Streamonator/Relievonator FAQ

General Questions | Relievers | Advanced Methodology | Table Instructions

What is Streamonator?

Streamonator is the name of our in-season daily (every start in next 7-10 days) and weekly starting pitcher projection/valuation tool available in our Roto Deluxe and DFS Premium packages.

The key uses for it are:

1. Start/sit/drop decisions for guys on your roster
2. Deciding which pitchers to pick on the waiver wire and their relative value.

What is Relievonator?

This tool contains today and tomorrow projections for every Reliever as well as weekly projections and is available in our Roto Deluxe and DFS Premium packages. It also includes a game log of all relief appearances in the last 14 days.

What is Weekly Pitcher Planner?

This is an alternate view of Streamonator showing each team’s starting pitchers + opponents for the next 7-10 days as well as the value of the start.

Do I need to be good at math to use these tools?

Nope!

How many games do you project/value?

For Roto Deluxe Daily/Weekly and DFS Premiums subscribers:

• Streamonator includes all MLB starts for today + the next 6-9 scheduled days. There are both rolling 7 day week projections as well as next week (Mon-Sun) projections that are available beginning on Fridays.
• Relievonator includes RP projections for today and tomorrow as well as next week (Mon-Sun) projection that are available beginning on Fridays.

For Roto Deluxe Daily subscribers:

• Streamonator includes all MLB starts for today + the next 2 scheduled days.
• Relievonator includes RP projections for today and tomorrow.

What stats are projected in Streamonator?

Wins, Quality Starts, Losses, Innings Pitched, Earned Runs, Hits, Walks, HBP, Strikeouts, Home Runs, K per 9 IP, K/BB ratio, ERA, WHIP.

Wins, ERA, WHIP, K’s, and IP are then used to determine the value of each start in 5×5 12-team MLB fantasy baseball auction dollars (IP are used for valuing ERA/WHIP – a 7 IP start with a 1.00 WHIP is more valuable than a 5 IP start with a 1.00 WHIP. Conversely, a 1.50 WHIP in a 7 IP start does more damage than a 5 IP start with a 1.50 WHIP).

There is also a Points-league version that projects Points based on default scoring for CBSSports, ESPN, Fantrax, and Yahoo. Those default scoring formats are:

• CBSSports: Wins/Saves +7, QS +3, IP +3, K +0.5, H/BB/HBP -1, ER -1, Losses -5
• ESPN: Wins/Saves/Holds +2, QS +3, IP +3, K +1, H/BB -1, ER -2, Losses -2
• Fantrax: Wins +10, Saves +7, QS +3, IP +1, K +1, ER -1, Losses -5
• Yahoo!: Wins/Saves +8, QS +3, IP +3, K +1, H/BB/HBP -1.3, ER -3

What does $ represent?

12-team mixed league fantasy baseball auction dollars.  The methodology for Streamonator mirrors our Preseason/Season-to-Date/Rest of Season Player Rater except for a few minor tweaks.

While weekly projected values are projected so the ‘projected rostered’ SPs/RPs receive a distributed share of $260 (SPs 26.5%, RP 10% – you can read more details on the Player Rater FAQ), Daily values are based on the average start/relief outing for the Rest of Season rostered SP/RP universe. This ensures that any variations seen in an SP/RPs value are because of the underlying projected stats and not because of variance in probable pitchers across days.

Why do you rank pitchers based on fantasy baseball auction dollars?

We feel auction dollars work well because they can be directly compared to pre-season $ values (for 12-team ESPN leagues) and our in-season and rest-of-season player raters.

Just ranking pitchers in order of best to worst is unhelpful when comparing pitchers across multiple games. It is possible for the 5th best start on one day to be less attractive than the 10th best start on another day. In addition, the 3rd start could be WAY better than the 4th start while the 4th and 5th starts are about the same. So there is a definite need for a metric that scales based on the quality of the start.

