The system that I've developed to evaluate projected statistics for fantasy baseball purposes is called IPDS, which is short for Idiot Proof Drafting System. For the past few seasons, I've played in non-traditional leagues. I was using information custom made for standard leagues, though, and I began to wonder how that was affecting my performance in those leagues. With that in mind, I created IPDS to generate custom dollar valuations based on user-specific settings.
When you first open IPDS, you'll be greeted with the "Enter League Info" screen. Here, you input the settings of your league.
- League Type: Select from Mixed, AL-Only, NL-Only
- Teams: Select from as little as 4 to as many as 20. (I'd like to see the roster of the person that plays in the 4 man league.)
- Team Budget: Select from $250 - $300. If you don't play in a league that uses an auction draft, just set this to $260.
- Hitters : Pitchers Valuation Rate: Select how much of your budget you want to devote to hitters and pitchers. Choose from anywhere between 10% to 90%. I recommend setting it to 65 / 35 [Hitters:Pitchers].
- Roster Settings: Select how many players your league will start at each position.
- Minimum Games Played to Qualify for Position: Select from 0 to 100.
Once you have selected your settings, click "Submit" and let 'er rip. The next minute should be filled with flashing colors of Excel doing it's thing. Once it's completed that, you'll be sent to the "DraftSheet" tab. Here's an outline of all the tabs contained in IPDS:
- DraftSheet: Contains the $ Value, $ Value Over Average (VOA), ADP, and ADP Round of each player, sorted by ascending ADP.
- PosDraftSheet: Contains the $ Value and ADP Round of each player at each position, sorted by total dollar value.
- BigBoard: Lists the total $ Value and category $ value. As an example, Albert Pujols' projected .327 BA is worth $12.55, while Adam Dunn's is worth -$4.06.
- AllHitters: Lists all the hitters with their projected statistics, category $ value, and total $ value.
- C, 1B, etc: Lists the projected statistics, category $ value, and total $ value of each player at each position.
- AllPitchers: Lists all the pitchers with their projected statistics, category $ value, and total $ value.
- SP, RP: Lists the projected statistics, category $ value, and total $ value of each player at each pitching position.
A few more notes:
- When you first open IPDS, you must enable macros or the system will not work.
- On each tab, you can click on the gray button towards the top of the page to sort by that specific statistic. Want to see who will hit the most home runs? Go to AllHitters and click on the gray button underneath HR. Apparently, Ryan Howard is going to hit a few of those.
- I know the system is a little slow. It's what happens when you have an Excel file that is almost 50 MBs. When you're inputting the league settings, you need to let Excel do its work before you click Submit. If it tells you that it's calculating, let it finish calculating. The best I can tell you is to be patient; it's a gentle giant.
- The projections are courtesy of Tim Dierkes of RotoAuthority. Tim provides excellent insight and analysis throughout the season, and his projections are truly remarkable. With his projections, I won a championship and had 2 second place finishes last season. The current version of IPDS still has Tim's first batch of projections; I'll update IPDS to match his new ones relatively soon. Also check out MLB Trade Rumors for the news and rumors surrounding the players who determine the fate of our fantasy season.
Although I am writing a longer essay detailing my methodology, I hope this provides you with a brief introduction into IPDS. Click here to download it. Please leave a comment with suggestions on improving the system.
