old site, and it seemed to be pretty valuable. I will be updating the links as they become published.

Here is a collection of sites that can help you dominate your 2011 Fantasy Baseball league.
We prefer to list free sites, but if you have an excellent paid option, please list it here.
Post the places you trust, or the places that suck!


Draft Kits/Player Rankings:

Razzball.com
Highly recommended with daily comments from Grey and Rudy and Stephen.
Free!

Razzball Fantasy Baseball War Room
It's an Excel spread sheet with lots of features! Versions for snake or auction drafts.
Simply Fred takes over the War Room for Lou Poulas.

Rotoworld.com
$19.99

Mastersball.com
Lawr Michaels and Todd Zola
$34.95

Rotowire.com
Jeff Erickson - Includes draft software.
$14.99 or $39.99

CBSSports.com
Free!

ESPN.com
Free!

Fantasy Baseball Cafe - Average Draft Position
User "rookies and cream" has a spreadsheet he calls Median Draft Position. It's very nice work, and it's free!
"The MDP list is a compilation of ADP's from various sites. In the end, ADP's from Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, Mock Draft Central, Couch Managers, Fantasy Gameday, and NFBC will be accounted for in the report."
Free!

Fantasy Baseball Cafe - The Spreadsheet
User J35J offers his spreadsheet projections - feedback there seems quite positive, but you have to post and ask for the sheet.
Free!

Baseball Monster
No data for 2011 yet, but 2010 dataset looks interesting.
$14.95

Fantistics.com
$44.95 includes draft software.

The Hardball Times
$14.95

Ziguana.com
"Power algorithms for everyone, the perfect storm of fantasy junkies and statistical magicians."
No data for 2011 yet.
Maybe free, maybe $10.00

RotoChamp.com
"Rankings, Projections, Draft Software"
Looks well done technically - up to you on projections.
$34.95 - Special $10.00 off through 2/9


Dollar Values:

Diamond Draft.com
Free! (Internet Explorer only - Firefox won't generate values)

ThomasGeorge.com
Free!

LastPlayerPicked.com
Free!

FantasySportsCentral.com
$7.95


Draft Software:

Diamond Draft Software
$19.95

Rotowire.com
$14.99 or $39.99, includes software and draft kit above.

DraftTracker
2011 update in early February
Another spreadsheet from the users at Fantasy Baseball Cafe. Projections, but no dollar values.
Free!

[SwaggerJackers]

Just a heads up that the ThomasGeorge dollar values link doesn't work.

Nice collection though.

[bookiebob]

Thanks SJ - link now fixed!

[Paper Tiger]

As a point of caution for newer players. Use CBS and ESPN as reference tools but don't put alot of stock in their numbers.

[hasenmensch]

Nice list; thanks, BB. The past couple years I have used Fantistics.com's draft software for prep for my auction league. It's expensive ($45), but for that you download a program onto your computer that has a fair amount of useful historical stats for players, plus projections, comments, status changes, etc. I still need to go to fangraphs to get certain past stats (e.g. xFIP), but the Fantistics stuff is still fairly useful and easy to use. You can innput your league's settings, keeper inflation info, even stuff like how aggressive/conservative your fellow owners are. You can also download updates on an almost daily basis right up to Opening Day. I can't say for sure that their draft package is worth the fairly high price, but given the amount of time I spend pursuing this hobby, I don't mind shelling out some cash for a draft package like this. (It costs me a helluva lot less than my mountain biking addiction costs me.)

I have also used rotowire and rotoworld in the past; they're both OK, definitely better than CBS Sports and ESPN. In my experience I would rank rotoworld a little higher, but that may just be my preference for the rotoworld site.

[SwaggerJackers]

I used the Razzball War Room spreadsheet for my auction draft last year. It's a nice tool if your league uses standard 5x5 rules and you want the CHONE projections in there.

When I started messing around with it to get other stats plugged in I broke it. Halfway through the draft I noticed all the calculations were all wrong and I had to scrap it and free style. Drinking the whole draft might have had something to do with it too.

[LMack]

Used J35J's spreadsheet last year and its very well done.

[Akston]

One of the things I've done every year is a "wisdom of the crowds" aggregate of the 6-8 places/people that make projections.

It's becoming easier, and therefore offers less utility as Fangraphs starts to add more and more on their site, but it's fairly easy and something I do anyways, so I could post it if people care.

[carlos marmLOL]

don't sleep on Ziguana. while there's not a lot of info on how their projections are derived, it's a lot like Baseball Monster in automating the process of z-scores customized to your league categories. it's more of a valuable in-season tool particularly if you need to look at who on your bench or on the wire is hot across certain categories. $10 well spent last year, might be free this year (so they claim).

[shitbird]

Has anyone used/heard anything about Roto Champ? http://www.rotochamp.com/default.aspx
I've seen the ads right here on Razzball and it looks like a dressed up version of the war room.

It's 34.95 though on sale for 24.95 until the end of today (Feb 9)

Thanks.

P.S. Thanks for this post bookiebob.