The major changes to my fantasy baseball Excel spreadsheets each year usually occur prior to the first initial release. In some years, there are major tweaks and changes that continue to happen after that initial release in order to improve functionality and listen to some requests that have come in. This is one of those years.
The initial 2021 release of the cheatsheets was smooth with mostly minor bugs reported and I was happy to see that. I still wanted to smooth out the new features like multi-position eligibility and the Ohtani rule, among other things.
That brings us to today where I have an updated version of the sheets ready for release.
First, A Few Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do these cheatsheets work on Google Sheets?
A: Sadly, no. These are designed to only work in Microsoft Excel because of the draft automation process that I built into them.
Q: Can I have the password for the cheatsheets?
A: No. It’s not that I’m being secretive about the contents of the sheet, but nearly everything you see is actually a formula referring to lots of other things and typing in the cells would break the entire sheet.
Q: Is there anything I can do to increase the speed of the cheatsheets?
A: Not that I’m aware of. I know they do run a bit slow. A lot of the work I do with these sheets is to make them compatible with as many versions of Excel as I can. That means that I often have to use slower formulas and that I hardly use any macro functionality at all, which would speed things up. I sacrifice speed for compatibility. If you have good hardware and the latest version of Excel then hopefully it should run without too much issue.
Q: Can you add The Latest Hot Prospect into the sheet? He’s not in there.
A: I likely will not be adding any additional players this year so your best bet is to choose Unlisted Player when a player gets drafted that isn’t in the sheet.
What’s New In These Versions?
Okay! So, I had implemented a long list of changes and tweaks this time around. The funny thing is that I often forget all of the changes that I’ve done because I’m just knocking out so many fixes and moving onto the next one. It only dawned on me mid-way through this process to start recording them all in a changelog. You can find the changelog here with most of the changes.
The more impactful changes are:
- You can now add a position to a player that is not being assigned to them at the moment. This is done on the Player’s Notes page and can help deal with the issue of a league giving position eligibility to a player for a position they didn’t really qualify for.
- The Positions page has been tweaked and now will respond dynamically to your league type. If your league uses directional outfielders then you will see them on that page now. If you are in an NL-Only league, you won’t see DH there anymore.
- You can now highlight players in certain colors. This is also done from the Player’s Notes page.
- Shohei Ohtani can now be split into two separate players on the Settings page under Ohtani Rule.
Those are the big changes but there have been tweaks to a lot of data calculation. For instance, auction values should calculate better than ever and many other things too. It’s a long list of tweaks that took me way longer to implement than I’d care to admit but the changes are in and this version should help you win your leagues in 2021.
How To Move Data From The Old Version
If you already entered data in version 1.00 of the cheatsheets, you’ll likely want to move that data into these sheets. It’s as simple as copying the data from the old Save & Load page and then pasting it into your new Save & Load page. It can still be a bit confusing though so here’s a short video that walks through it:
Warning About “Multiple Selections” Error
I believe this error is unique to Mac users but I’ve heard of users who get an error saying they “can’t do that to multiple selections” when trying to move data into the new sheet. Here’s a link to timestamp of that YouTube video where I specifically address that. The basic idea is that you can’t have all the columns selected on both open Excel workbooks so you need to de-select the old columns after you copy them.
Warning For Those Who Downloaded Early 1.50 Versions
I announced on Twitter the other night that you could download the 1.50 version here early but, alas, those users ended up being live beta testers. I heard about a few errors, including Player Notes being thrown off when loading 1.00 data into the sheets. I since made changes and now 1.00 data will move over seamlessly.
However, you should NOT do a Save & Load of other 1.5x versions into this 1.57 release if you have Player Notes data as it will be misaligned.
Other Info About The Sheets
In the introductory post for the cheatsheets this year, I walked through more info about the data included in these cheatsheets and their basic functionality. If this is your first time using the sheets, you may want to read over that post as well to learn more about what these sheets can do.
Download Your 2021 Cheatsheet
If you’re like me, you scrolled past all those wordy words and went right to the downloads. I get it. So, here we go…
Roto Leagues
If you play in a rotisserie league or an 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Current version: 1.61
Current version uploaded on March 27 at 3:30 PM EST
Donation Options
There’s no obligation to donate to me if you use these cheatsheets. They are completely free to use. That being said, working on these sheets and also providing support to users of the sheets basically becomes a full-time job for me this time of year. That’s why I do appreciate any tips you choose to give me whether they be big or small. Here are various ways you could do that if you so choose:
This should be the last major update of the cheatsheets for 2021! The only things that will likely get updated now are any major bugs I hear about and the data sources that are in the sheets.
