Draft Planner Help

Draft Planner Help
Last updated 6/28/2008

What is it?
Draft Planner is an on-line cheat sheet generator. It functions completely within your browser (and on our servers) crunching numbers to provide you with sortable, printable, and exportable cheat sheets. Good fantasy owners understand that it is very important to know the value of players and not just their sequential ranking (for a discussion of the importance of value, read 'Rank & the Cheat Sheet' in the Fantasy University article on Average Draft Position). Determining player values is essential, but it requires some legwork. Common approaches can require several years of statistics, detailed projections, or averaged rankings. Draft Planner takes care of this work for you by gathering the latest data available each time you generate a new cheat sheet. The latest projections and rankings from the FantasyFootball.com staff are pulled in to create your cheat sheets. If you don't like some of the projections or rankings, you can enter your own values where opinions differ. In either case, you'll want to tweak the results and return often to make sure you have the best possible cheat sheet for draft day.

Features

Create player values using one of the following popular approaches:
- PAVT (Prorated Average Value Theory)
- RLV (Real Value)
- ADP (Average Draft Position)
Store your scoring systems or use built-in scoring rules
Immediately use data (rankings, projections) updated on FantasyFootball.com. No need to wait for new data to be released.
Use FantasyFootball.com projections and rankings or enter your own. We will store your changes and you can switch back and forth between the two.
Sort tables by rank, player, points, value, etc
Create printer-friendly views
Auction values with the PAVT value scheme
Export to Draft Predictor/CSV file
No need to download files or use Excel

Getting Started
The first screen in Draft Planner leads you through the options needed to determine the type of cheat sheet you would like to create.

1. What type of cheat sheet would you like to create?

An On-line table will display a new web page with your cheat sheet. You will be able to sort the cheat sheet by player name, position, value, etc. Edit boxes will be available for you to enter your own projections or rankings. Note that you cannot modify projections/rankings when viewing 'All' positions. You must select a specific position in order to modify these values.
Selecting Printable view will display a printer-friendly version of your cheat sheet. The view will not be sortable or editable, but it will look great when printed (no web site menus or borders). Note that you can also generate this same printer-friendly view after creating an on-line table by selecting the printer icon.
The Draft Predictor/CSV file option is for those who wish to export their cheat sheet to Draft Predictor or to a spreadsheet. You will be prompted to save your cheat sheet to a file on your hard drive. The comma-delimited file is understood by Draft Predictor and easily read by programs like Microsoft Excel.

2. What approach would you like to use?
It's really up to you which player value scheme you prefer:

Select PAVT if you want to create player values from fantasy points estimate by applying your league scoring system to 3-year average statistics assigned to current player rankings.
ADP interprets player value as their average draft position. It does not consider your league scoring system.
Select RLV if you want to create player values from fantasy points estimated by applying your league scoring system to projected statistics for the coming season.

For PAVT, you have the option to use the rankings provided by FantasyFootball.com staff members or your own. The radio button selection for 'My rankings' is disabled until you modify some of the staff rankings.
For RLV, you have the option to use the projections provided by FantasyFootball.com staff members or your own. The radio button selection for 'My projections ' is disabled until you modify some of the staff projections .

Use the following Q&A to help you decide which player value scheme is right for you:

Are you planning on using Draft Predictor?

YES:	All three schemes are an option. Go to question B.
NO:	An ADP cheat sheet created by Draft Planner contains the same data as the latest ADP data. If you are looking for a way to print ADP data, Draft Planner is a nice way to do it, but don't be confused into thinking that the ADP data in Draft Planner is different than the ADP data found elsewhere on the site.

Are you interested in using the latest and greatest scheme for determining minor differences between players in your league scoring format?

YES:

You want to use RLV or PAVT. Go to question C.

NO:

Do you have any unusual scoring/roster rules?
Examples of unusual scoring rules include significantly more or less points for yards gained and varying points per reception by position. An extra large league size (16 or higher) is an example of an unusual roster rule. Bonus points are not considered unusual unless they favor one position extravegently

YES:	You need to take scoring/roster rules into account, so you can do better than something generic like ADP. Go to question C.
NO:	Do you want to modify the data behind the player rankings found in a cheat sheet (statistical projections, average expert rankings)? Answer 'NO' if you don't want to touch the projection data but you would like to change the resulting values from these calculations on your cheat sheet.

