Your Team    Position    $
Miguel Olivo C  6
John Buck    C  2
Ryan Howard    1B    35
Dan Uggla    2B    18
Ryan Zimmerman    3B    27
Asdrubal Cabrera    SS    18
Andy LaRoche    CI    2
Alcides Escobar     MI    10
Luke Scott    OF    10
Nate McClouth    OF    17
Scott Podsednik    OF    5
Cody Ross    OF    12
Ryan Raburn    OF    3
Jack Cust    UT    2
Cliff Lee    P    23
Matt Garza    P    17
Jonathan Papelbon    P    22
Matt Capps    P    12
Ross Ohlendorf    P    2
Homer Bailey    P    1
Justin Masterson    P    2
John Lannan    P    8
Ryan Rowland-Smith    P    6
Yorvit Torrealba    BENCH
Jose Mijares    BENCH
Tyler Clippard    BENCH
Daniel Ray Herrera    BENCH
Mike Jacobs    BENCH
Micah Hoffpauir    BENCH

Offensive Projections
BA: 0.265570371   R: 985.6  HR: 272.1  RBI: 998.2  SB: 132.9

Pitching Projections
W: 81.1   SV: 65.8   ERA: 3.987408492   WHIP: 1.322327965   SO: 1040.8

Projected points, based on last year’s numbers, approximately 131 points.

More to come on this later this week.

So I have incorporated projections yet because I am waiting for a community projection that comes out from a source. Other than that, this is the basic model I’m going to use in a few weeks at an auction. Download here at 2010draftkit. I’m going to start to add projections soon and also modify my own kit so people don’t see who I like/don’t like.

So a brief review on development. I almost broke the entire kit by making it a read-only by trying to enable some protections. Now I’m busy adding league’s to every team’s player so you can separate AL/NL leagues. I blieve that I have nailed the most basic elements of this kit and now will try to create a good projection set to draw from.

Then I added the chance to enter values in for multi-position elgile players on the multi page. Here’s a look at what the third base page looks like with that.

I added hyperlinks to every player with multiple eligibility. So you can hit the player’s name on the other page(s). Next I have to add the value entry in the MULTI section to become the value of the player when you enter it in. If that makes sense, let me know. As always, click for a larger image.

I still need to do projections but this is a big step! Now I have the keys to identifying where each player is located and should make this a little easier to put the numbers together.

I’ve made a bunch of updates to the Draft Kit. I increased the font on the tool page to make it a little more pleasing to the eye. Add to that I don’t see very well and it helps me too. I’ve yet to lock the formulas, I’m going to try to work on that. I added a status bar to pitchers so I could edit their status as “retired”, “reliever”, “closer” and others. The more entrenched closers I have labeled in all caps as “CLOSER.” Right now I’m probably locking in the tiered formulas but I could change that quickly. Other than that the only major addition I’m thinking of doing is a search bar and integrating projections.

I’ve been updating the players every day and I right now favor Sean Smith’s CHONE projections.

So one thing I did before the holiday season was ask around, get some very generous help and laid down a few formulas for that. If I did this wrong, feel free to comment.

The answer I got to calculate a max bid formula was “Dollars left minus positions left plus 1.” It sounded easy and I kept writing formulas but found I ran into problems getting it right until I went with these formulas.

I wrote the Positions Left formula first. Facing difficulties I found it like this in Excel: =SUM(23-(COUNT(I2:I24,”>0″))) . So the sum of all the numbers that are greater than 0 will count as 1, theoretically, and will be subtracted from 23 to bring the number of players that are left.

Using that I wrote the simpler next formula =SUM(F9-F11)+1 which are the sum of the money left to spend minus the positions left then adding one.

So I also changed the tool page below and why? because I wanted to add some more depth to all the analysis going on. I wrote formulas that would find the average value of all three tiers and the elite/top tier players. Then I hid the formulas below the analysis and told you not to touch them! So here’s what I got.

Yes, I know people dont’ want to know the extent of cents (6.75) but I found a problem with making the formulas round up and make you think you’re spending more. Plus it didn’t hurt the appearance really. #DIV/0! ’s will show up when there are no numbers entered in the fields.

Here are the amount of players per position I have right now. Do you think they are enough?