Now, go on and dominate your fantasy baseball draft, my friend!
Matt
03/21/2021 at 3:27 PMHi Luke:
While I am able on the settings tab to be able to remove the standard 1 2B and 1 SS format, and replace with the 3 MI format my league uses, any SS or 2B eligibility does not change for the players. For example, while I change the setting to 3 MI in the settings tab, it still lists Lindor as a SS, and if I go to the player notes tab (per your directions above) to add/change his eligibly from SS to MI, it does not list MI as an option to change his eligibly to (only lists the default C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF).
Luke Gloeckner
03/21/2021 at 3:34 PMYou know, that makes sense. I honestly hadn’t accounted for the idea that there are leagues that don’t use any “true” starters at 2B/SS and such. When I’m home later, I’ll look into a fix for that.
Matt
03/21/2021 at 7:45 PMGreat, thanks. Another thing I am curious about. Is there an option that can be enabled that allows bench players stats to be accumulated in the projected standings?
Luke Gloeckner
03/21/2021 at 7:57 PMYeah, I’ll see what I can do. Both of those changes would require a fair bit of time to rework the calculations and come up with a solution. I certainly can work that change in but I’ll just see if I have the time to do that this year.
Ethan
03/21/2021 at 8:44 PMI’m having a heckuva time figuring out how to add additional positions to a player on v1.57 Roto Draft. I went to the notes page and it doesn’t let me input in the Other Elig Position tab. Am I just supposed to type it in as a note? I was under the impression that I could edit that and the projected lineups/standings would account for it but maybe that was a false impression.
Also, is there a way to edit the projected lineups?
Thanks
Luke Gloeckner
03/21/2021 at 8:51 PMUse the Add New Pos column. A drop-down appears when you click there.
Ethan
03/21/2021 at 10:51 PMI am so dumb. I never saw that. Thanks!
Luke Gloeckner
03/21/2021 at 10:55 PMYou’re not the first person to have that issue. I’ll work on making it more clear in the future!
Warren
03/24/2021 at 12:04 PMHey Luke! Absolutely loving 1.59 with the new inflation calculation option. It seems to be more reflective of what’s truly going on with my draft.
One issue I noticed is that on the Positions sheet, when I try and change the “Show original projected auction values” at the top of the page so that it is “Show projected values with in-draft inflation” instead, I get the error message saying “The cell or char you’re trying to change is on a protected sheet. To make a change, unprotect the sheet. You might be required to enter a password”.
Luke Gloeckner
03/24/2021 at 12:10 PMOh whoops! Forgot to unlock that cell. I re-uploaded version 1.59 so it should work normally if you re-download it!
Glad you’re liking the new inflation calculation option. I’m kinda excited about it. I think it works a lot better than the default option.
Warren
03/24/2021 at 12:17 PMThat did it, thanks so much!
Dave
03/24/2021 at 7:37 PMIs there a way to enter a Keeper on a Bench Slot? Using Roto Auction v 1.59. We allow minor leaguers on the bench to be retained on the bench
Luke Gloeckner
03/24/2021 at 7:53 PMAs more players get added to your team to replace that player in the starting lineup, they’ll automatically be moved to the bench.
Dave
03/25/2021 at 8:42 AMThanks. Not sure it will work. Our Bench players have no salary against the cap. I tried to enter a player in at $0 to see if it works. Initially, I see them in the log, but after I go to the teams page, he’s not on the roster and not in the log anymore. Are $0 bids allowed? Maybe in future years you can consider allowing the position / bench to be chosen on the Your Auction Tab. Thanks!
Luke Gloeckner
03/25/2021 at 11:06 AMAh, yes. Excel doesn’t know the difference between a blank cell and 0 value in a cell so it won’t register when you bid $0. It may show them initially but it’ll clear them out. In previous years, I had coded in the ability to move players to new positions or to the bench after they’re on a roster but I had to take that out when I put in all the multi-position upgrades this year. You can still choose different positions on the Player Notes tab though.
Dave
03/25/2021 at 1:21 PMHow does it choose which player to move to the Bench or to change positions, when new one’s are picked and the position is filled? Would love to try this for my upcoming auction. Still might be able to work. I’ve had my own spreadsheet for years but nothing near the nice features you have in this.
Luke Gloeckner
03/25/2021 at 2:04 PMThere are tons of calculations behind-the-scenes to determine all that but starters are determined by who would give you the most projected value out of available players at that position.