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FREE
MLB Player Forecasts, Rankings
 About
the Guru's MLB Player Projections, Rankings - The spreadsheets below
have 6 tabs: Definitions (descriptions of stats), Demo (batter details),
Batting forecasts, Pitching forecasts, and Cheat Sheets for batters and
pitchers. The names of the forecasted stats have an "m" in from
of them. So, the HR forecast is mHR, etc. Players with no MLB experience do
not have forecasts.
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Download 2026 Forecasts
Spreadsheet: GURU_mForecast2026.xlsm
(READY NOW -- updated 10/10/2025)
For daily injury updates and when players are due back: MLB Injury Report
SSL2025.xls –
Last Years drafting Spreadsheet (includes SSL ID's,
range, platoon adj, extra forecasts!)
Guru's 2025
Fantasy Baseball Drafting Tool - Last Years Complete with
Scoresheet player numbers and stats
CAUTION: Advice from a human - Don't draft AP (Avoid)
Pitchers even if the machine likes one. Probably shouldn't draft BP
(Bad) Pitchers either. Those designations are very telling. JP
(Junk) Pitchers are risky, but you could get lucky with an undiscovered
rookie or star returning from Tommy John.
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Forecasts are based on data from the last three years, where recent
years count more. Some of last years stats are included as a reference.
Some stats are our own invention (described below). Pitchers also have 2 and 3 year key stat forecasts, though they
should be viewed with caution.
For ranking players, the mGURU stat is the key. Alternatively for
batters, use mGURUwt, which weighs by positional
scarcity. mGURU is designed to weight the players rate of production
and expected playing time to arrive at a best rating. Since forecasting
playing time is difficult (although we are proud of the strength of this
forecast), mGURU is weighted more heavily on rate than traditional linear
weights. This strategy is useful for the goal of ranking player forecasts
for simulation leagues.
mGURU is calibrated to value batters and pitchers roughly equally,
possibly giving a slight edge to pitchers. It does not consider fielding.
For batters, SB's are not as valuable in real life (or in mGURU) as they
are in rotisserie, so draft accordingly.
mROTO is designed to provide values for 5x5 rotisserie scoring as
follows: Batting is Avg, HR, SB, RBI, R. Pitching is ERA, W, SV, WHIP,
Strike outs. mROTOwt weights values by positional scarcity. Values are
meant to be relative to each other and provide directional guidance. Values
resemble mixed leagues with a $260 budget for 12 teams.
NL players are listed at the top, AL at the bottom. If you are
playing in a mixed league, for batters: sort by Play (descending), POS
(descending), mGuru (descending); for pitchers sort by Play (descending),
POS (descending), mGURU (descending). In the case of pitchers, notice that
positions were newly defined to distinguish between them (see below).
Players can also be sorted by rankings. Rank is overall for
batters.lrank is the league rank among either batters or pitchers. prank
is the positional rank within league for either batters or pitchers. An
overall rank across all players was not made, but it can be infered using
mGURU.
If you prefer not to consider playing time in the rankings and want to
reply solely on rate of production, we have that too. For batters use
wOBA, which is based on research by Tom Tango. For
Pitchers use mDERA, which is the ERA forecast. It relies heavily on
Voros McCracken's DIPS concept. ERAi is the indexed to league ERA.
No minor league data was considered, so be advised that forecasts for
rookies tend to be weighted more heavily towards league averages for
players of their positions and expected playing time than established
players. Another stat Tom Tango developed called Reliability will help you
gauge this. Best of all is to look at the 3 similar players players the
machine identifies.
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Looking for sleepers?
Value is S=Sleeper, R=Regular, and O=Overpriced compared to
what others might expect based on last season. If you want to know how
big a sleeper or how overpriced, use gurud, which is the
difference between forecasted performance and last year for those keys
stats. The higher the number the bigger value, the lower the number the
more overpriced.
Pitchers: DIF is mDERA-ERA (forecasted era minus last year’s
era). Negative dif is a value pick, positive is premium. DIF_IP3
is the change in projected IP 3 years from now minus last year.
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ORIGINAL INSIGHTS
Before we get into the numbers, consider the machine learning text. It
tells us which players are the most similar using an original approach and
clusters them and gives us a brief description of their status.
ORIGINAL BATTING STATS
The xGURU and xwOBA for batters shows expected batting
value for someone at that position and playing time. So if you want to
consider valuing SS over OF, then see how much higher that persons mGURU is
above xGURU. mGURUwt was created to do this weighting for you.
mStarter is predicted playing time, where Y is Starter; N is Not
full time Starter or Inj risk or Performance Risk; and B is a Bench player
with fringe mlb-level quality forecasted.
mVORP is Value (runs contributed) Over Replacement Player. It is
similar to WAR, but uses a different bar for replacement value. For batters
this is the wOBA of non-starters at each position. The formula is
(mwOBA-xwOBA)*mTAP. This is different from mGURU, which further weights the
results against players of similar playing time. mGURU is also weighted
more towards rate of performance, so times at plate plays less of a factor
(although it still matters).
ORIGINAL PITCHING STATS
Creation of pitching positions: SP=Starters / LP=Long Relief
(Swing) / JP=Junk (or Junior) Starters / EP=Elite Relief Pitchers /
DP=Decent RP / BP=Bad RP/ AP=Avoid RP. These assignments are critical for
drafting. Seriously, do not draft AP or JP pitchers, no matter what the
machine thinks. And, LP might also stand for "Last to Predict"
because I don't know what to do with these guys (neither do most others,
but at least Iadmit it). I don't have supporting minor league data and LPs
are players in flux. Look for bargains and young talent there.
mSTUFF (Do NOT confuse this with PECOTA's stuff). Having big
STUFF means excellent power and control. Its our way of measuring upside,
especially for young pitchers. Find hidden future stars! The formula is:
6*mDOM -2.67*mDERA -3*mCTL -5*mHR9; if mSTUFF<1 then mSTUFF=1;
mSTUFF=mSTUFF*mSTUFF/10;
WRIP - Since hrs allowed are more under a pitchers control than
hits allowed, a stat called wrip was created to look like whip. Whip
is (walks+hits)/ip and Wrip is (walks+hr*10)/ip. I also like the names
because a pitcher giving up lots of hits gets "whipped", while
one giving up lots of HRs gets "wripped." Agree?
mVORP is Value (runs allowed) Over Replacement Player at same
position. It is similar to WAR, but uses a different bar for replacement
value. It is (mDERA-xDERA)*mIP. xDERA ranges from 6 for someone who only
starts to 5 for somone never starts. Like WAR, which is based on FIP
instead of ERA, this is based on mDERA, which is much more like FIP than
ERA.
traj indicates the trajectory the pitcher is heading over the
next 3 years.
Several more are borrowed from others, such as: mCMD (9*bb/ip), mDOM
(9*k/ip), mCTL (k/bb), and HR9 (9*hr/ip).
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