Fantasy baseball draft season is approaching! Scrap whatever you were doing because I officially welcome you to the eleventh year of Mr. Cheatsheet. I’m here, once again, at your service to help you win your fantasy leagues aided by the craziest Excel spreadsheets in the land.
I create highly customizable and data-overloaded spreadsheets every year that can handle any single league you throw at it. The general idea is that you take your crazy league settings, enter them into the spreadsheet and get advanced projections and analysis catered to your specific league settings. From there, you can conduct your entire draft from within the spreadsheet and get insight and knowledge throughout the draft to help give you an edge over your clueless leaguemates. Sound good? Then let’s rock.
What Makes These Cheatsheets Special?
I, myself, play in a variety of fantasy baseball leagues and every single one of them is different. There are auction leagues instead of snake drafts and there are keeper leagues instead of redraft leagues and there are points leagues instead of roto leagues. The list goes on and on. Considering that’s just me, I can only imagine the infinite number of fantasy league varieties that exist in the universe. As a result of there not being one standard way to play fantasy baseball, I built these highly customizable spreadsheets to help aid anybody with their unique league type, no matter what crazy settings you may have.
Once the draft gets going, you can keep track of it in the spreadsheet. You’ll be able to see projected standings and all sorts of data during your draft so that you can make educated decisions when your time to pick comes up.
If you are in a keeper league, you can enter your keepers in and the cheatsheet will take those into account. If you’re in a roto auction league, you can run it from the cheatsheet and get custom values based on your league settings that change during the draft based on your league’s inflation rates. The possibilities for what these cheatsheets can handle are (nearly) endless.
What Data Am I Pulling In?
This spreadsheet would be pretty mundane and boring without all the options that are included in it. You can choose from a ton of different baseball projections, or ADP data, or auction values, or expert rankings. I owe a great deal to all of those services for existing. I’m simple offering a tool that puts them all at your fingertips.
As the draft season progresses over the next month, these options will expand a bit but here’s what you can find inside this first version of the 2020 cheatsheets.
- 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
WERTH Values (Roto Leagues)
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 means that player will contribute positively for your team. This is all dependent on your league settings which makes these values completely unique to your league.
Download Your 2020 Cheatsheet
I’m excited to announce that there are four different varieties of cheatsheets this year. I’m introducing a Points Auction version for the first time, due to popular demand. It took a lot of work (thus the slight delay in the release of these sheets this year) but it’s finally here! Rejoice, my points auction friends. But let’s dive deeper into your options this year.
Roto Leagues
If you play in a rotisserie league or a H2H categories league, you’ll want to download the roto cheatsheets below. You can either choose the draft version if you have a typical fantasy draft for your league, or you can choose the auction version if your league conducts an auction instead of a straight draft.
Download the cheatsheet for your rotisserie standard draft leagues
(Current Version: 1.19 uploaded on July 21 at 6:15 PM EST)
Download the cheatsheet for your rotisserie auction draft leagues
(Current Version: 1.19 uploaded on July 21 at 6:15 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 can download the draft or auction version of the spreadsheet below based on your draft type.
Download the cheatsheet for your points-based league drafts
(Current Version: 1.19 uploaded on July 21 at 6:15 PM EST)
Download the cheatsheet for your points-based league auction drafts
(Current Version: 1.19 uploaded on July 21 at 6:15 PM EST)
Troubleshooting
There are instructions within the cheatsheets but questions may still arise. Post your questions in the comments below so I can answer for others to see.
While I did a bunch of testing on these prior to their release, it’s hard to test out every conceivable scenario so it’s possible you may encounter a bug or error that I didn’t catch. Let me know about that as well and I’ll post updates as needed. You can keep track of spreadsheet updates by following me on Twitter where I 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 your custom data into new updates.
Donations
These cheatsheets are free! And I do that because I want them to reach as many people as possible. If you play in a $10 fantasy league, it wouldn’t make sense to pay $5 for a spreadsheet to help you. But you should still be able to dominate your league. Anyway, there are still costs associated with keeping this website up (in addition to the man hours I put into making these) so I do appreciate anyone who would like to offer a donation to me so that I can buy coffee or something like that.
