Create-Your-Own-Projections with a Custom Projection Tool
Discover your fantasy baseball blind spots with this Google Sheets Form powered by App Scripts & Query.
Last time I promised a way to get better at fantasy baseball. So how does a Custom Projection Tool do that? The time-honored off-season pastime of trying to guess what a player will do the next season is called projecting or making player projections. So the first step will be actually predicting what players will do in 2024.
The second step will come when the professional projections come out for the 2024 season. Comparing your custom-predicted outlook vs the experts’ forecast will show the blind spots we all have when trying to predict next season’s player performance.
Neat, but why now?
Recency bias, it’s real and the “What have you done for me lately?” feeling drives a lot of how we see player performance. So getting started before the dust of the ‘23 Season settles will help you when you open up Fangraphs in February and try to remember why Vladdy Jr. was so bad this year (OPS below .800).
How does it work?
The Projection Tool allows you to pick the scoring categories of your home fantasy league. I have included every scoring category that Yahoo Fantasy allows in the Projection Tool below (Leave a comment if you need help adding additional scoring categories).
Once you have your scoring categories, add in your league settings (like league size and active roster positions). Adding in your custom league information will create an estimate of “Fantasy Relevant” players that you should project stats for.
[League Settings.gif]
Once those settings are added, it’s just down to projecting players. Yes, it is a lot of players to work through, but what else are you going to do between now and March 30th?
The Tool
The actual tool is pretty simple: you select the position and then select a “Sort By” filter to get a list of players. The idea is that it’s easier to compare similar players by position. The player selector only allows you to choose players in the search list by filter, so it’s easy to find the player you would like to project.
[Tool Menu.gif]
Once you have a player to project, you will see the stats from the past year and you can type your projections into the “Projection Tool” section below. When you are done you can submit the projection and the sheet will keep track of your progress.
[zero blind spots.gif]
You can track your progress by seeing the player projections you’ve completed highlighted in the search menu:
All projection submissions are saved on the “Bat Projections” and “Pitch Projections” tabs. They are timestamped, so if you update your projection you can sort by most recent.
Once again, I am only asking for your subscription.
This one was fun to do. I learned a lot, but it also took a month to build. If you notice, included with the Projection Tool is the updated Yahoo position data (they still don’t let you download it, so I copied and pasted it for you).
Free Version:
- Complete 2023 player stats for all Yahoo-eligible categories
- List of 2023 Yahoo player position data
- All data connected to the Projection Sheet (that automatically records your player projections)
Projection Tool (Free) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z1DcSiDf5Dr4BsCvp1ufFuj13Za9DtJX_6_XNSwJ4Pw/edit?usp=sharing
I have included empty tabs to add your own ‘22 and ‘21 batter and pitcher data - all you have to do is line up the columns with the ones I have on there.
OR
You can drop a 1-month subscription for $9 (just $1 for every baseball position). This will remind you of the 3,000 players-worth of position data that I copied and pasted from Yahoo’s fantasy player database.
Full Version:
- Complete 2023 Player Stats
- Complete 2022 Player Stats
- Complete 2021 Player Stats
- All Connected to the Projection Sheet
- Eligible for a Perception Bias (Blind Spot) analysis in the spring. I will take your custom projection and compare it to the experts for you (first 50 subscribers).
Purchase the Full Version Here: Projection Tool (Full Version)
For the Perception Bias Analysis just send me your projections in the spring with the same email you subscribed with. I can compare them to the professionals to see where you are high or low on players.
Thanks!
