I’ve developed a much more refined tool to help calculate the number of rotisserie points it will take to win your league, as well as the statistics necessary in each category to achieve a certain place.
You can download the file here: What It Takes To Win Calculator.xlsx
You must have Microsoft Excel 2007 or greater to use the calculator. To use the calculator:
- After downloading the file, fill out the information requested on the “Answer These Questions First” tab (genius naming convention, I know).
- The questions can be answered using the drop down menus provided.
- Then proceed to complete all of the yellow hitter and pitcher stat tabs.
- Follow the bold red instructions on each tab. Also be on the look out for warnings for areas saying “DO NOT ENTER DATA BELOW”. These are just warnings to ensure formulas work correctly and to prevent you from entering unnecessary data.
After you’ve completed all the data entry into the yellow tabs, return to the “Results” tab to see the stats necessary to win your league.
- The end result should be printer friendly, if you’d like to print it out for future reference. Click on the image below for a larger view of the finished results.
Features
The tool can accommodate the following:
- Up to 15 teams
- Up to 10 years of historical standings and statistics data
- Up to 6×6 rotisserie categories (6 hitting, 6 pitching)
- Hitting categories of BA, R, HR, RBI, SB, OBP, H, BB
- Pitching categories of W, K, SV, ERA, WHIP, QS
Suggestions or Ideas for Improvement?
Please shoot me a comment and let me know what you think. Let me know if you’d like to see any additional features or categories added.
As always, make smart choices.
Would love a way to get a general idea of what it takes to win in a H2H league. Harder than Roto I understand but would still be helpful. Great work by the way!!!
Yeah, H2H is an interesting thought. I think you could still use this tool to get target totals you would need to accumulate in each category for the entire season. I play in one H2H league on ESPN, and on our “Standings” page it does display the totals for each team in every individual category.
The problem with H2H though is that when you break those season-long totals into weekly segments, you see huge variability in each week. So just because you had the best cumulative totals, you’re not guaranteed to win the league. But in my mind, trying to build a team that wins the most categories and accumulates strong totals in each category is a strong approach.
Someone designing a team to perform well in 7 categories and punting 3 categories would throw a wrench in the analysis. But overall, I think using this tool exactly as is has some value.
I have no evidence to support this, but I think trying to build an all-across-the-board team in the draft and early in the season makes the most sense. And then as the season goes along and the playoffs approach, you should then consider focusing more on 7, 8, or 9. And ditch the others that you’re weak in or don’t have a comparable advantage in.
This is 99% perfect for my league settings, however we use OPS as the 6th offensive category. Any chance of adding it? Regardless this is an awesome tool. Thanks for sharing!!
Clark, because you’re a hero of mine, I did update the tool. If you re-download it, you should see quite a few more offensive categories to choose from, including OPS.
Love your tool. What about a hold+save category? Thanks!
Hi, David. I just put up a new version that now goes up to eight categories and I added H+S as a new category.
This is my first year in a 14 team Roto 6×6 (BA, R, HR, RBI, SB, OPS/QS, SV, ERA, WHIP, Holds, Ks). Any idea where I could find historical stats to project this or even if you could ballpark it?
Andy, I can’t offer much help with OPS, QS, and Holds. But you can get a sense for 12-team information in the traditional categories here. Razzball publishes the target amounts necessary to win leagues of various sizes, but it’s not enough information for me to calculate SGP from.
I do think using the 12-team calculations I lay out, adjusting replacement level for your league’s own settings and 14-team configuration, and using the target goals Razzball provides will be a very good starting point for your draft preparation.
My leage is a 6X6 league, where the extra stats are losses for pitching and Ks for hitting. How could I approximate those stats using this tool?
Jeremy, do you have a league history you can enter into this tool? Unfortunately, I don’t have any leagues that use hitter Ks or pitcher losses. Because of the quantity of requests I get for non-traditional leagues, I’m considering starting a research / accumulation project to gather data from real-live leagues. I don’t have specific answers now. But hopefully I can get some eventually.
Is it possible to use this in a points league vs roto? how about one that assigns negative values for CS and HRA?
Hi Bob, thanks for the question. Roto is a different beast because you have to meet certain stat levels in so many categories. That’s the main thing this tool is doing, just documenting the different levels you should be shooting for in each category. For your points league, the only thing that matters it the grand total of points. The position you finish in HR, RBI, or Strikeouts isn’t so important in where you finish.
But, that being said, I can still see value in knowing the total number of home runs you need to be the best team and trying to shoot for that. I edited a version of this file some so it will track an average of the total points needed as well as the individual categories too. I will e-mail it to you to see what you think and then maybe I can get it on the site somewhere.