Archive for the ‘Site News’ Category

ZiPS Added to Composite Projections

6 Comments
March 5th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Site News

Just up: ZiPS are now included in the composite projections for the Price Guide, equally weighted with everything else.

Also, Manny is now updated in the Price Guide as a Dodger. And, based on a slew of corrections that Tim sent me, I’ve updated the teams for tons of lesser players who have signed with someone else this offseason.

Let me know if you notice anything unusual.

Unprojected Stats

5 Comments
March 4th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Site News

Some of the most common stat requests I get for the Price Guide involve categories that aren’t typically included in projections — quality starts, holds, and errors.

Although I can’t do anything to update the projections, I wondered if adding something would be better than nothing. For those of you who are interested in these categories: Would it be helpful to include 2008 stats for these categories that aren’t projected?

How about a multi-year average? Maybe weighted 3-2-1 Marcel style?

Also: Courtesy of Dan Szymborski of Baseball Think Factory, ZiPS projections are now available in the Price Guide. Wow, look at Ryan Braun!

Net Steals, K/AB, and K – BB

18 Comments
February 28th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

I’ve got a handful of Price Guide updates that I’d like to make you aware of:

  • New categories: Net Steals (SB – CS) and K/AB for hitters, K – BB for pitchers. If you happen to be in a fantasy league that uses those exact three categories, Juan Pierre is the man you want. Ryan Howard comes in at a spectacular -$64.
  • The league averages now show up for rate stats (BA, ERA, WHIP, etc.) In a standard league, the Price Guide projects the average hitter to bat .279; the average pitcher will post a 3.73 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP.
  • I’ve been experimenting with a way to export the Price Guide’s results to a spreadsheet. For those of you who like to poke around, you can see an early version if you add “&o=CSV” to the querystring. I haven’t quite got it working for minor league players, but it’s a start.

As always, let me know if there’s a feature you would like to see.

Projection Updates

8 Comments
February 24th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Site News

Some of you have already noticed, but there are a couple of updates with the projections on the Price Guide:

  • CHONE projections are now updated to the 02/23 release. Not a big change for most players, but I think it will update the park factors for players that have switched teams since December.
  • I have added a Composite projection as the new Price Guide default. This is my own brew of the various projections that should knock some edge off the occasional extreme prediction. It’s mostly CHONE and CAIRO with a little bit extra thrown in.
  • I finally decided to list Matt Wieters as a catcher. The Price Guide previously went strictly by games played in 2008 to determine qualifying positions. Since Wieters hasn’t hit the majors yet, he was being counted at Utility. Counting him as a catcher significantly changes his value.
  • The Price Guide results now show the league average in each category for your league. Currently that’s more helpful for counting stats than for rate stats, but I’ll try to get them all working soon.

Please let me know if you have any opinions about these changes.

Another New Price Guide Category: Pitcher Walks

20 Comments
February 21st, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

By request, I’ve added another stat category for the Price Guide: pitcher walks.

It works as you would expect in a normal league (i.e. walking fewer batters is better).

Please let me know if there are any other categories you are interested in. If it’s a stat that is typically projected, it is usually pretty easy to add. (Holds and quality starts, unfortunately, aren’t projected by any of the systems.)

For those who aren’t familiar with it: The Fantasy Baseball Price Guide is an online tool that builds auction dollar values or draft rankings customized for you league. It handles any number of teams, any number of starting positions, and most stat categories. You can also edit the projected stats for any player to fit your own expectations.

New Price Guide Categories: K and L

4 Comments
February 9th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

By request, I’ve added a couple of new categories to the Price Guide: hitter strikeouts and pitcher losses.

Note that these work such that a low number is good; not like you would use in some bizarro league that rewards losing. These are the first “counting” stats in the Price Guide that work that way, so let me know if you notice anything unusual.

For those who aren’t familiar with it: The Fantasy Baseball Price Guide is an online tool that builds auction dollar values or draft rankings customized for you league. It handles any number of teams, any number of starting positions, and most stat categories. You can also edit the projected stats for any player to fit your own expectations.

Projections Now Editable

9 Comments
January 18th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

Just a note to say that I’ve updated the Price Guide with some of the enhancements I had mentioned earlier:

Keepers
Now you can mark keepers in the Price Guide. Enter the prices that players are kept at and the inflation rate is automatically calculated. All of the remaining prices are adjusted to account for inflation.

Editable stats
Do you disagree with what is projected for a player? Now you can edit the projected stats for any player. When you save your changes, the dollar values are rebuilt.

Please let me know if you notice any problems.

Want to Try Out the New Price Guide?

4 Comments
January 13th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

I’ve mentioned that two of my goals for the Price Guide are to allow people to customize the projections and to let them enter keepers.

Well, those two things are getting close to happening.

Right now, I’m looking for some people to try out a beta version that includes these extra features:

UPDATE: These have now been included with the main Price Guide.

If you have some time, I’d appreciate if you try it out and post some feedback in the comments. Once I’m satisfied with these changes, I’ll update the regular Price Guide to include them.

New Categories Added: Hits and OPS

No Comments
January 10th, 2009 by Mays
Categories: Price Guide, Site News

By popular demand, hits and OPS have been added as categories for hitters in the Price Guide.

I joke that it was easy to tell when people are coming to my site from Inside the Book, because I start getting requests for OPS. Thankfully no one asked for wOBA.

Please let me know if you notice any problems with these new categories.

UPDATE: Also by request, Runs Produced (R + RBI – HR) is now an option. Let me know if you want some other category added.