2021 Fantasy Baseball Cheatsheets | Roto or Points Drafts & Auctions

Twelve years. That’s how long I’ve been publishing fancy Excel spreadsheets that help fantasy baseball owners like yourself. The wonderful part of doing this has been listening to your ideas each year about enhancing the power of these sheets for your drafts. There are times when the ideas seem impossible to implement because of the limitations of the Excel, but I get a real thrill out of trying to use my skills to make the cheatsheets better and better.

The changes made this year are ones that I’m the most proud of from my twelve years of doing this. You’ve likely had success in your fantasy baseball leagues with these sheets in the past but this year’s version will make you even more able to dominate your draft.

If you’ve used the sheets before, I’ll talk about the cool changes for this year first and then I’ll explain the basics of the cheatsheets for any newbies who are finding these for the first time too.

Let’s win some fantasy leagues, y’all.


What’s New In 2021?

You may have noticed that these cheatsheets came out later than usual this year. That is because I took on one of my bigger challenges ever with the sheets. The changes may seem minor on the surface but it basically involved rethinking the entire foundation of the sheet and how it works behind the scenes.

Quite honestly, I could release the same exact version of the cheatsheets each year and everyone would be happy, but I like to make these better every year so that you all have great draft experiences with it. That’s why I try to tackle big changes like this every year or two.

This year’s big change? The sheets now can automatically handle multi-position eligibility for all players. You can input your league requirements for position eligibility and then players will now be eligible at all of the positions they should be. From there, as you draft players, the sheets will automatically determine where to put players on each roster based on prioritizing filling the weakest positions with the best players first.

You no longer have to try to manually change player positions to make rosters work. It’s finally all handled automatically. I’m so very excited about this as this literally took weeks of drawing out the process on paper before trying it out. From there, it took more weeks of getting it implemented in the sheets. Then, I sadly had to change it all after I forgot that the sheets need to be compatible with older versions of Excel so I needed to alter formulas to work in all versions of Excel without issues. With the help of volunteer beta testers from Twitter, it all got ironed out. What a relief it is.

In addition to that, due to the increase in size of the sheets, I made a bunch of alterations behind-the-scenes to hopefully keep them from running too slow.

Outside of that, I put in a way to handle a two-way player like Shohei Ohtani. This initial version of the cheatsheet allows you to say whether he counts as a pitcher, hitter, or both in your league. In the next update this year, I plan to add a way to split him into two separate players as well.

Outside of that, the changes this year are mostly behind-the-scenes functionality but the multi-position eligibility and addition of The Ohtani Rules should hopefully be big enough for y’all.

What Makes These Cheatsheets Special?

Fantasy baseball is the most complex fantasy sport. There are rotisserie leagues and points-based leagues and every one is different. There are auctions. There are drafts. There are keeper leagues of all forms.

Basically, there is not one type of fantasy baseball league. These cheatsheets are special because they handle nearly any type of league you throw at it.

From there, the sheet allows you to completely run your draft from within it and see estimations for how valuable each player is in your league type. It also will keep you updated on how each of the owners in your league is doing in their drafts so you know how to alter your strategy as you go.

What Info Is In The Sheet?

Once you open up the sheet, you get the choice of which data you want to use at any given time. I will provide more information about these options in later posts this preseason but you can use info from any of these sources in your sheet:

  • Projections Sources: Steamer, The BAT, ZiPS, Clay Davenport, Mr. Cheatsheet’s Special Blend
  • Average Draft Position Sources: FantasyPros, ESPN, CBS, Fantrax, NFBC
  • Auction Values Sources: FantasyPros, CBS, ESPN, Yahoo, RotoChamp
  • Expert Rankings Sources: FantasyPros, Yahoo, ESPN, RotoChamp

What are WERTH Values?

If you’re playing in a roto league, you may notice that these cheatsheets have a WERTH value for each player. These are essentially z-scores in each roto category based on your league setting, which shows you how far above or below average each player is in comparison to the replacement level for your league. A positive WERTH value in a category for a player means that they will perform better than the replacement level in that category for you. This is all dependent on your league settings but that is where the cheatsheets show their power by doing all of the calculations for you.