	YES:	PAVT or RLV is for you. Go to question C.
	NO:	Try ADP first. Come back and explore PAVT or RLV after you get good enough with Draft Predictor that you can spend time looking at its predictions.

Are you familiar with RLV (Real Value) or VBD (Value Based Drafting)? Have you used it before?

YES:	Start with RLV. Don't forget to enter your league scoring rules. You may use baselines, but check out the Align with ADP option. Advance to entering your own projections.
NO:	Go to question D.

Which makes more sense to you as an easy to understand and accurate method for creating a cheat sheet?
1. PAVT: Every year, the top fantasy producers score about the same number of points. The actual number of points varies based on your scoring system, The #1 RB scores about the same number of points each year and any year-to-year differences are reduced by averaging the number of points for the #1 RB over the past three seasons. This year's current player rankings (provided by the fantasyfootball.com staff) is attached to the fantasy points which history tells us each ranking will yield under your scoring system. So, the player ranked as the #1 RB is assigned the average number of fantasy points scored by the #1 RB over the past three seasons.
2. RLV: The number of fantasy points each player is expected to post this season under your league scoring system is calculated by applying the point rewards to statistical projections for the player. The accuracy of these statistical projections determines the accuracy of your cheat sheet. Knowing how to make good projections involves knowledge of past performance, strength of schedule, personnel/coaching changes, and much more.

On more thing: RLV projections are typically provided by one person; whereas, the average rankings of staff members is used to calculate PAVT values. The ability to absorb more than one opinion and the fact that it's system does not allow for unlikely statistics makes PAVT a more conservative approach.

3. Which players should be included?
Select a single position or all positions. Be sure to select 'All' when creating a file for use with Draft Predictor. The Players selection defaults to the top rated players at the position you have selected. Sometimes, you may have higher expectations for a player than the default projections or rankings. This causes your player to drop off the bottom of the list. When looking for a player that is not shown in the top rated list, change Players to an alphabetical selection (ex: A-F) to show all players according to their last name, regardless of their rating. In this way, you can enter your own rankings/projections to pull players into the top rated list. Use the 'rookies' selection to view rookies only.

4. Which scoring system should be used to generate fantasy points?
Select the league that most closely resembles your league scoring system or create your own. Using an accurate scoring system is important for RLV and PAVT cheat sheets since they calculate fantasy points using the league scoring rules. The projections/rankings you will be using are the same for each league you are in, but you will want to generate a cheat sheet for each league that has differing roster depths and scoring rules. This is also your opportunity to enter dollar limits for auction leagues, exclude certain positions from the 'All' list of positions, and modify the baselines used to compare one position to the next.

The Align with ADP option is selected by default and is recommended for users looking for an automatic method of leveling positions against each other. The traditional approach (customizing baselines) is still available by selecting the 'Use baselines' option.

Click the 'Edit my scoring systems..' link to create a scoring system. The following editor will be displayed:

You cannot make changes to the built-in scoring systems. Instead, be sure to enter the name of your league in the 'Save as' box. Modify the number of teams, roster size and salary cap (if this is an auction league). Change the points awarded for each position by selecting each tab. Select the 'include' check box to include the position on cheat sheets for this league.

Generate Player Values
After you have selected all of your cheat sheet options and configured your league scoring system, select 'Generate Player Values'. A progress message will appear while you wait for the cheat sheet to be generated.

The amount of time it takes to generate the cheat sheet depends on the complexity of the formulas you selected (PAVT is the most demanding, followed by RLV), the number of positions being displayed, the number of players being displayed, and the current load on the servers. Most cheat sheets will generate in under 30 seconds, but some may take several minutes. If you selected the on-line table option, you will be shown a new page similar to the following:

Selecting 'Change options' will take you back to the main screen so that you can generate a new cheat sheet. However, you can use the positions links to show cheat sheets for other positions using the same options you selected originally without having to return to the main screen. If you have saved your own rankings, a hyperlink will be available next to 'Source' so that you can toggle between your rankings and those provided by the site. Click on the column headers to sort by a column (player, team, etc.). Clicking on a player's name will open a new window with their player page. Any edit box appearing in white (like ranking in the above example) is a field that you can edit. Selecting the 'Save as my rankings' button will store customized rankings/projections that only you can see. Use the printer icon in the upper right-hand corner to display a printer-friendly version of the on-line table you are viewing.