Paul
02/24/2020 at 11:32 AMThis is incredible thank you! Where would you like feedback directed? I noticed when adding my keepers that Will Smith (C) is not in the player pool. It seems like Buster Posey has taken his place as ranked 5th based on steamer projections.
c
03/04/2020 at 2:37 PMReally cool stuff now that I can actually see everything. Considering how useful this will be and imagining the ammount of time you likely put in, I’ll certainly be donating in the future. Few questions:
1) Is there a way to attribute multipositional eligibility into these rankings which I assume would affect the players WERTH.
2) Would it be possible to add W-L as a category.
3) Is there a way to attribute for a bench also in the settings (I assume, no, since bench doesnt have specifics on position so its going to vary from league to league.
Mike
03/11/2020 at 2:45 PMIncluding a bench option in settings would be helpful.
Luke Gloeckner
03/11/2020 at 2:50 PMThanks! I include a bench setting for the Auction sheets as that is needed in the calculations of auction values. I haven’t included it in the Draft sheets as it wouldn’t really be used in any calculation but I understand people want the cosmetic satisfaction of seeing the accurate number of bench positions on some tabs. That being said, it’s a lot of re-coding to get that done so it’s not at the top of my list of changes I’m trying to implement for the next update. It’s been noted though.
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 11:47 AMLeaving feedback here works! Yeah, I was notified by somebody else that there’s something weird with Will Smith. I’m assuming something got mixed up with there being two players with that name. I’ll check it out and have a little update soon.
EH
02/24/2020 at 12:06 PMThanks for the great work Luke!
When do you expect to have “the search for Narco” ready? I targeted a few of the SP/Hitters that you recommended and worked out great! Thanks again.
EH
02/24/2020 at 12:08 PM*forgot to mention… My draft is on Sunday and I’m hoping you’ll have some info by then.
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 12:21 PMYup, I should have those up during the week this week.
MJ
02/24/2020 at 12:42 PMAmazing tool! I used this last season with great results.
I have one note regarding the projections. Under the “Your Own Custom Combination” option, you have Fangraphs – Depth Chart projections as an option, however if I give this any weight the projections do not fill in on the draft sheets. I’m not noticing this issue with any of the other projection systems. Selecting Fangraphs – Depth Charts alone from the Projections dropdown appears to work fine but I’m not able to include it in the custom combination projections.
Thank you for creating this excellent draft aid!
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 12:43 PMThanks, I’ll check that out. There must be something off there. Which sheet is this in particular (Roto Draft, Auction, etc)?
MJ
02/24/2020 at 12:58 PMI was looking at the Roto Draft sheet.
Sonny
02/24/2020 at 4:19 PMHey Luke, sorry if I missed this. But will you be doing your “Special Blend” projections? And will those be an option for “Projections to use” in your spreadsheet?
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 4:24 PMYup, indeed! They’ll be up eventually and in the spreadsheets afterwards.
Jason
02/24/2020 at 6:30 PMI’m in a dynasty league, and on the Rosters page, it has deep dynasty players that automatically go into certain positions that they won’t fill during the regular season. An example, one guy has Taylor Trammel as an OF prospect, so it fills it in his starter spot. Is there a way to adjust the positions so I can put back-ups in their correct position? Essentially, it autofills to fill the roster, but that’s not accurate to what others will be using as their normal line-up. Thanks!
James
02/24/2020 at 7:00 PMAfter switching the settings to match my 10 team 5×5 Roto league I noticed that almost all of the players on the positions tab have a negative WTH. Can you give me a better explanation of this number and what it represents?
Thank you for all the work you do on this sheet!
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 7:17 PMOnce a player is on a team, on the Rosters page, you can right click on a player to force them to be a starter on that team’s roster and then it adjusts the lineup accordingly. Is that what you are looking for?