Download Your 2021 Cheatsheet

I know that you’re just reading this post because you want to get to the good Excel spreadsheet goodness. Heck, you may have immediately scrolled past everything else to get to the downloads. I get it. I do it too. Let’s get to it…

Roto Leagues

If you play in a rotisserie league or a H2H categories league, you’ll want to download one of the roto cheatsheets below. You can choose the draft version if you have a typical fantasy draft for your league and that is found by clicking on the button below.

Download the cheatsheet for your rotisserie standard draft league
Current version: 1.61
Current version uploaded on March 27 at 3:30 PM EST

If your roto league conducts an auction instead of a straight draft, you can download the auction version below.

Download the cheatsheet for your rotisserie auction draft league
Current version: 1.61
Current version uploaded on March 27 at 3:30 PM EST

Points Leagues

If you don’t play in a rotisserie league, you likely play in a points-based H2H league that scores a bit like fantasy football where players are awarded points for each stat they accrue based on your scoring system. If you are in a Points league, you likely will be downloading the Points Draft sheet below.

Download the cheatsheet for your points-based league draft
Current version: 1.63
Current version uploaded on March 27 at 3:30 PM EST

However, you might be in an auction-based draft for your points league and, if so, this fourth option below is the sheet for you.

Download the cheatsheet for your points-based auction draft league
Current version: 1.61
Current version uploaded on March 27 at 3:30 PM EST

Troubleshooting

The instructions within the cheatsheet should help answer most questions. I also added a button to push on the Instructions page of the sheet this year if you are experiencing an issue where data isn’t updating.

An issue that I’ve encountered in my own testing on very rare occasions involves buttons disappearing in the sheets. If that happens to you, just save the sheet then close it and re-open it. I’ve found that resolves it.

If you encounter any issues or have ideas for how to make the sheets better this year or in the future, hit this button below to fill out a form and submit an official request:

This button will take you to a Google Form to submit an official request.

Outside of that, there will likely be minor bugs and fixes I do during the month ahead. You can keep track of the spreadsheet updates by following me on Twitter where I will post about any minor updates that may happen.

As new cheatsheet updates are released, you’ll want to utilize the “Save Or Load” page in the cheatsheet to copy and paste that data into new updates.


Why Are These Free???

There are many talented people who offer fantasy draft sources for a fee. You could argue that I put too much work into these cheatsheets to keep them free after twelve years of doing this, and you’re not wrong.

Look, everyone has different circumstances in life. Some people can barely pay their rent but they get joy out of playing in their small fantasy league. I’ve been there. I get it. They should still have the ability to use my cheatsheets to do well in that league that brings them joy. Other people are extremely well-off and play in big money leagues. In their case, maybe they use my sheets and give me a little tip for my work.

I like doing that sort of system because I approach this all from a point of love and care for my fellow fantasy baseball friends. Have fun. Enjoy the sheets for free if that is where you are at in life. If you enjoy the sheets and are comfortable doing so, I do appreciate donations so much as they help pay for the site and motivate me to keep this going year after year.

Donation Options

You can tip me via Venmo!
Or PayPal!
I’m also trying out a new service where you can use whatever payment you want to buy me my next coffee.

Demos and Drafts on Twitch?

I run a Twitch channel where I play an NCAA Football 14 series (I also have a newsletter associated with that series that you can read here if you’re interested).

I bring that up because I’ve grown to love Twitch and I think it would be cool to run through the cheatsheets with you all on there and maybe do a few of my drafts live on Twitch this month.

Let me know in the comments if you’d have any interest in that! This is a link to my Twitch channel.


Before COVID-19 rocked our worlds last year, I had said “we made it to 2020, y’all!” in my cheatsheet post at the time. It seems almost ominous to read that now. I’ll just say I’m happy that year is over and that we can enjoy a full season of baseball this year.

Enjoy the cheatsheets and let me know your thoughts about them in the comments!

