2012 Roto Cheatsheet | Initial Release

Today marks the initial release of the 2012 version of my rotisserie fantasy baseball cheatsheet. For those unfamiliar with these, they are powerful Excel spreadsheets which are designed to give you more information than anyone else at your draft in an easy format.

When opening up the spreadsheet, you may be asked to enable macros. Please enable macros as that is the only way this spreadsheet can work! You will then be presented with a form to fill out where you can enter the number of teams and team names for your league. In addition, you must enter what positions you use in your league, what roto categories then finally choose what ADP information, projection systems and expert rankings you want displayed. You can always change this info later! If you just want to look at the sheet, you can just close that form and start looking around.

Within the Draft Central tab, you have all of the draftable players, their basic info, their WERTH roto values (estimated points gained in standings for owning the player over average fantasy starter), their projected stats and then the odds that they'll be available at various points in the draft based on your chosen ADP data. At this point, you can click on the Customize button to choose whether you want to hide certain data or hide players as they're drafted. During the draft, you can select who drafted each player by clicking on the box next to each player's name and selecting the team. This will update the Live Standings and Team Summary tabs. You can also choose how you want to sort the cheatsheet at any time on this page.

On the Live Standings tab, this will take into account the projected starters for each team based on your league settings then it will display the standings based on that info. It will display the total roto values (which should be relatively close to the projected standings as you go) and then the actual projected standings based on drafted players.

On the Team Summary tab, you can view who has been drafted by each team and see who is currently projected as a starter or bench player on those teams. Finally, you can view the Credits & Glossary tab to see where the data is coming from and to find out what various terms mean like ADP or WERTH.

Download the 2012 Roto Cheatsheet

Data included for this release:

• CAIRO projections
• RotoChamp projections
• Fangraphs Fan projections
• MockDraftCentral ADP data
• ESPN rankings
• RotoChamp rankings
• Roto Summit rankings
• Combined rankings (average of available rankings)

New features for 2012 version compared to 2011:

• Team Summary tab added (as explained above)
• Live Standings now only based on team's starters as opposed to all drafted players
• Draft Central tab is redesigned to be easier to read and follow
• Customize button added to have more control over what is shown and not shown
• Ability to sort by position now added so you can more easily target a specific position when needed
• Formulas behind the scenes were streamlined to speed up the processing time of the spreadsheet

Poke around, test it out and let me know if you encounter any possible fixes or upgrades before the final version comes out in March!

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Brett Lawrie - 2012 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

There are a couple of fantasy baseball deep sleepers each year that can make the difference for your team. The following 2012 profile of Brett Lawrie will analyze the chances that he might be one of the next big sleepers. He was selected based on my simple selection process which is detailed in this introductory post.

ADP as of this posting: 55.88 (Round 5 in 12-team league)

Projected 2012 Role: Starting 3B

2011 Production: .293 AVG, 9 HR, 26 R, 25 RBI, 7 SB in 171 PA

My 2012 Prediction: .285 AVG, 20 HR, 90 R, 90 RBI, 20 SB

The public continues to get smarter as Brett Lawrie's draft stock is already high for this year despite only 171 PA last year. His value is also helped out by the fact that third base is a weak position for this year. But, let's look at just what we can expect from Lawrie.

The kid hit .296 with 39 HR and 62 SB over 326 minor league games and seemed to get better at each level he played at. At 22, he already has the potential for a 25 HR/25 SB season to go along with a good batting average. That reason alone is precisely why he is being drafted ahead of Alex Rodriguez, Aramis Ramirez, Kevin Youkilis and Pablo Sandoval who are all fine major leaguers.

After hitting 21 HR in his first 1085 minor league PA, his power suddenly bloomed as he hit 27 HR's over his 500 PA last year between the minors and majors. Because the spike is so sudden, I struggle to think that he can keep up that exact rate (a 17% HR/FB rate is almost Albert Pujols territory). Couple that with the fact that his huge minor league numbers came in the very hitter-friendly Pioneer League and it's hard to feel the power is completely legit but he still has shown he can hit the long ball regardless and 20-25 HR in 2012 is a safe bet.

His stolen bases are the factor that make him like a mini David Wright. In his first two minor league seasons, he was caught stealing 26 times (an ugly 65% success rate). In his first year in the Blue Jay organization last year, he was only caught stealing 3 times (a lovely 87% success rate). Perhaps they've shown him the error in his ways. It seems like the youngster should be able to easily swipe 20 or more SB's as well in 2012.

