Projections and a new project

I’ve gotten a few questions lately regarding my projections, so I’d like to clear some things up now.

Plans for projections

The first is that, as of now, I have no plans to charge for my projections, at least not for 2008. However, because of the way player valuation works (which we’ll discuss more of as the season draws nearer), the rankings will change from league to league. For example, position scarcity isn’t as important in shallower leagues as it is for deeper leagues. I am only planning on doing traditional 5×5 rankings, although I’ll most likely do them for mixed, AL-only, and NL-only.

THT’s official projections will also be available in the THT Preseason Book, which I am getting pretty excited about. Definitely something you guys should consider checking out.

New project

Next, I’d like to briefly discuss a new project I’m working on. I am currently developing a draft and auction program that I believe will be the best available. Of all the draft and auction programs I’ve seen, I haven’t seen any that will do the things this one will do.

It will incorporate all the facets of player valuation and will automatically update each player’s value whenever a player gets auctioned. I know we haven’t talked too much about player valuation and how it plays into draft and auction strategy, but we will, and this program will incorporate all the different methods we’ll talk about.

It will analyze each team, the value each team is getting, and how each team is spending its money. I am also planning on having it identify different trends throughout the auction that you will be able to exploit. Maybe teams aren’t spending enough money, and there will be some teams with lots of money leftover, leading to inflation in the end-game. Maybe teams are only spending 20% of their money on pitching as opposed to the traditional 30% (which I don’t really support, but that’s a discussion for another time), meaning there will be some bargains to be had.

There are a few other cool things that I’m planning that I’ll keep a secret for now, but if all goes accordingly, this program should knock your socks off. And yes, I just said ‘knock your socks off.’

While the projections should be free, I will need to charge for the auction program. My projections will be built-in and everything will work off of them. I might be able to set it up so that, if you have another set of projections you prefer (although I can’t see why that would be the case ), I could include them as well for a small maintenance fee, assuming it is okay with whoever created them (I’m not sure how that works, legally).

Concluding thoughts

The projections will absolutely be done by February (hopefully sooner, I just don’t want to give you false information), and the auction program should be as well. There is a learning curve for creating it, though, so if I run into any major problems it might be delayed. I don’t expect that to be the case, but you never know.

If you have any questions about my projections or the auction program (or, as usual, anything fantasy baseball related), feel free to send me an e-mail. I’m really behind on them now, so if you haven’t gotten a response yet, I didn’t forget about you; I’ve just been really busy lately. I’ll try and pound through them all this weekend.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody, and if you’re traveling, be safe!