You Might Also Like

  • Joey
    03/19/2021 at 9:42 PM

    Luke, I downloaded your newest 1.57 version for roto auction/AL only and the player values are insanely high. Is there something I may have done wrong?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/19/2021 at 9:44 PM

      Um, hard for me to say without more info. You opened the sheet and clicked AL-Only and everyone is really high? On my end, I just did the same without touching any settings and Cole is projected at $44 and Ramirez at $39. That’s not what you’re seeing?

      • Joey
        03/19/2021 at 10:30 PM

        Actuall I think I know the issue. I’ve entered everyones keepers and the position page shows the “projected value with draft inflation” for value. Is there a way to turn this off and only see the initial projected value on the “positions” tab?

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/19/2021 at 10:31 PM

          Ah, yes, I’ll look into adding a drop-down for you to select which value to show there. When is your draft?

          • Joey
            03/19/2021 at 10:35 PM

            Unfortunately, tomorrow morning. 10am CST. 🙁

          • Luke Gloeckner
            03/19/2021 at 10:39 PM

            Ah. I see. Hmm… I guess I’ll see what I can do in the morning.

          • Luke Gloeckner
            03/19/2021 at 10:40 PM

            Send me an email to luke at mrcheatsheet dot com so I can reach you in case I figure it out before you have your draft in the morning.

          • Joey
            03/19/2021 at 10:43 PM

            Just sent you my email. Thanks Luke!

  • Lance Thomas
    03/22/2021 at 9:36 PM

    Would love to see the twitch stream.

  • Jason
    03/23/2021 at 12:18 AM

    I’m having an issue where Shohei Ohtani (SP) shows up uninvited whenever I set my keepers. I’ve been trying to isolate the problem by editing the “save or load” tab. It appears that Shohei Ohtani (SP) pops onto a roster as soon as Mike Yastrzemski is added to that roster. In v1.52 he shows up in a pitcher slot. In v1.58 he shows up, of all places, in the catcher slot. (Though, in v1.58 at least, if a team already has another player rostered in the catcher slot, then Ohtani (SP) doesn’t show up on that roster at all.)

    Any idea what could be causing this?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/23/2021 at 12:23 AM

      Out of curiosity, if you change the Ohtani Rule on the Settings page to something else other than the one that splits him into two players, does it work normally?

      The process of splitting him into two players ended up being way more convoluted than I would have liked when I added that in the latest version so I suppose there could be problems there somewhere. It’s weird that it is linked to Yastrzemski. That also makes no sense that he’s in a catcher spot in one version.

      I assume you are in a league that needs him split into two players though? What sheet is this in? Roto Draft? Points Draft? Sorry, this is the first I’m hearing of this but I guess you may be the first to use it with Yaz as a keeper.

      • Jason Stiffler
        03/23/2021 at 12:46 AM

        Oh – yes, I should have specified. This is the roto Draft Sheet.

        I tried playing with the one-or-two players setting, and you’re exactly right: it’s just when he’s treated as two separate players. Any of the other three options, he vanishes from the roster.

        Yahoo treats him as two players, so it would be helpful if i was able to do that — though I could probably work around it if needed.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/23/2021 at 12:41 AM

      Uploading new versions of all four sheets to ensure that doesn’t happen moving forward. Should see a new version number of each of them in a few minutes.

      • Jason
        03/23/2021 at 12:50 AM

        Excellent – thanks!

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/23/2021 at 1:02 AM

          Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The fixed versions have been uploaded.

  • Jason
    03/23/2021 at 5:20 PM

    Sorry to keep hitting you with things — I found another area where I have a question — this time concerning the trio of “ADP, ADP Rd, Odds Avail.” The spreadsheet, as it arrives blank, has a small number of folks with no data i these columns. Most make sense (it’s mainly players like Mike Clevinger), though I’m not sure why Will Smith (RPP) would be in that group.

    However, when I import data from my 1.52 spreadsheet, a large-ish number of payers lose data in these three columns. Here, it’s folks like Chris Archer, Drew Smyly, Josh Lindblom and Mike Minor. (There are many more). I’m guessing this is probably an error?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/23/2021 at 5:23 PM

      Will Smith would be an error because I have a lot of issues with two players in the database having the same name so I messed him up and having fixed it yet. Based on the players you listed and looking at my data, I assume you have your ADP set to Yahoo, which doesn’t have as many players in it. Change it to another source on the Settings page and you should see the info you are looking for.