The most common metric for valuing the quality of a pitcher’s start is Bill James’ Game Score. This is less than ideal for fantasy baseball as it does not value Wins/Quality Starts, penalizes unearned runs (irrelevant for fantasy baseball), and values Hits, Walks, and K’s in a fashion that is not necessarily in line with fantasy baseball value. (Note: The belief that ‘Wins’ are not predictable is untrue – though it has a lower correlation to actual Wins than K’s and WHIP)

What does ROS12 $/G mean in the weekly Streamonator?

This stands for Rest of Season 12-team mixed $/Game. The $/Game aims to isolate the quality by estimating a player’s value on a per game basis. This is a more helpful gauge for a pitcher’s value ON A PER GAME BASIS than ROS $ since it keeps total appearances as constant.

The benefit of $/Game is that it provides guidance on a prospect or non-everyday player’s value if they got more of a full-time role.

What does RFS12 and RFS15 mean in the weekly Streamonator?

To help flag the best FAAB candidates, we have added 12-team ROS $/Game and 12 + 15 team Razzball FAAB Score (RFS) that weighs ROS per game value, ROS playing time, and this week’s value on a 0-600 scale roughly tied to 15-team FAAB.

What does GT mean?

Game Time. It is set at Eastern Standard Time – e.g., 1 = 1PM EST. Any game times prior to 1PM are made negative (e.g., -12 for noon) for easier sorting.

How do you project these stats?

The projections start with Steamer Rest of Season projections that are updated daily. This is used for setting each player’s park-neutral baseline for ERA, K-rate, BB-rate, HR-rate, HBP-rate, and BABIP. These stats are then adjusted by Razzball based on various factors including:  1) Projected opposing team lineup’s ability vs the pitcher’s handedness (i.e., RHP vs LHP), 2) Park factors, 3) Weather (typically for today + tomorrow) and 4) Whether the start is home vs away (pitcher’s perform better at home than road).

For today’s projection, the results are updated several times a day to take advantage of posted lineups. Weather conditions are also incorporated into today’s projections.

The ratios are multiplied into projected IP based on a pitcher’s recent starts with adjustments made based on several gameday factors and projected baserunners (e.g., the better the WHIP, the more IP).

Win, Loss, and Quality Start percentages are based on formulas leveraging the ERA projections (including the opposing pitcher’s ERA for Wins/Losses).

What is a good $ value for streaming a pitcher?

This will vary depending on the number of teams in your fantasy baseball league, bench sizes, and how active your leaguemates are on the waiver wire. Here are the dollar value targets for standard default formats (ESPN/Yahoo/CBSSports/NFBC).

Once you use the tool for a couple weeks, it will be pretty easy to identify a dollar value that you can sustainably find a couple times a week.  Here are my suggested targets for various league formats. Note that H2H leagues tend to use more starts so you will need to take the target down a couple dollars.

# of Teams	Target
10 MLB	$6
12 MLB	$4
14 MLB	$1
15 MLB	$0.5
16 MLB	$0
10-team AL/NL	-$2
12 team AL/NL	-$6

How do I identify pitchers available in my league?

The ‘R%’ is based on the percentage of leagues where the player is rostered in the NFBC Online Championship 12 team contest which has a roster format of 2C/1B/2B/SS/3B/OF/OF/OF/OF/OF/CI/MI/UTIL/9 P/7 Bench. This rostership percentage is updated on Mondays.

Can I customize the $ values to meet my league settings?

Not at this time.

Can I customize the $ values based on how I weight each category (e.g., I value K’s more than Win percentage because it is more reliable)?

Not at this time.

How often are the projections updated?

Today’s projections are updated early in the morning EST and then updated every new batting lineup that is confirmed.

Future game projections are updated early in the morning EST and then set for several times a day. On Friday-Monday, they are set to update more often AND in a case where a hitter is added/removed from an active MLB roster. These are updated more frequently on weekends to make sure next week projections are as accurate as possible.