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 7:18 PMThe cheatsheet will calculate league averages for you and replacement level players. Players that are above replacement level will have a positive value and players that are below replacement level (essentially the most valuable bench player) will be negative value.
Travis
02/24/2020 at 8:30 PMLuke these are amazing! Any chance you could add W+QS as a scoring category for pitching?
Jason
02/24/2020 at 8:32 PMThanks for the reply. I’m actually trying to get players out of the starter section to see the gaps in the players starters, not necessarily into the lineup.
Jim P
02/24/2020 at 8:45 PMi was trying to import values and they are coming up blank in the my roto auction.
Mike Minor
02/24/2020 at 10:42 PMHey man, great work, was just hoping you’d add a 5×5 H2H categories option. If not, no worries. Just seems to be a very popular league type
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 10:46 PMH2H Categories leagues are a type of roto league. As I mention above, if you’re in that type of league, download the roto sheets and that’ll have everything you need in there to manage your drafts. Let me know if you have questions though!
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 10:57 PMThe only thing I can think is that the names aren’t matching up. Are they in first name – last name order (so Mike Trout instead of Trout, Mike)?
James
02/24/2020 at 11:36 PMSo I have no players rosters at the moment. Literally the only 2 players with a positive WTH are Trout (0.5) and Yelich (0.3).
I was trying to use the WTH column to get a better ranking/value of players by position but the fact that all their numbers are negative has me concerned and confused.
Luke Gloeckner
02/24/2020 at 11:39 PMIf you could, e-mail me a copy of your spreadsheet to luke at mrcheatsheet dot com. That seems very curious to me.
JRF
02/25/2020 at 9:11 AMHow do you add an unlisted player?
Luke Gloeckner
02/25/2020 at 10:23 AMAs of right now, you would just choose Unlisted Player at the bottom of the draft list. In a future update, I hope to let you write in their name and position though.
Bill
02/25/2020 at 12:23 PMLuke what is your Venmo address? The link won’t open on my phone
Luke Gloeckner
02/25/2020 at 12:31 PMIt is @lgloeckner. Thanks so much!
Hieu Nguyen
02/26/2020 at 1:02 AMWhen I try to “search for player” on the keeper tab, it says “Cannot run the macro “2020 Points draft cheatsheet v1.02.xlsm’!Search_And_Place’. the macro may not be available or all marcos may be disabled.
Hieu Nguyen
02/26/2020 at 1:14 AMNevermind, I see I had to ENABLE the macros! Thanks!
John Shade
02/26/2020 at 8:25 PMAny chance you could allow highlighting in a future update… I understand locking the spreadsheet but man if I could highlight a player rather then going through the notes section, this would improve interface greatly imo
Michael Suhr
03/01/2020 at 11:14 PMYes! Color-coding note types would be great. The entire row doesn’t have to be color-coded, just the Notes cell in the “Your Draft” sheet.
Luke Gloeckner
03/14/2020 at 10:43 PMI’ve figured out a way to accomplish this and will be adding it to the next update. When adding player notes, you’ll be able to select if you want to highlight that player or not (choosing whether to highlight them in green or black, depending on whether it is a positive or negative highlight).
Mike V
02/27/2020 at 10:15 AMThanks again for the tool! Quick feedback on one setting. When changing the league budget per team on setting tab, team #3 remains at the default $400 amount on projected standings. Thanks!
Tom
02/28/2020 at 9:49 PMLuke, Gretat job once again!I apprecite all the effort and will be hitting the donate button.
I am having one issue. While on the “Your Roto Draft” tab, clickinh any cell throws a VBA error. It states :Compile error in hidden module” and then points to either module 1 or sheet 2. I can send you a picture if you like. Running a 32-bit version of Office 13, macros are enabled and the file is saved as an xlsm type.
Thoughts?
Eric
03/01/2020 at 3:34 PMI can’t seem to get the save/load copy paste to work. Every time I try it tells me “This action won’t work on multiple selections”
Luke Gloeckner
03/01/2020 at 3:36 PMTry unselecting the columns in the sheet you’re copying from before you paste it into the new sheet. I’m guessing it may think you’re trying to paste on both spreadsheets if columns are selected on both open workbooks. Just a guess though.