      • Jason
        03/23/2021 at 6:23 PM

        Aha! Yep – I’m seeing it now. Thanks again!

  • Eric
    03/23/2021 at 6:21 PM

    Luke you are truly the man! I am going to use the V1.58

    Can I ask you to help me with a question- in years past I was able to create an Excel file from the Your Roto Auction Tab that I broke down by position and could add color highlighting and notes for myself etc. This year it seems locked or I can’t even delete rows so that I can move people around to to other positions.

    Was there a change? Anyway I can manipulate or extract the data to a new file? Lost without that ability.

    Thanks as always for the help and guidance.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/23/2021 at 6:26 PM

      Hmm. I’m not really familiar with doing that in the sheet so I’m not sure. Are you saying you would delete rows on the Your Roto Auction tab in the past and drag people to other positions? It seems like that would have broken all of my formula references in the sheet so I’m surprised that was possible in the past. I guess I’m not familiar with what you were doing before and what I may have changed. Could you explain further?

      • Eric
        03/24/2021 at 9:56 AM

        Luke as always thanks for quick reply back. Seems similar to the question from Jack below. In the past I was able to literally take that tab and put it in a new Excel Spreadsheet so that I could then manipulate the data. As mentioned it was for highlighting players in color for my system and then moving them around a bit if I liked a certain player more than say the experts to rank him higher and then resort with my tweaks. Seems like this year you can not delete rows, or if move it to another Excel file it is light grey as you must have it protected. Gives a run time error. Soooo hoping it is something that can be re-tweak as your is my bible, but need to be able add a few adjustments. I remain hopeful. Thx Eric

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/24/2021 at 10:06 AM

          Jack seemed to be having trouble doing anything without a password, which is a common question I get every day and usually just means I didn’t explain how to use the sheet properly. As for your issue, there’s a highlight feature in the sheets this year, by the way. I added that in version 1.50. You can highlight players by selecting a highlight color for them on the Players Note page. I have no idea why that error you’re describing is occurring though, as what you’re describing isn’t a feature I design my sheets in mind with so I’m not really sure off the top of my head. I’ll try to re-read your comments later to see if I better understand what you need because I don’t think my coffee has kicked in yet as I’m having trouble understanding it (also my lack of understanding could just be because it’s outside of what I designed the sheets to do so it’s hard for me to wrap my head around). After I get my work done today and such, I’ll revisit and see if I understand though.

          • Eric
            03/24/2021 at 10:46 AM

            Luke really appreciate you and totally get the coffee thing. Lol. I just had a thought I could email you what I did last year if that would help you visualize? Also might help you tell me to just do something easy with the current version of the sheet which would be best. Let me know if that helps and where I can send it.

  • Jack D. Vukasin
    03/24/2021 at 6:51 AM

    Luke, loots like a fantastic tool, just can’t get anything to work without a password to unprotect sheets.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/24/2021 at 9:32 AM

      That shouldn’t be the case unless you are trying to edit cells that have formulas in them (or perhaps if you are using the sheets in something other than Excel). What didn’t work without a password?

  • Don
    03/24/2021 at 10:49 AM

    Hi – huge fan here, of your cheatsheets but also of your design sensibility.

    Q – any way to add appearances (G) to settings on the points draft cheatsheet?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/24/2021 at 10:50 AM

      Do you mean to add it as a category that would give you points in the settings?

      • Don
        03/24/2021 at 2:30 PM

        yes. Possible?

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/24/2021 at 5:27 PM

          Yeah, I’ll try to work it into the next update.

          • Don
            03/25/2021 at 6:14 PM

            thank you!

  • Bob
    03/24/2021 at 12:11 PM

    Hi Luke,

    Love your spreadsheets and appreciate the work you put into them each year. Just wanted to give you a heads up on something I noticed with the Points Draft sheet, v.1.59. When I go to update the name of a team in the settings page, that team name doesn’t update on the draft log or the “save and load” page. This is something that wasn’t an issue with previous versions of the sheet. I have 1.59 and 1.57 saved, and 1.57 updates the team name change on all other parts of the spreadsheet. The new 1.59 shows “Team name no longer exists!” in the Errors column on the draft log. On the Save and Load page, the new team name shows up in column F, but in column I, the old team name is still in the snake draft log order.

