1. Steamer projections have been added.

Steamer is a set of projections produced by Jared Cross and co., who have also done some recent forecast evaluations. I’m not adding it into the Composite projections for this year, but I probably will next year (especially if I can get my hands on it earlier).

Unlike most of the projections which aren’t expecting Aaron Hill to repeat his very good 2009, Steamer has him at $19 in a standard league. Other Steamer sleepers: Nolan Reimold ($17), Colby Lewis ($16), Brett Anderson ($21), and Stephen Strasburg ($17).

It has no interest in Jair Jurrjens ($1) or Matt Cain ($1), however. I’ll try to remember to check back in October to see how the picks played out.

2. The composite projections have been updated with the final community forecasts.

Voting closed today on the Community Forecast project. In fantasy terms, there hasn’t been a whole lot of change since Monday, but a few players have seen a small increase or decrease:

David Murphy -$7 (+5)
Chris Davis $5 (+4)
Aaron Hill $11 (+3)
Jose Reyes $15 (+3)
Coco Crisp -$6 (+3)
Juan Uribe -$8 (+3)

Landon Powell -$11 (-3)
Ryan Church -$12 (-3)
Carlos Santana -$9 (-3)
Corey Hart $0 (-4)
Jesus Flores -$14 (-5)

Oakland, Texas, and Washington were still low on votes last time, so their players were some of the bigger movers on this update.

It looks like Mets fans are feeling more optimistic about Jose Reyes‘s maladies, as he climbed $3 in the past few days. Corey Hart, on the other hand, is shedding value (down $4) after a terrible spring could cost him a starting job. Although Chris Davis has gained some ground, I’d wager that if voting continued he would probably end up where he started. The Rangers’ acquisition of Ryan Garko means Davis might be losing some AB.

There are a few new names showing up as well, most notably:

Aroldis Chapman -$3
Hisanori Takahashi -$7
Jim Edmonds -$15

3. You can now enter keeper prices without saving stats.

One of the most common questions I am asked is how to enter keeper prices. That’s because that feature has been hidden in with “Let me edit these projections.” But things have changed:

Also, some of you had asked about entering keeper prices without saving the stats as well. Up until this point, it couldn’t be done. Now, you can actually transfer a keeper list across projections to compare, for example, what CAIRO and ZiPS think of your choices.

There have also been a few minor Price Guide bugs cleaned up, like QS and E showing up incorrectly on the Composite projections and inflation prices being left off of Excel.

Reassuringly, there has been very little movement since the early version on Friday. Of the 1081 players listed originally:

11 gained more than $2
37 gained $2
257 gained $1
561 stayed the same
181 lost $1
22 lost $2
12 lost more than $2

Most of those 23 players who changed by more than $2 are of little fantasy interest. Here are the players you might care about:

Chris Snyder -$1 (+8)
Pablo Sandoval $15 (+4)
Torii Hunter $19 (+4)
Jason Bulger -$1 (+4)
Kazuo Matsui -$3 (+3)
Russell Branyan -$11 (-3)
Howie Kendrick $9 (-4)
Carlos Santana -$6 (-4)

The Angels were low on votes last week, and so their players are some of the biggest movers over the weekend. Branyan drops a little on news that he’ll start the season on the DL.

This change also adds 68 new players to the mix, such as fantasy non-factors Livan Hernandez (-$16), Todd Wellemeyer (-$15), and Robb Quinlan (-$26). Of the new players, Jeff Weaver is the highest ranked, at -$7. Nothing to see here.

I’m feeling really good about how the numbers look now. I’ll probably keep updating every couple of days until Opening Day, but I doubt much will change. As vote totals accumulate, any movement will probably be smaller than even this update.

I took a snapshot of the PA and IP from the voting as of this evening and added a new option to the Price Guide to use it for playing time. It’s the new default option for the Composite Projections — “2010 Composite (CF)”.

At first glance, this appears to be an improvement over my previous manually tweaked playing time values. Several of the players who seemed too high (Carlos Guillen, David Freese, Matt Diaz) look much more reasonable, now. Garrett Jones, Nyjer Morgan, and Franklin Gutierrez are among the biggest gainers.

The fans are also doing a better job of sorting out the Rockies OF and 2B situations that I was: Seth Smith, Carlos Gonzalez, and Clint Barmes each gain a few dollars. Brad Hawpe, Eric Young, and Dexter Fowler drop a little bit.

Let me know what you think. I plan to keep updating periodically as the voting continues.

C – Mike Napoli
C – Geovany Soto
1B – Lance Berkman
2B – Kelly Johnson
3B – Chris Davis
SS – Erick Aybar
OF – Matt Diaz
OF – Ryan Ludwick
OF – Magglio Ordonez
OF – Jayson Werth
OF – Brad Hawpe
MI – Howie Kendrick
CI – Billy Butler
Util – Vladimir Guerrero

Notice that there are several guys on that list that are looking to bounceback from a poor 2009: Geovany Soto, Kelly Johnson, Chris Davis. Don’t forget that these are players with a track record (including the minors) that can outweigh one bad year, and there’s a good chance they wind up in between their 2008 and 2009 values this year.