SP: 264  (13.2 pitchers per team for a 20 team league)
RP: 243 (12.15 pitchers per team for a 20 team league)
C: 60 (3 catchers per team for a 20 team league)
1B: 52 (2.6 first basemen per team for a 20 team league)
2B: 53 (2.65 second basemen per team for a 20 team league)
3B: 61 (3.05 third basemen per team for a 20 team league)
SS: 56 (2.8 shortstops per team for a 20 team league)
OF: 134 (6.7 outfielders per team for a 20 team league)
DH-only: 19 (not enough DH types though but nobody uses a DH only anymore, do they?)

The only reason to be overjoyed on a late Sunday night at 1am I found was because I figured out a data variation problem I was looking to complete for this draft kit I keep building.

So I decided to try and create a “Like/Dislike”, “Love/Hate” kind of thing where you write the word in a column and the values of the player (the E column) get calculated for all the players you wrote (in the U column) were “Like/Dislike” or “Love/Hate” players.

Still with me?

Okay so, I created all the player pages. Then I went into Data > Validation, shown how to get to here (click on the image for a larger size):

So after getting into that, I would hit this page and fill out the following like this (again, click for larger image):

Now Source =$U$1:$U$2 is me selecting U1 and U2 on this spreadsheet. You can see in this photo is that U2 is the “Dislike” option. So from U3 on down there is a drop down which gives the options “Like” and “Dislike” and I can change that later.

Now, for a later time, how I created the formulas to break them down on the tool page that will show when you like or dislike a player, how much they are going for in auctions.

So if you know me. You probably know that one of my goals is to create a Fantasy Baseball draft kit for 2010. I started this entire project on September 24th.

So I’ve been in the process of creating this kit now. During that time I let people do a survey on what they’d want in the kit. And then I’ve completely ignored that.

I’ve been trying to create a kit tailored to auction drafts. I figure that people who do auction drafts might benefit the most from such a comprehensive kit. People who do auctions are probably thinking about how much money they spend in relation to their league, if their players are going for more or less and a lot more fun things. So in creating this kit, I’d like to have a kit that does a lot of thinking while you are drafting.

In order to create a cooler kit, I…

• upgraded to Excel 2008/2007 for Windows
• created a giant list of work orders I want to do
• I’d like it to feature tiered rankings (elite, top tier, middle, bottom tier type players)
• I’m building it for auction leagues, not because I’m suddenly going “green” but because I’d like for the computer to do some thinking while I’m drafting

So I’d like to open it up a little. I’m going to give sneak peeks on the master plan I’m trying to create. At the end of this I think I am going to try and do a few things that sound “messed up” but I can give a great reason for them:

1. First off my main inspiration for this is, I stopped paying attention mid-draft on auction values after religiously writing down the top guys values on my endless sheets. Meanwhile, almost every single person in my league was entering in data into their spreadsheets. In creating this tool, I have something to enter all the data into and keep me attentive during the draft. Also, it gives me the ability to make some analysis my companions hopefully won’t make and help me get a few players at prices better than I want.
2. I’d like to make this as cool as possible and encourage people to suggest modifications directly to me. Let’s face it, that would be cool. That’s why you all like Firefox over Internet Explorer. That’s why I will have a contact page exclusively for this draft kit.
3. I’d like to password protect it and distribute it myself. I’ve build a contact form already that will have it as you request the item via e-mail and it will come directly to your inbox. As a ZIP or as an Excel File I’ll have to do that to protect its integrity. That way I can figure out how many people were helped by creating this kit that I poured a lot of energy into.
4. I will write a intensely specific set on instructions on how to use it. FYI: I get a warning about Macros every time I open the thing. All the macros are on the one workbook and have no viruses. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I’ve had a real virus. I am writing a separate word document to go with the kit to show how to use it.

So here’s an early spec or two. I will share as much as I can with you but for now I’m going to protect the entire worksheet to myself because it is very much “In Development”.

I am in the process of making a draft kit for auction drafts in my spare time. I consider this a fun project and it has been a great experience working in learning new features of Excel.

So I’ve started to do a little research on projections, entered in a ton of data, wrote a bunch of formulas and will start to show what I have here on my own site. Eventually, I’d like to release this kit for download here on the site.

Basically I wanted to build something that could be a one stop source for drafting. Also I included links for people who have internet then too to grab news from a few sources on each player.

I’ll start to share some of that research and a few screenshots later this week. I also created a contact page for it, if you want to help me with this kit. I will have further updates here.

So here’s one screenshot of a player page. Well actually, I’ve already changed it. Drastically you might say. Click on the image for a larger size, I will be releasing one photo per posting about the kit so stay tuned!