And as far as batting average, he may not exactly be a potential .300 hitter based on past history but he shouldn't hurt you in that department either. All in all, he seems like at least a 20/20 hitter at a weaker fantasy position and there's some great value to that.

Sleeper Verdict: Sleepy. He has the potential to deliver 30/30 production but it may not come just yet.

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How To Evaluate Pitcher ERA (FIP, xFIP, SIERA)

It all starts with a pitch. The lonely pitcher sits on his mound and throws a ball towards a hitter. That pitch could turn into any number of things and whatever happens will be pinned on the pitcher. For roto purposes, we're interested in a few statistics which come out of a pitchers performance on the mound: ERA, WHIP, K's, Wins and Saves. A pitcher throws a lot of pitches in a year and sample sizes help reduce the influence of luck but it still plays a major factor in anything beyond a strikeout or a walk from a pitcher. Identifying luck and evaluating past statistics helps us better predict a pitcher's future performance which makes us smarter fantasy baseballers.

ERA is a fickle mistress that is much more cruel than any other statistic because a pitcher can pitch like a champion but his ERA may still stink (see Zack Greinke 2011). If more batted balls become hits than expected or if more flyballs become home runs than expected then the pitcher's ERA is going to be affected. In Part 1 of my series of posts on how to evaluate pitcher statistics, we're going to focus on how to evaluate a pitcher's ERA in a given season.

Earned Run Average

ERA has been constantly poked and prodded by sabermatricians as they have tried to figure out how to better be able to predict a pitcher's future ERA. Because a perfect solution hasn't been found, we've been left with a cornucopia of choices that, when combined, give us a clearer picture of a pitcher's performance in a season. In the journey of being able to evaluate ERA, Voros McCracken came out with the DIPS (Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics) theory that set out to "evaluate a pitcher base[d] strictly on the statistics his defense has no ability to affect" which would be strikeouts and walks and home runs. It has developed more over time to include batted ball types (groundballs, flyballs, etc) as well. But based on the initial theory, one potential ERA estimator came into the world eventually courtesy of Tom Tango and it was called FIP.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) only looks at strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed in order to estimate what a pitcher's ERA should have been in a given time frame. For some, the simplicity of that turns them off but others can get totally behind how easy it is. When the outcome isn't a HR, BB of K (in other words, the ball is hit into play), the pitcher doesn't have as much control over the outcome and it becomes dependent on the defense. Balls hit into play are thus ignored and the FIP formula accounts for the three controllable outcomes (HR, BB, K) to generate a stat that looks like ERA but gives an indication on if a pitcher has been better or worse than his actual ERA.

xFIP (Expected FIP) was the next step in ERA estimation as research started to show that perhaps a pitcher doesn't have complete control over HR totals. Researchers believed that HR rates were not reliable from year-to-year for a pitcher so the standard FIP formula was adjusted to use a standard league-average HR rate instead of the actual rate of HR's allowed by a pitcher. This one simple change ended up making xFIP one of the most accurate predictors of future ERA.

tERA (True ERA) then came into the picture because there was thought that FIP shouldn't ignore all batted balls except for homers. So this formula was designed to include batted ball types allowed by the pitcher (groundballs, flyballs, etc) by putting a different run value on each and using them in the formula. While not as predictive as xFIP, it utilizes a bit more data to generate an ERA estimation for a pitcher.

Because three estimations of a pitcher's correct ERA was not enough, SIERA (Skill Interactive ERA) came along in recent years. As you can tell, sabermatricians still were not satisfied with the metrics of evaluating ERA. In this case, SIERA is an improvement over tERA much like xFIP improved FIP. SIERA tweaked tERA by putting different weighting on the variables such as giving additional weight to strikeouts, walks and groundballs as research started to show that they each had a larger influence on ERA than originally thought.

Luckily, you don't need to break out your scientific calculators or look for one of my Google Doc spreadsheets to find all of these stats in one place. Fangraphs has these all hosted on their leaderboards under the Advanced tab. Go ahead and sort to your heart's delight to see which pitchers should be better or worse moving forward than their stupid ERA indicates.

Keep in mind that ERA is influenced greatly by BABIP and HR/FB, which are thought to be out of control of the pitcher himself as well. While the four ERA predictors above are helpful, don't overlook BABIP and HR/FB when you're evaluating a pitcher. If they had a really low HR/FB rate suddenly then that would bring down their ERA quite a bit (same goes with BABIP). When a pitcher has a few years of history to analyze, you can more easily spot when a BABIP or HR/FB rate does not seem to fit his career norms. Put special attention to those cases and recognize the effect that they have on a pitcher's actual ERA.