I’ve found that fantasy owners tend to shy away from serviceable veterans in favor of the latest hyped rookies. Magglio Ordonez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Lance Berkman aren’t the players they once were, but they are still solid buys at the right price.

P – Roy Halladay
P – Chris Carpenter
P – Dan Haren
P – Ted Lilly
P – Erik Bedard
P – Hiroki Kuroda
P – Heath Bell
P – Trevor Hoffman
P – Rafael Soriano

I tried to pick some value pitchers from across all tiers. The projections really like Roy Halladay switching from a rough AL East to the more-manageable NL East. Ted Lilly isn’t exciting, but he’s been a reliably above average pitcher for several years now. And Hiroki Kuroda is a LIMA pitcher and could put everything together in 2010.

Chris Carpenter and Rafael Soriano fit in the category of “back from injury,” which means their price tag is a little lower in most leagues. Erik Bedard is a little different: He’ll miss the first part of the year, but 100-120 IP at his previous levels would be valuable. Ideally, you can stash him on the DL and combine his contribution with a replacement-level pitcher for the first few months.

Vladimir Guerrero $20
David Ortiz $10
Hideki Matsui $5

I’ll admit, seeing an Andrew Jackson beside Vladimir Guerrero‘s name surprised me a little. After a horrific 2009 (valued at $1 according to the Price Guide), I had tempered my expectations.

And apparently I wasn’t alone: Just to compare a couple of other sources, Fantasy Ball Junkie calculates the average auction price for Vlad as $8. Tim Dierkes values him at $9. Yahoo also suggests $9, but the Yahoo mock-auctioners are bidding an even more cautious $5.

In reality, when Vlad played last year, he played great. He hit for average and for power, he walked plenty, and even nabbed a couple of bases. His skills aren’t diminished, he just couldn’t get healthy. If we assume a healthy 2010 as the Rangers’ DH, he should be a lot closer to his 2008 ($25) than 2009. And that would make Guerrero a great bargain for 2010.

David Ortiz‘s fall from grace is a little more worrisome. Whereas Guerrero was still batting around .300 in his down 2009 year, Ortiz couldn’t top .240 (after hitting .264 the year before). I don’t know if Ortiz is done or not as fantasy contributor, but I think the risk is much higher for him than for Guerrero. (Interestingly, Dierkes puts Ortiz at $8, just one buck below Guerrero. The Price Guide thinks there’s a much wider gap.) One redeeming feature for Ortiz is that he at least qualifies at 1B in leagues that requires 6 GS or fewer (like Yahoo).

Just like there’s an unquantifiable bonus for qualifying at multiple positions, there’s also a monetary penalty for a player who locks up your utility spot. I’d say that fantasy drafters take that into account when they are bidding, potentially to the tune of $2-3 below the true value.

Which brings us to Hideki Matsui. Matsui never had the power that the other two guys had, and that means he’s a notch below both of them. He’s valued at $5, and the DH inflexibility takes off a little of that value. Honestly, I think I’d rather have a slightly inferior hitter who can play a position and who doesn’t have as much age/injury risk. Even somebody like Mark Teahen (3B,OF) — valued at -$2 — seems like a more attractive option to me than Matsui.

Here are some of the things it lets you do:

Customize Player Values for Your League
In fantasy baseball today, there’s no such thing as a standard league — your specific league settings can drastically alter the fantasy values of players. So why do so many fantasy sites and magazines only give a one-size-fits-all ranking of players?

The Price Guide adjusts player values to the particulars of your league. So if you’re in an 8-team, NL-only league with standard categories or a 14-team league that adds OBP and holds, the Price Guide delivers values that are customized to those exact specifications. The Price Guide can be configured to handle literally millions of unique leagues.

Wonder how the Price Guide works? The details of its inner workings are all spelled out on the site, so there’s no proprietary secret or black-box to the methodology. There’s nothing about the Price Guide that you shouldn’t be able to recreate on your own.

Edit the Projections
While the Price Guide projections are already great, what happens if you disagree with the projected stats for a player? With the Price Guide, you can easily tweak any player’s stats and the values for all players will be automatically recalculated.

So let’s say you come across a prospect who is initially slated for 10 HR and 10 SB, but you think he can get 20 of each. Enter new values on the Price Guide, and you’ll not only see his value jump, but you will also see a slight revaluation of everyone else as the number of available HR and SB increases.

Enter Keepers
If your league let’s you keep players, you know that they can have a dramatic effect on draft-day prices. With the Price Guide, as you enter keeper prices, you can watch the inflation rate raise the values of the remaining players.

Upload Your Own Projections
If you ever encounter a situation where you want to change a large number of players’ values, the Price Guide also lets you upload your own projections into the system. All you have to do is put the stats in a simple Excel format and upload them to the site. You can upload as many sets as your want, so you are free to continually adjust your projections throughout the spring.

