Announcing RotoBaller's New Live Draft Tool

Last season at RotoBaller, we released a set of interactive cheat sheets to help fantasy players prepare for their drafts and the upcoming season. This preseason we have updated these cheat sheets and have also added a brand new Live Draft Tool to give you an edge while drafting in real-time! 

In addition to the Live Draft Tool, we also include players’ performance from the previous season, RotoBaller’s current rankings, and risers/fallers between the first half and second half of last season, as well as hot players down the stretch. This tool is great to use during draft prep, and even better to use during your drafts with the new Live Draft Tool. 

A special shout out to Connelly Doan for building out this Live Draft Tool and interactive cheat sheet, and for working out a way to make this tool useful for live drafts. The goal of this article is to give a brief overview of how to effectively use the Live Draft Sheet during your live drafts. Having a tool backed by RotoBaller’s rankings and projections will help you crush your drafts in 2020!

Live Draft Sheet: What’s In It and How Do I Use It?

The Live Draft Sheet is structured in a fairly simple format to allow users to interact with it quickly during drafts. There are several main aspects. The first is the 2020 RotoBaller Rankings and Projections table.

This table includes a list of player names, positions, RotoBaller’s overall rankings and tiers, NFBC’s ADP values, and our own Nick Mariano’s (2018's Most Accurate MLB Draft Ranker) player projections. It is automatically sorted by RotoBaller’s overall rankings but can be sorted by any of the columns by simply clicking the header for that column.

The next key feature is the Player Search.

This is a list of all players also ordered by RotoBaller’s overall rankings. As players get drafted, you can unclick their names on this list. Unclicking a player’s name will remove them from the Rankings and Projections table. This way, you can see the top remaining players in your draft as you progress through it. You can also search for specific players using the Search feature (enter a player’s name next to the magnifying glass).

Finally, there is a Position Filter at the top right of the sheet.

This filter contains every set of position combinations in the draft pool. For instance, players who are eligible to play third base and shortstop would have a position of 3B/SS. This is important from a fantasy perspective because multi-position eligibility carries value. However, finding all possible combinations of positions could be difficult and time-consuming during a live draft. Fear not, we thought of that!

The position filter contains a search function (next to the magnifying glass) that you can use to expedite this process. Let’s say you’re interested in 1B-eligible players. First, you would uncheck the “Select all” button. Next, you would type in “1B” in the search field. This will pull up all position combinations containing 1B. You can then select each combination by holding Ctrl on your keyboard and clicking all the relevant combinations.

One word of caution - because this Live Draft Tool is browser-based (i.e. it's not a separate application), if you refresh it, the results will reset. So, if you're doing a live draft, do not refresh.

Summary

Thus, with just one table and two filters, you can maneuver your way through live drafts quickly and easily with RotoBaller’s rankings and projections!

You can do pre-draft research using the other four sheets and then win your drafts using the Live Draft sheet. The sheet has some instructional text included, in case you need a reminder during your drafts. Good luck this season!

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