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2012 Comeback Players | xAVG vs AVG

A stat like BABIP can tell us about whether a hitter's batting average has been influenced by luck or not. But, as evidenced in my post about evaluating batting averages, xBABIP and xAVG are also vital tools in analyzing a player. When we're looking at potential comeback players for 2012 who might be undervalued, expected AVG (xAVG) really comes in handy for comparing to a player's actual AVG.

For the full listing of players, you can view the spreadsheet I created by clicking here. This post will highlight some of the more interesting names on the list of biggest differences between xAVG and AVG from 2011. These players represent great possible value as they're being undervalued due to circumstances beyond their control and could have a good comeback season potentially.

Ian Kinsler had a very nice year in 2011 as he returned to the 30/30 club while scoring 121 runs in the process. However, it should have been even better if you look at his .255 actual AVG compared to his .300 xAVG. If he had actually managed to his for .300 last year to go with his other stats, you could make a strong argument that he would be a top 5 draft pick being taken above Tulowitzki (who would have had lower totals in all categories except RBI's). Right now, Kinsler is being drafted at the top of the 3rd round and he holds a ton of value there if you can get him. Here's an oddity for you... Kinsler's AVG is .256 in odd-numbered years yet .299 in even-numbered years. 2012 is an even number! Get on the Kinsler train!

Ben Revere is looked at as being a defensive specialist with no offensive prowess. After hitting .267 with 0 HR in 481 PA, it's certainly understandable to make that case. However, he does have significant fantasy potential for 2012 given the fact that his xAVG was .329 last year. He's a speedster and he will be able to use that speed even more if he gets on base even more. He hit .326 in his minor league career over 380 games and never had a season below .300 (and he totaled 154 SB) so he has certainly shown that he has the potential to hit .300 while notching 50+ SB. At this point, he's being drafted late in drafts and is worth reaching for because of his speed and AVG potential.

From 2006-2008, Alex Rios had a batting average of .296 which was very nice to go with his 20/20 potential. However, things haven't been as rosy since then as he's had a .253 AVG from 2009-2011. Last year was his worst year yet as he hit .227 with 13 HR, 64 R, 44 RBI and 11 SB. Alex, wha happen? Well, it seems like bad luck happened as his xAVG for 2011 was still .275 which would have meant about 25 more hits which would have meant more RBI's and more Runs and maybe more SB's. Ah, the possibilities! Rios still has the potential to return to his 2010 former self which hit .284, 21 HR, 89 R, 88 RBI and 34 SB. However, he comes at the discounted price of being drafted in about the 20th round due to his craptastic year in 2011.

Evan Longoria brought back the power stroke in 2011 that took a break in 2010 by jacking 31 HR in 133 games. However, his batting average dropped to .244 mostly due to a terribly unlucky .239 BABIP. As you might expect based on the theme of this article, his xAVG was much higher (.301). If luck can go back onto his side in 2012 then you can expect a year that might exceed his great 2010 season where he hit .281 with 33 HR, 100 R, 113 RBI and 9 SB.

From 2005 to 2009, Mark Teixeria had three seasons where he hit above .300 and only one season where he hit below .290 (which was still .282). However, in 2010 and 2011, luck has reared it's ugly head as his BABIP has been way below average both seasons and his AVG was .256 and .248 respectively. His xAVG in 2011 indicates that he should have hit around .288 without the bad luck. Due to the fact that his power still seems to be as good as ever, he should return to his old super-good-in-all-categories-except-stolen-bases self in 2012.

Remember that wacky Ichiro Suzuki guy? He used to lead the league in AVG, score some runs, steal those bases and do all sorts of fun stuff? Well, he stole 40 bases last year and came up to the plate 700+ times but his AVG was poor (.272) and he only scored 80 runs in that crappy Mariners lineup (least amount of Runs scored in 2011 despite being in the AL and having an extra batter!). The good news is that his xAVG was .310 but the bad news is that the Mariners should still struggle offensively. They have some young hitters that might allow for improvement but Ichiro scoring 100 runs like old times isn't expected. He should still be able to produce numbers somewhat close to his 2010 line of .315 AVG, 6 HR and 42 SB yet he's being drafted in about the 10th round at this point.