Add Values to Your League Website
Using a Firefox add-on called Greasemonkey, you can even add Price Guide dollar values to your league website. Get a leg-up on the competition with this handy tool to help you evaluate free agent pickups and trade opportunities.

The dollar values work with Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, and Allstar Stats leagues. As on the Price Guide site, the values are customized for your exact league settings, and the year-to-date values update daily throughout the season.

Interested yet? Everything is completely free, so why don’t you try it out?

How might that be done? My first choice for predicting playing time would be Tom Tango’s Community Forecasts, where he recruits large numbers of fans to predict the playing time for players on their favorite team. Unfortunately, when that survey is opened up in late March, it will be too late for lots of fantasy drafters.

So I’ve attempted a different approach in the meantime. I started with the average playing time that resulted when SG simulated 100 seasons using the CAIRO projections. I then made some manual adjustments based on my own guesses for teams’ depth charts (e.g. putting Alcides Escobar as the Brewers’ primary SS over Craig Counsell). I added estimated PA and IP for free agents. Finally, I knocked 10% off of pitchers’ IP and 5% off of hitters’ PA, which scaled them pretty closely to match the existing projections.

If that sounds like I’m just making stuff up as I go along…well, I sort of am. But I think it’s possible to improve on the wisdom of the computers with some subjective (but commonsensical) knowledge. For those who may be concerned with my meddling, I plan on keeping the unadjusted numbers around, as well.

You can see what the composite projections look like with playing time adjustments by selecting 2010 Composite (Adj.) on the Price Guide. I would love to hear input on where these can be improved. My initial concerns will probably be dropping PA for catchers a little bit and seeing about inflating the top tier a little bit.

These are dollar values that are customized to whatever settings your league is using and that only show up on your computer. During the preseason, you can use the projected stats on this site or your own customized projections. Once the season starts, you might instead show each player’s actual, year-to-date dollar value.

The dollar values are easy to add. Since CBS already has their leagues up, here is all you need to do to add them:

1. Download Mozilla Firefox and Greasemonkey. Firefox is an internet browser that works as an alternative to Internet Explorer. Greasemonkey is an add-on to Firefox that allows you to customize how pages appear.

2. Enter your CBS Sports league settings into the Price Guide. For a public league, you should only need to change the number of teams from 12 to 10. If you use “Standard Roto” (i.e. 4×4) rules, you will also want to remove batter runs and pitcher strikeouts. (If you have a Premium league at CBS, you may need to change more settings to match your league.)

3. Click the link on the results. At the top of the Price Guide results, you should see a link to add dollar values to a CBS Sportsline league. Click the link and Greasemonkey should recognize and install the script.

4. Check it out on your league homepage. Go to your league, and you should notice the dollar values showing up next to each player’s name.

While CBS provides player rankings that give you an idea of a player’s value, remember that these are not customized for your specific league. Also, it might be valuable to know places where the Price Guide’s projections diverge from CBS’s. Compare CBS’s 2B rankings to what the Price Guide thinks:

While much of those rankings line up, the Price Guide’s projections put much less weight in Aaron Hill‘s and Ben Zobrist‘s remarkable 2009 improvements, expecting them to settle somewhere in between 2008 and 2009.

At 3B it is clear that the Price Guide continues to put less emphasis on one year’s stats: The projections don’t discount David Wright‘s mysteriously poor 2009 as much as CBS does, placing him at $28 and the 2nd best 3B.

While you certainly don’t have to agree with one or the other, I think those kinds of discrepancies can be valuable to realize. Also remember that these values will update as the Price Guide updates this spring. During the year, they will update daily based on the latest year-to-date stats.

Of course, RLYW is a valuable site even for us non-Yankee fans. For example, each year SG shows that his projections are much more than a fantasy tool by simulating the season in advance. (See 2009′s blowout.) Taking the CAIRO, CHONE, Marcel, ZiPS, THT, and PECOTA projections, he simulates the upcoming season 1000 times with each to generate predicted standings for each division.

Anyway, two projections is enough for me to call it a quorum and to fire up the composite projections — currently just an 50/50 mix of CHONE and CAIRO. Still no saves, but it’s only January.

Sean Smith of BaseballProjection.com has graciously allowed me to include his 2010 CHONE projections on the Price Guide.

CHONE is a computerized projection system that has year-after-year produced some of the most accurate predictions.  In addition to CHONE, Sean is also recognized for the development of his historical Wins Above Replacement (WAR) data, statistical measurements for comparing players (1871-2009) across positions and eras.  It’s not fantasy-related, but it is very impressive and a testament to some of the hard work Sean has done in baseball research.

As usual with projection systems, there are no saves projected in CHONE, but we’ll be discussing save candidates a bit later.  (Of course, since the Price Guide lets you customize the projections to your own liking, it’s pretty easy to add your own save predictions.)

Please let me know if you notice any problems.  Thanks again to Sean for making this happen.