In addition Monday-Thursday and Friday-Sunday projections are updated with every new confirmed lineup on Mondays and Fridays.

Reliever Log

What is included in the Reliever Log?

This table includes all relief appearances over the past 14 days. The 5×5 $ calculation estimates the value of this relief appearance if it was projected for a full season (60 appearances). If the appearance is more than 1 2/3 IP, it is set so that the ERA/WHIP/K full season projections are capped at 100 IP. A Win is projected to 10 Wins for the season and Saves for 40 Saves (vs each being 60) to avoid too much overcrediting for these decisions. Holds, Losses, and Blown Saves do not affect the $ (since it is based on 5×5).

Stats included within the Reliever Log include:

• Decision (DEC) – SV (Save), BSV (Blown Save), HLD (Hold), W (Win)
• Inning Entering The Game (IPStart) – The first inning in which a reliever appeared. This is very useful for identifying future Save/Hold candidates as pitchers who appear in later innings are more likely to get future Saves/Holds opportunities.
• Innings Pitched (IP)
• Batters Faced (BF)
• Pitches
• Hits (H), Runs (R), Earned Runs (ER), Strikeouts (K), Walks (BB), Home Runs (HR), ERA (Earned Run Average), WHIP ((Walks + Hits) / Innings Pitched), Strikeouts / Batters Faced (K%)
• Prev Day IP Start / Prev Day BF / Prev Day Pitches – If the relieved pitched the prior day, this reports the inning they entered the game, the batters faced, and the number of pitches. Typically, any pitcher who has pitched in the last two days is unlikely to pitch today.

Advanced Methodology

How accurate are Streamonator and Relievonator projections?

This is a great question and the most difficult one to answer.

There is a lot of noise when looking at accuracy at the daily level because there is huge volatility in day-by-day performance. Some days, aces dominate and meatball flingers get crushed. Other days, the opposite happens. But, over time, it is fair to hypothesize that this volatility averages out and it should be straightforward to demonstrate accuracy.

We feel we have the most accurate daily/weekly projection system available for fantasy baseball players. We have a 10+ year partnership with Steamer Projections which updates pitcher skill projections on a daily basis. We have spent 10+ years optimizing our process to provide both high quality and speed on everything from the estimation of pitcher IP/batters faced, the starting lineups (both probabilistically projecting lineups prior to posting and then integrating posted lineups as quickly as possible), park factors, weather factors, reliever usage, etc.

Please see our Razzball Ombotsman page that shows the correlations between the Streamonator projections and actual stats for the past 10+ years.

What is the methodology for valuing players?

Please see our Player Rater FAQ for more information regarding our valuation methodology.

Table Instructions

How do I sort results?
Click the column headers once to sort numbers in descending order. Twice to sort in ascending order.

How do I filter results?
You can filter multiple fields at the same time.  The text fields below the column headers enable several methods for filtering the data.  Here are some examples:

Function	Symbol	Example	Explanation
ANY MATCH		‘B’ in Pos	Typing B in Pos will filter to any player with 1B, 2B, or 3B eligibility.  Type in more details to filter further – e.g., “1B’, “1B, 3B”, etc.
OR	|	*Ruth*|*Aaron* in ‘Name’	All players with Ruth or Aaron in their name. The asterisks before/after each Name is needed for wildcarding when you are using OR.
NOT	!	!Ruth in ‘Name’	This excludes anyone with Ruth in their name
GREATER THAN	>	>30 in $	All players whose $ is greater than 30
LESS THAN	<	<30 in $	All players whose $ is less than 30
GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO	>=	>=30 in $	All players whose $ is greater than or equal to 30
LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO	<=	<=30 in $	All players whose $ is less than or equal to 30
AL/NL	—	Wanting AL-only teams	Type ALG or NLG in the Team column

How do I download results?
There is a download button above the table.

Maintained by Rudy Gamble ([email protected])