Chris
03/01/2020 at 6:42 PMWas hoping for some help here, not sure what I’m doing wrong. I had this problem last year also but it doesn’t seem like anyone is having this issue.
I’m clicking on the ROTO Draft cheatsheet and google docs comes up and it is just a blank spreadsheet with nothing written in. I don’t have Microsoft Office and usually when I try opening an Excel spreadsheet it will load up in Google Docs/Google Drive so I’m not sure if anyone has any guidance on what/why this is happening. Any help would be appreciated.
Luke Gloeckner
03/01/2020 at 7:49 PMHi, this is not designed to work in web-based spreadsheet apps like Google Docs. There is code written into it that requires it to use Microsoft Excel on the PC or Mac.
chris
03/02/2020 at 5:45 PMThanks Luke. I think I have an install file of microsoft office somewhere on an external HD, although its a bit of an older version but hopefully it will still work. I did get it to load up on safari somewhat and looks like it has so much more info than i expected. Looking forward to playing around with some of the customizable options once I can get it to work. Thanks for all the hard work you’ve obviously put in to this spreadsheet.
Gil
03/02/2020 at 10:54 AMWould you be able to add (R – HR) as a category in the Roto Cheatsheet?
Brian Scully
03/02/2020 at 5:13 PMLuke, thanks as always. Any idea when your special blend projections will be added?
Ryan
03/03/2020 at 1:31 PMHello! Thank you so much for these sheets – they’re lifesaver!
I got two questions for you:
1) Would it be possible to add projected Plate Appearance / Innings PItched to the Your Roto Auction page? Thats the main page I interact with most during my auction. Its nice to get a sense of how PA/IP players with the lower value platoon players and project mid-season call ups for us in deeper leagues.
2) I use the imported, custom auction values for the chosen site value column on the Your Roto Auction page. When I change the number of teams (12 -> 15), it applies an inflation on those imported values. Is it possible to disable that behind-the-scenes inflation for custom imported values?
Thanks!
Dan
03/03/2020 at 4:53 PMPoints Roto sheet I think your OBP formula is wrong. Looks like it’s on base divided by AB and not PA
Everyone’s OBP is way too high in the Steamer projections as listed on “Your Points Draft”
Thanks for all the hard work you do!
Kevin Quick
03/03/2020 at 10:22 PMhow can I set the roster size to a certain number? We have 23 total players, but some teams go in with anywhere from 6 to 10 keepers. Can I make the draft show as team’s max out? Oh, by the way. So far I think your cheatsheet is awesome!
Matt L.
03/05/2020 at 10:48 PMIs there a way to input keeper values and have the remaining pool calculate the projected value based on the dollars remaining after keepers?
Drew B
03/09/2020 at 1:57 AMRecord all of the keepers as if they are the first players taken in the auction and the spreadsheet should automatically update to give you what you’re looking for.
Rehide
03/06/2020 at 2:24 PMHi luke, are u planning on updating the projections soon?
Looks like they are from February 19.
Thx
Corky
03/06/2020 at 4:41 PMWhen will your “special blend” projections be added? Thank you!
Taylor Boice
03/07/2020 at 3:05 PMIs there a way to unlock the draft page so I can change the color fill on players I’m targeting or avoiding? I’m trying to customize it for my draft tomorrow night (Sunday, March 8).
Jim
03/08/2020 at 2:25 PMI am trying to add two sheets to the document, preferably via Move/Copy function but when I do that, nothing happens, and when I try to add a new sheet or copy/paste info, I get an error message saying “This action won’t work on multiple selections”. I had no issues doing the same thing with the previous 2 versions of the spreadsheet so I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong here. Thanks.
Michael Suhr
03/08/2020 at 10:27 PMHas anyone figured out how to import ESPNs ADP?
Luke Gloeckner
03/09/2020 at 12:48 AMSorry, I meant to add that in during my latest quick update. It’ll be in when I do my more formal update later this week though.
