What programs will you be using to take to auctions this year?

[Gregg]

Just like the title says, what program will you be using in auctions this year?

Also, anyone going back to pencil after using a program?

[Hammer]

I was going to use rotochamp for the first time but it just wasnt meeting my needs. They were kind enough to refund my money and I purchased rotolab so I will be using that.

[schlesinj]

We are old school no computers allowed.

[Hammer]

We are cheap old curmudgeons, no computers allowed.

fixed

[Moonlight J]

I've used rotolab for years and just inputted my own projections. The functionality is incredible

[Erik]

Pen and paper, as I always have. Most of my leaguemates are more casual about FB than I am, so I've never felt the need to get all computerized for our auction.

[The Dane]

Except for my online leagues for which I use the CBS draftroom, in all leagues I use the same things: a list of all available players by position in a rough order of how much I want them (no stats, no dollar values), a pencil. In the league I commish, I use a laptop with a spreadsheet just to track the draft, but it's not really for MY draft.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I'm still a pen and paper guy.

[Lucky]

I've used rotolab for years and just inputted my own projections. The functionality is incredible

Jason, when you input your own projections, does rotolab calculate the values for you? Do you have to input all projections, or just start with what they have and tweak the ones you don't like?

(BTW, where does Rotolab get the projections it uses? I know that if you have the Shandler subscription you can have those, but where does Rotolab get projections for the non-Shandler user?)

[DJBeasties]

Two notebooks, three pens and a calculator.

About as simple as I can make it.

[Hammer]

Jason, when you input your own projections, does rotolab calculate the values for you? Do you have to input all projections, or just start with what they have and tweak the ones you don't like?

(BTW, where does Rotolab get the projections it uses? I know that if you have the Shandler subscription you can have those, but where does Rotolab get projections for the non-Shandler user?)

you download Baseball HQ projections and then tweak as you see fit. Once youve tweakesd a player, you will not get any updated projections from HQ for that player.

[revo]

Rotolab, which is indispensable.

[Moonlight J]

Jason, when you input your own projections, does rotolab calculate the values for you? Do you have to input all projections, or just start with what they have and tweak the ones you don't like?

(BTW, where does Rotolab get the projections it uses? I know that if you have the Shandler subscription you can have those, but where does Rotolab get projections for the non-Shandler user?)

I do them all....Rotolab uses Shandler's only by contract. If you are a subscriber, the links to BBHQ in the system work and you can pull down updated projections in season; if you're not you only get the projections. I hit the "valuate" button and it recalculates the values on the fly.

[no driver]

Custom spreadsheet because we do a longer draft and I'm also a league officer and need to keep up with whether players fit on rosters etc. If we were doing it in person, I'd probably just print off a list of players and draft from it.

[TopChuckie]

Up until last year I was all pencil, paper, and highlighters, blue for the players I drafted, pink for the players my opponents drafted (psychological advantage). I had an 8.5x11 with my cheatsheet, but I'm the commish so I also had an 11x17 to fill in all the rosters, and 14 (or 16) 8.5x11 sheets for each AL (or NL) team's depth chart from theinsidepitch which served as our official list of who was eligible in our auction draft. Finally I had a sheet where I simply tallied everyone's remaining auction budget. I created all these sheets in Excel prior to the draft and then printed them out and did everything by hand at the draft. When a player was drafted I had to write his name on the roster sheet, highlight his name on my cheatsheet, under each position if he was multi-eligible which often slipped through the cracks, highlight him on his MLB team's depth chart, and subtract his bid amount on the tally sheet. When the bidding was clicking along, it could get a bit hectic.

Then last year I created my own Excel spreadsheet that incorporates and links all those sheets above. Now I simply add a player and his salary on the rosters tab and it highlights, blue or pink as applicable, every occurrence of that player's name on my cheatsheet tab, it highlights his name on the one tab that now holds all teams depth charts from mlbdepthcharts, and his salary is automatically reduced from his new owner's budget. Of course I also have the additional calculations for remaining max bid and remaining average bid, along with rankings for each team.

I was nervous because I tried to create draft "programs" in the past and never used them because if something went wrong it became a cluster to back up and try to fix or undo and I didn't need that while in the heat of the battle. This however is all done by vlookups and conditional formatting and if I accidentally add a player to the wrong team or assign the wrong salary, I simply delete the contents of the cell and make the necessary correction. I basically just computerized everything I was doing by hand, no fancy menus or draft interface needed.

I haven't done anything with it regarding in draft dynamics such as inflation or categorical needs. Last year I thought I might for this season, but right now I don't feel it's a great enough need to put forth the effort in lieu of my actual draft prep. Maybe next year.