    Just wanted to let you know!

    Thanks!
    (Won’t give you my real name so my fantasy opponents don’t know why I’m always kicking their ass!)

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/24/2021 at 12:15 PM

      Hi there, “Bob” :). I’m unable to recreate that error when I download version 1.59 from here and try to recreate it myself. I’d say maybe try re-downloading? If the error still persists, send me an e-mail of a copy of your sheet where that is happening. Email is luke at mrcheatsheet dot com.

      • Bob
        03/24/2021 at 2:22 PM

        Hey Luke,

        I just played around with some stuff. The problem was coming from version 1.57, copying and pasting my data into 1.59. The initial data copied over fine, but then when I went to update the name of a team, it wouldn’t update on the rest of the spreadsheet. I restored version 1.51 and the data copied over, and I was able to make the changes to the team names in version 1.59 with no issues. So I’m thinking there must be some kind of bug in 1.57 that when that data is copied over to 1.59, it leaves something on the sheet that doesn’t allow you to change the name of the team. The initial data copies over fine, you just can’t change the team names. So I think I’m good for now, but I’m wondering what happens when you copy and paste the data from 1.59 and into the next sheet. Give that a try if you can and see if you can replicate this error. I’ll hold off on sending you my 1.57 unless you want me to send it your way. Just let me know! Thanks again! “Bob”

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/24/2021 at 5:31 PM

          Oh weird. I would have thought there would be more of an issue with going from 1.51 to 1.59 as the Player Notes page was in a different order before 1.57 and caused issues with people who had previously written Player Notes. Regardless, I don’t recall what changed from 1.57 to 1.58 at the moment but maybe I fixed something that was wrong with 1.57. I don’t have a new sheet beyond 1.59 to move data into yet to test as you suggested but I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.

  • Jordan
    03/24/2021 at 2:56 PM

    Thanks for the Cheatsheets! Always amazing work.

    I have a unique league where we use NL + AL East + You can draft up to 2 “Imports” from the other AL teams, but you must bid a minimum of $21. Is there a way to edit the player pool so I could remove players from the AL that I feel will never go for $21 to avoid cluttering the playerpool during the draft?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/24/2021 at 5:26 PM

      Dang, just when I think my cheatsheets cover all scenarios, a new one comes around haha. Um, I had once written in the ability to edit the teams that you can draft from but I hadn’t really worked in a method for creating a custom player pool. Hmm… I’ll give it thought but I’m not sure how I would accomplish that at the moment.

      • Jordan Gray
        03/24/2021 at 5:57 PM

        Yup, we’re a weird one! No worries, I’ve always worked around the issue and will continue to do so. Appreciate the response!

  • Big Time Timmy Jim
    03/25/2021 at 6:20 PM

    Hi Luke, thank you for the hard work!
    I’ve updated the spreadsheets several times, but with the new Points Draft version, when I paste my old info from columns A-J on the “Save or Load” tab, it’s causing almost all (literally around 99%) of the players on the “Positions” tab to disappear.

    I’ve re-tried 3-4 times, and always get the same result.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/25/2021 at 6:34 PM

      I’m unable to recreate that behavior on my end. I’d first suggest re-downloading the sheet perhaps. Were you going from version 1.59 to version 1.60 or was it a different transition?

  • Big Time Timmy Jim
    03/25/2021 at 7:16 PM

    Sorry, left that bit out.
    I’m going from 1.58 to 1.60.

    Using Excel version 2102.

    I’ve tried re-downloading 3-4 times.
    There’s 84 total keepers, so it definitely shouldn’t be wiping everybody out.

    I’ve tried using hotkeys, and also right-click copy/paste. Same result either way.
    I tried a reboot too.

