July 2, 2013

Feature Focus

Team Tracker, Advanced

by Rob McQuown

On our ongoing guided tour of features and utilities available at Baseball Prospectus, we'll pick up where we left off in our Team Tracker walkthrough last week, with my NL-Only Yahoo roster having been quickly and easily entered into Team Tracker. Notice that the default display statistics are interesting, but perhaps not exactly what's needed for a given purpose—such as my Yahoo league, which uses Runs, RBI, SB, OBP, and SLG (instead of batting average and HR, giving two rate stats for batting, as there are for pitching). To see these different categories, simply click on "Change Display Statistics" while viewing a stats report (there are different stats displayed—separately selectable—for projections). This brings up a page where various stats can be selected or deselected for either batters or pitchers:

I've highlighted OBP and SLG, using click and control-click to get them both. Then, from the above, I clicked on the right arrow, highlighed them again in the right-hand ("Your Selections") box, and moved them upward, so they were after SB, using the arrow on the right to move them.

Having chosen the desired stats, it's time to click "Submit Statistics Selection." The report now includes all of the statistics that were added (and doesn't include any that were removed). Many of the advanced Baseball Prospectus statistics are available using this process.

Once the statistics are selected, different numbers of days into the past (current season only) can be selected, using any of the options on this menu other than Forecasts. For instance, here's how my fantasy players have done since the middle of May:

All of the selections available designate dates in the current season, except "Forecasts," which gives the rest-of-season PECOTA forecasts for the players on the team. For example:

Note that the display statistics are different—these are configured separately (by choosing "Change Display Statistics" while viewing forecasts).

On the "Edit Teams" page (accessible by clicking on the Team Tracker navigation bar), each team can have two parameters configured:

1. Default Time Period—This can be one of several date ranges (past week, month, etc.) or FORECASTS, to show PECOTA by default.

2. Email Notification—This is off ("No Notification") by default, but can be set to email the team owner whenever an article references a player on his team, or whenever the Daily Roundup column mentions a player on his team.

Last but not least​, Scoresheet Baseball players can rejoice at the ease of loading their team rosters, thanks to a collaborative effort between Scoresheet Baseball and Baseball Prospectus. Clicking on "Load Teams" allows an owner to simply choose their Scoresheet league and team number, and the players are loaded into the currently active Team Tracker team (note: emptying the team first is a good idea). This functionality is further described in the introductory article announcing the product. Originally, it was necessary to enter the URL of a Scoresheet league, but now those are available in a convenient pulldown menu. Otherwise, the instructions in the original article should get a Scoresheet roster loaded in almost no time.

A final note: not every player in the Baseball Prospectus database is available to Team Tracker, and occasionally we won't have someone you'd like to see. Feel free to email me or Customer Service (using the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page or by responding here) if you'd like players added.

Rob McQuown is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @robmcquown
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