Today marks the launch of the new home of HarperWallbanger and the Big Board! Head on over to GetBigBoard.com for all future updates! (PS: The 2017 Big Board is here.)   ..read more

Follow @HarperWallbang Updated 1/4/17 Football season is over, which means it’s finally baseball prep and rankings season. With most of the big names off the board and teams’ lineups/rotations coming into focus, things have changed quite a bit since the initial rankings here back in December. Steamer projections have been out for quite some time, and ZiPS projections are slowly rolling out over at Fangraphs. For now, these are based upon a combo of Steamer, xStats, and my own adjustments. Read, ponder, and hit me up with any comments! Meanwhile, the 2017 Big Board is nearly up and running, so ..read more

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More info to come in a forthcoming Fangraphs Community post… You can use the tool below to convert a projected triple slash line (AVG/OBP/SLG) to a fantasy line (HR/R/RBI/SB/AVG). A few optional things can be used to improve the projected fantasy line… Batting order: Must be an integer between 1 to 9. Determines overall R/RBI as well as distribution of R vs. RBI. If you aren’t sure, the 6th spot is about average production. Team runs: Number of runs you expect the player’s team to score (full season). More team runs means more player R/RBI. If you aren’t sure, 720 is about average ..read more

Follow @HarperWallbang Ladies and gents – the ramp up to 2017 draft season has begun! The first Big Board 2017 ranks go live today, and I present them this year with greater swagger than ever, as the reigning champion of the top division of Reddit’s premier-league style “Sultans of Stats“. In the past year, I’ve also graduated from being an underpaid graduate student to an underpaid owner of a PhD and Professor here at Stanford University. I promise you, I won’t let that get in the way of baseball. The beta version of this year’s board is again a big jump forward from last ..read more

… And in order to prep for it, I’m bringing together a sort of ‘Draft Day Survival Guide’ for y’all. First, the Player Valuation series all in one place for easy reading: Part 1: The Hit-Pitch Split Part 2: Draft with Tiers Part 3: Value your Picks Part 4: Use the Best Projections Part 5: Target Undervalued Players (IF, OF, P) Extras for those either using the Big Board or doing some z-scoring of their own include: BIGz Explained Download the Big Board Big Board Tutorial Big Board Patch Notes Opening day is nearly here ..read more

It’s day three of the Most Undervalued series! I’ve put together a list of the most undervalued players according to the Big Board in each of of the major sites. I’ve done my best to avoid top-end players that are tough to specifically target in drafts, so these should all be guys that you could reasonably plan to draft. Also, I’m not going to be recommending guys like Iglesias that everyone generally agrees is a “sleeper”. Don’t go crazy drafting these guys way earlier than their ADP, but a good approach would be to split the difference between their Big Board rank and the ..read more

It’s day two of the Most Undervalued series! I’ve put together a list of the most undervalued players according to the Big Board in each of of the major sites. I’ve done my best to avoid top-end players that are tough to specifically target in drafts, so these should all be guys that you could reasonably plan to draft. Also, I’m not going to be recommending guys like Conforto and Piscotty that everyone generally agrees are “sleepers”. Don’t go crazy drafting these guys way earlier than their ADP, but a good approach would be to split the difference between their Big Board rank a ..read more

As we enter Draft Week, it’s time to really get our stuff together and figure out draft plans. To that end, I’ve put together a list of the most undervalued players according to the Big Board in each of of the major sites. I’ve done my best to avoid top-end players that are tough to specifically target in drafts, so these should all be guys that you could reasonably plan to draft. Don’t go crazy drafting them way earlier than their ADP, but a good approach would be to split the difference between their Big Board rank and their ADP, and aim to draft them around there. That said, let’s ..read more

Part 1: The Hit-Pitch Split Part 2: Draft with Tiers Part 3: Value your Picks Part 4: Use the Best Projections As we enter Draft Week, it’s time to really get our stuff together and figure out draft plans. This last player valuation tip is the most obvious, and easiest to do on your own if you have the Big Board at your fingertips – draft undervalued players. Using the standard ADP’s at the three big sites (ESPN/CBS/Yahoo) and comparing those against the Big Board’s 5×5 ranks for each format, I’ll pick out the most undervalued players at each position over the next few days. First up is i ..read more