My latest draft guide report combines the best features of my expert draft guide with the new additions of player age and my SHARB/SKEWP rankings. This new condensed format eliminates the need for the empty white space in the old expert draft guide, by including each player’s grade.
The new fantasy baseball draft guide report also puts the rankings in a consistent format, so that each report will always be ordered by the following positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B,SS, OF,SP, CL, MR, UH, UP.
Finally, the new version of SQL Server 2008 has allowed RotoRank reports of all types to be exported to Excel. With the ability to export files to Excel, you can modify them to meet your needs. You can color code players you reallylike for 2009, and those players you would prefer not to draft. You can eliminate columns that you don’t feel are useful in order to get even more condensed printouts.
With all of this information on one report, you can make the best draft day decisions possible. For example, before you make a selection in any round of the draft, you can look across all positions and see if there are any higher grade players available. Then, you can compare the RotoRank value to the Average Draft Pick (ADP) value to determine if a player you want tends to get drafted earlier or later than your current draft selection. If you are having a hard time deciding between two very similar graded players, you can then turn to Player Age, Statistical Category Dominance (SHARB/SKEWP), and multiple position eligibility to make your final decision. This type of ranking is especially useful for leagues that use non-traditional scoring categoires like Holds, Walks, Wins-Losses, etc. Since most fantasy baseball draft guides only rank players on the tradional 5x5 fantasy baseball scoring categories, many owners will not realize that the top Middle Relievers are just as valuable as the top Closers, when Holds is one of your fantasy baseball league categories. By knowing a Middle Reliever is worth a 3rd round pick, but he is usally draft ranked as a 20th round pick by most guides, you can safely plan to select the top middle relievers in rounds 15 to 18, well before any of your opponents would consider them, and that could give you the draft value you need to allow your fantasy baseball team to finish first in your league.
Overall, I think this report is an essential tool for any serpentine draft fantasy baseball league.
If you would like to see this new report in action, go to the Trial Version of RotoRank and run Report 11 or 12 using the slider bar.