Drew B
03/09/2020 at 2:00 AMHi Luke,
Thanks for everything.
I tried to cut and paste columns A through L to update tonight and it didn’t work. The Save and Load page changes (and stays changed after I close the program and reopen it) but all of the other sheets stay blank.
Can you verify to see if it’s a problem on your end or if my computer just hates me?
Thanks a ton,
DB
Drew B
03/09/2020 at 2:02 AMp.s. Roto Auction v 1.10
2020 Special Blend Projections for Fantasy Baseball - Mr. Cheatsheet - Fantasy Baseball Draft Tools and Research
03/09/2020 at 8:15 AM[…] accurate projections if you’re basing your draft upon them in any way. In a recent article, I analyzed the accuracy of various projection sources for fantasy purposes. My Special Blend of projections took the top spot as far for hitters but […]
Tom
03/09/2020 at 2:21 PMHi Luke,
Hopefully this is a simple fix. On the Player Notes page, Player Notes field, attempting to edit this field erases the entire field. It would be nice if I could edit rather than re-type this field.
Thanks,
Tom
Hieu Nguyen
03/09/2020 at 9:09 PMI am still pretty new to fantasy baseball, this will be my 4th year. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions on how they manage the spreadsheet live? Between entering who has been drafted and making a decision on your next pick, I feel it can get a bit much at times in the heat of the moment.
Luke Gloeckner
03/09/2020 at 10:38 PMIt really depends on your draft style. If you’re in a fast draft that has like 60 seconds per pick, the spreadsheet would be crazy hard to manage in-draft. If you have a good amount of time for each pick, just update it as it gets close to your pick so you can start to see who you might want to draft.
Hieu Nguyen
03/09/2020 at 10:41 PMYeah, we have a fast draft. 90 seconds.
Luke Gloeckner
03/09/2020 at 10:43 PMWow. That’s not a great system for those who want to actually research their picks as they come up. That’s unfortunate.
Hieu Nguyen
03/09/2020 at 10:48 PMYeah, I have to do a lot of prep. I have my speadsheet, targets, guys I want to avoid, etc all on it. I usually have a few tiers from various sites pulled up. It helps me when the draft starts to get of hand.
Between picks is when I have to make sure I have a group of guys I like qued up.
Your position list could help me a lot live. I can probably quickly highlight the names of guys that are selected. Pre mark guys I like with a different color.
Jim Paluf
03/09/2020 at 10:24 PMThanks for the special blend update! 1. Kipnis is listed with CLE. 2. I am not able to copy over the save sheet from the old to the new, but i am wondering if this is an office on mac thing.
Luke Gloeckner
03/09/2020 at 10:38 PMWhat error are you getting?
Jim P
03/09/2020 at 11:17 PMThis action won’t work on multiple selections. The work around is to copy then close the original spreadsheet and then paste to the new version. o well.
Luke Gloeckner
03/09/2020 at 11:32 PMYeah. If you get that error when loading data into a new sheet, it is likely because you still have columns selected in the sheet you’re copying from so Excel thinks you’re trying to paste into both sheets. Deselect the columns in the old sheet before pasting into a new one.
dingo37
03/10/2020 at 10:17 AMWhat am I doing wrong? When I make changes in the settings it doesn’t seem to do anything to the cheatsheet. For instance, if I zero out the 1B position entirely it does nothing to the rankings or if I add an absurd number of starting SPs the rankings dont change. Is there a recalculate button I’m missing (macros are enabled)? Thanks in advance.
Luke Gloeckner
03/10/2020 at 10:32 AMSounds like you have Automatic Calculations turned off within Excel at the moment. Try finding that within the Excel settings and turning that back on and see if that fixes your issue.
BR
03/10/2020 at 11:55 AMI’m in a 5×5 H2H Categories league. Is the roto spreadsheet able to accommodate if I wanted to punt on a category or two? Would I just not select those categories? Or should I select them, but mark “half” to lessen their effect? Thanks!