Jimmy Rollins is a bit of an odd duck in the fact that he's always been a bit of a speedster but has not always had a high BABIP to go with that. The amount of flyballs that he hits certainly doesn't help there. But what makes him even odder is that he has experienced three seemingly unlucky seasons in a row where he's had a BABIP of .251, .246 and .275. After three years of this, it makes you start to wonder if it's a product of who he is as opposed to luck. None of his statistics seem to jump out as causing this odd BABIP. But, regardless, he had an AVG of .268 in 2011 with an xAVG of .296 so we should expect his batting average to go higher which would be nice with his 15 HR and 30 SB potential. But, I really don't know what to make of this guy anymore. One year of poor BABIP is unlucky, two years is really unlucky but three years just seems like a trend.

Back in 2009, Adam Lind hit .305 with 35 HR's and all was well in the world. I know I'm living in the past but the past looks so much better than two years of bad baseball from this guy. He hit .251 last year but, as you may have guessed, his xAVG tells a different story and says he should have hit closer to .296. He only played in 125 games but did hit 25 HR's so we can hope that a luckier and healthier Adam Lind can hit .290 with 30 HR's in 2012. That doesn't seem like too far of a reach. He's being drafted 159th on average right now. A power hitter with a chance to hit for average at that point? Sure, I'll take it.

Drafters still like Elvis Andrus and have him pegged as an early draft pick despite him mainly being an SB guy. He hit .279 with 37 SB last year which is pretty cool but, of course, his xAVG says he should have hit a much better .325. However, take caution with this one as we seem to have another Jimmy Rollins situation. His BABIP has been between .305 and .317 in his first three MLB seasons and his AVG has been between .265 and .279 so it's hard to see a reason why this would suddenly change (his xBABIP calculates as .364). As a speedster who hits a long of ground balls, you'd expect a high BABIP and AVG but it hasn't translated yet. I'm not feeling Andrus as a definite comeback player until he proves otherwise, much like J-Roll earlier.

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Desmond Jennings - 2012 Fantasy Sleeper Candidate

There are a couple of fantasy baseball deep sleepers each year that can make the difference for your team. The following 2012 profile of Desmond Jennings will analyze the chances that he might be one of the next big sleepers. He was selected based on my simple selection process which is detailed in this introductory post.

ADP as of this posting: 53.96 (Round 5 in 12-team league)

Projected 2012 Role: Starting OF

2011 Production: .259 AVG, 10 HR, 44 R, 25 RBI, 20 SB in 287 PA

My 2012 Prediction: .280 AVG, 15 HR, 100 R, 50 RBI, 50 SB

Despite only playing in half a season, Desmond Jennings is hardly a sleeper as he's projected to go in the 5th round of your drafts. Due to that fact, this particular post will be slightly different than the usual sleeper posts and will be more about whether he's going to give you even more value than a 5th round pick or not. I already touched upon my initial thoughts with Jennings in a post last week where I said something that went a little like this:

Former top prospect Desmond Jennings came into the league by stealing 20 bases while hitting 10 HR's in half a season last year. Now he's slotted to be about a 5th round pick it seems. One thing is for certain: the Rays like to steal bases as they're almost always among the leaders in SB attempts. While the stolen bases seem to be a sure thing, the power is a bit more of question mark and the answer to that question will determine if he's more of a Carl Crawford or Juan Pierre. In 2010, he hit only 3 HR over nearly 500 PA but then he jacked 22 HR's in 2011 between AAA and the majors. Looking at his full career and his PA/HR, we see that both years seem to be out of the ordinary. His power numbers might regress slightly based on that past history. I'd bank on him hitting closer to 15 HR over a full season as opposed to 25 but that's still pretty awesome to go with 40 to 60 SB.

Jennings has two roto categories in which he is far above average: SB's and Runs. In each of the other categories, he can give you league-average production and that's what separates him from guys like Brett Gardner and Coco Crisp who will hurt you in pretty much all other categories.

It should be noted that Joe Maddon loves to steal bases. Since taking over in 2006, the Rays have the most SB attempts by a large margin in the league. You may attribute some of that to Carl Crawford but they actually led the league in attempts last year even without him. Unless he is able to raise his batting average a bit more or his home run totals, Jennings will likely never be a 1st round fantasy pick. But he certainly has the potential to deliver 2nd or 3rd round value without the high price tag.

Sleeper Verdict: Sleeperific. You can draft for power and average in the first four rounds then get a well-rounded speedster like Jennings a bit later. 

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