SubscribeI admit that I’ve never given much thought to fantasy baseball draft software. (In fact, I usually just stick to pen and paper.)
However, I took a few minutes to look at what software is currently available. Everything I found offers the same basic functionality–projections, custom rankings, etc. They are also all Windows only.
Here’s what I found, sorted by price:
Diamond Draft – $34.95
Fantistics Insider Baseball – $39.95
RotoWire – $39.99
Rhino Baseball Draft Magic – $59.95
RotoLab – $69.00
I’m actually a little surprised by the prices. I’ll pay $8 for a magazine just to have some light reading, and I’ve even shelled out for the Baseball Forecaster in the past. But I don’t see myself paying $40 for what amounts to the Price Guide + in-draft adjustments.
Which also makes me wonder how the Price Guide’s valuation method stacks up against what is in these programs… From the comparisons I’ve made so far, I think the Price Guide is the best at what it does. You would think that the non-free options would be a step above what’s freely available.
So I’m curious: For those who have tried out these programs, what do you think about them? (And is RotoLab really that much better than the competition?) Am I missing something valuable here?
Related posts:
RotoLab is a nice program but the only thing it really has on the others is being the prettiest. I’m a little biased since I have an interest in selling Diamond Draft, but if the functionality is essentially the same I’d rather have the cheapest than the prettiest. That only applies to software. ;)
Rotolab is that much better. It also comes paired with the projections from Ron Shandler’s team at BaseballHQ.com. I have used it for the last six years and am 110% happy with its functionality. It makes me feel as if I am in complete control of the draft as I know max bids, pre-draft and in-draft inflation and can see this from one screen. Repeat customers get a discount on the service; I think I pay $49 each year.
Supposedly the Baseball Prospectus “Player Forcast Manager” can be used as drafting software, as it adjusts the values of the remaining players depending on who has been picked (and who you have picked for your own team). I haven’t really liked using it that way, though. Seems make adjustments that are intuitively too radical.
@Nick: I hadn’t come across BP’s product. They don’t list a price (yet), but I’ll add it to the list once they do.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. All you need to use the PFM is a subscription to the BP site
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/pfm/
At the moment it’s still last year’s projections, but as soon as the 2009 PECOTAs come out they will show up on the PFM. It would be interesting to run the new PECOTAs on both the Price Guide and the PFM and see what differences emerge. I believe it relies on replacement level as well, but you can alter between different “position adjustments” to fit as you like. Another interesting option is to us Standings Gain Points, although I can’t say I really understand how it works…
I haven’t used these products before, but I use draft software for football. It’s not clear to me that using the straight price guide $ values would be the optimal strategy in a non-auction draft. For instance, in your ADP divergence post, Haren would be ~20th pick (mid 2nd) ordered by $ in a default yahoo league, whereas he’s going ~55 (mid 4th). Choosing him in the 2nd when you can very likely get him in the 3rd seems suboptimal.