Advantages

When I first started playing fantasy baseball in 1991, the internet was just beginning to develop and printed television, magazines and books were your best sources of knowledge.  Printed magazines have changed very little since the 90’s, so their importance in this age of fantasy baseball is beginning to decline. 

Magazines published by the major publications still have some good content, but most of them just put their spin onto information that is readily available on numerous web sites including ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, RotoTimes, etc.  Their staff does its best to flush out the promising rookies, identify the burgeoning stars, and weed out the potential duds for the upcoming season, but in the end, the rapid changes that occur during baseball’s spring training quickly outdates about 50% of their material.    One of new trends in print is to publish expert mock drafts, which can give you insight on how people value certain types of players based on their historical value, but mock drafts that are held in early March are far more beneficial for predicting fantasy draft value for the upcoming season.

Disadvantages

One of the biggest disadvantages to buying a printed fantasy draft guide versus an on-line fantasy draft guide is the drastic change that occurs in Major League Baseball during the three months leading up to the regular season.  One trade, one injury, or even an unexpected retirement can change the values of at least 2 players, and sometimes quite a few more.  Now if each team has just one of these possible transactions during the spring, and at least 60 player projections will be affected or about 20% of the player pool.  This is easily enough to impact how and when key players should be drafted.

Another major flaw with printed draft guides is that they are focused on just three 5x5 league formats: 1) Standard AL Only Auction League, 2) Standard NL Only Auction League, and 3) Standard Mixed Rotisserie Draft League.  These are the most common league types, but these days, there are so many league variations that these guides might only be useful for 50% of the leagues that play each year.  Slight changes in the league format can alter the value of players drastically.  For example, if you play in a league that adds Slugging Percentage to the hitter’s categories, power hitters will increase dramatically.  Another more common change is the number of teams in the league.  There is a big difference in how you value players in an 8-team league as opposed to a 12-team league.

Finally, printed magazines only focus on player projections as the editors chose to assign to each player.  If you have a gut feeling about a player, you can’t gauge how changing his projections will affect his rankings.  An online fantasy draft guide that allows you to alter projections can help you correctly place those players within your draft list.  Knowing when to select a player is just as important as knowing which players may have good or bad season.

What RotoRank Provides

RotoRank has made several enhancements for the 2007 season based upon feedback from my loyal customers:
1. RotoRank is completely web based, so there is no longer a need for lengthy downloads, and you no longer need to install/register software.  This allows you to gain instant access to the draft guide information you need to have a competitive draft.  RotoRank will now work with the Apple Operating System.
2. All RotoRank reports will now contain the Common Draft Rankings for each player; along with RotoRank’s position scarcity ranking that is based on the projections assigned to each player.  This allows you to decide when you can let one of the better rated RotoRank players to slide to a later round and pick in favor of a more common player with a similar ranking.
3. The Expert Draft Guide report has now been fully automated.  Previously, the players were graded, but they were still listed in a ranking list.  The Expert Draft Guide gives fantasy owners much more information during the draft, including how your league draft is unfolding. 
4. The position Scarcity Report has also been automated.  Now you can get a quick summary of which positions are deeper than others, and you can come up with a game plan to maximize value at each position during your upcoming draft.
5. Adjusting Player projections are easier than in previous versions of RotoRank.
6. Update Player Projections will now be posted directly to your subscriber account, unless you have made your own projections for a player.
7. Player projections that you have changed will display in a list on the first page of the fantasy baseball draft guide wizard.  This will allow you to easily keep track of the players you modified in preparation for the 2007 season.
8. The draft guide wizard should facilitate the building of your draft guide, even if you are new to fantasy baseball.
9. There is a list of pre-defined templates that allow you to quickly generate common league formats, with needing to use the wizard.
10. The new web site provides members with their own discussion board, which can allow you to get other members perspectives on a given topic.

Conclusion

Printed draft guides come in a lot of variations, and most have at least some percentage of good information, but they all provide data that had to be hitting the printers before the New Year.  If you want to gain a competitive advantage in your drafts, invest in an on-line fantasy baseball site rather than one or two printed magazines that are outdated by January 15.