    There’s always a possibility that it could just be me.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/25/2021 at 7:26 PM

      The data you’re moving over must have some weird quirk to it that is throwing things off. I’m trying to think of what formulas could even break that would cause players to completely disappear on that page. It’s hard for me to say. You could try just copy/pasting your keepers directly from the Keepers page and see if that causes issues. Sorry, hard to diagnose on my end. You can send the old sheet that’s causing issues to luke at mrcheatsheet dot com and I’ll check it out tomorrow. I have two drafts tonight so I won’t be able to look at it tonight though.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/26/2021 at 11:40 AM

      I’m not sure if this is related to your issue entirely but someone pointed out that the ADP sorting was broken for a few of the ADP types in that version. I’ve uploaded 1.62 of the sheet so hopefully that also fixes your problem maybe.

      • Big Time Timmy Jim
        03/26/2021 at 4:38 PM

        Not sure if you got it or not, but I did email you last night regarding my issue.
        I still notice in 1.62 that cell I328 on the Save or Load tab seems like it should be Team 12 instead of being empty. No idea if that could lead to potential problems, or if it’s even anything of any sort of concern.

        Going from 1.58 to 1.62 does seems to be working, thanks!

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/26/2021 at 4:45 PM

          Thanks. That’s feeding directly from the Draft Log page and the draft length would be determined by how many bench spots were set by the league. It’s just a cosmetic thing so wouldn’t affect the Save & Load process but, yeah, I can make it go one cell further on the Draft Log to not cut off the last round of the draft. Thank you for the eagle eye to notice it though! Appreciate it.

        • Luke Gloeckner
          03/26/2021 at 4:52 PM

          I went ahead and re-uploaded 1.62 with a fix to just make sure that last cell isn’t cut off on the Draft Log.

  • Greg
    03/26/2021 at 10:04 AM

    Love your work! For the 1.61 points draft spreadsheet it looks like sorting by ADP isn’t working correctly. Also loading in my notes from sheet 1.52 didnt work correctly (most player notes are either missing or incorrect)

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/26/2021 at 10:10 AM

      Weird. I guess try emailing me your old sheet that you’re trying to move over so I can see if I see what causes your issue. My email is luke at mrcheatsheet dot com.

  • lb
    03/27/2021 at 11:44 AM

    is there an easy way to change “ELOYs” ADP or someone I would not draft other than a totally custom ADP Projection?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/29/2021 at 9:25 AM

      Sorry, thought I replied to this. I added in a feature over the weekend to remove a player’s data from the sheet in cases like that. On the Players Note page, there’s a Remove Player Data option for a player now.

  • Matthew J Foley
    03/27/2021 at 12:16 PM

    When I make a draft choice….I then go to the POSITIONS tab. The player’s name that was drafted is greyed out, along with their WTH, and their value.

    However, it also GREYS OUT the values for other players who were not drafted yet, but who are in the same row.

    So for example, if the player listed in C10 was drafted….Values in A10 and B10 get greyed out as they should…
    but also…..D10, G10, J10, M10, P10, S10, V10, and Y10 are all greyed out.

  • Michael Heffner
    03/29/2021 at 12:26 AM

    So, trying to use the 1.61 sheet to track our auction to refer to during the season – we’ve got plenty of prospects and fringe guys that get bid for – I’d like to use the “Unlisted Player” option since there are 25 extra lines to add the Name/Team/Position and track the bids for guys like Dom Nunez, Ryan Zimmerman, or Corbin Carroll as they aren’t already in the spreadsheet. But apparently I need to unprotect the Your Roto Auction tab with a password – which we don’t have. So how can I do this?

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/29/2021 at 9:27 AM

      The unlisted player options are placeholders for players that aren’t on the sheet. You wouldn’t enter in the information for those players. Just put in a bid, winning team, and choose Unlisted Player. If nothing else, it just keeps budgets and everything intact. In future years, having you add cosmetic information like a name or position could be a feature I’d do in the future.

  • AO
    03/29/2021 at 6:10 PM

    When you go into the ‘Positions’ tab, the players are not sorted by their total points. Sorting them manually doesn’t work for some reason.

    • Luke Gloeckner
      03/29/2021 at 6:14 PM

      Correct. It’s sorted by their average draft position (assuming you are talking about the Points Draft sheet). The points totals are color coded so you can see where the best value is throughout the draft. Hope that helps!

    1 2