Couldn’t we all use a helping hand once in awhile? Especially if it’s free! Something this site has become known for is tracking down great free Fantasy Baseball draft tools and free Fantasy Football draft tools. Why am I always finding new tools? Well, it’s mostly because I’m always looking for help with my own Fantasy teams!
A couple years ago, I posted my “66 Best Free Fantasy Baseball Draft Tools You Must Bookmark” over at SoCalledFantasyExperts.com, so give that a look when you get a chance. And I also wrote a piece on this site about the 34 Best Free In-Season Fantasy Baseball Tools, too.
This year’s article is going to try to exceed everything we’ve done in the past, and give you a great foundation to help you build the best fantasy baseball team possible and hopefully win!
While all the articles we’re going to mention here are free, there are some absolutely awesome premium Fantasy Baseball draft tools, too. For instance, the premium version of FantasyPros’ Draft Wizard gives you a lot of bang for your buck. From their award-winning Draft Simulator to their Draft Analyzer to their Cheat Sheet Creator and the ultimate Draft Assistant, you’ll have every base covered. The way they have it set up now, you pay a subscription fee, and you’ll have the tool for ALL SPORTS all year long, plus you can get it for unlimited leagues! If you’re a Fantasy fan that plays in both Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Football leagues, this is the must-have tool for you.
If Switzerland played Fantasy Sports, they would have added this tool to their Swiss Army knife.
When you consider what you could win by taking the championship home in your Fantasy Baseball of Fantasy Football leagues, it’s a solid investment. If you have more than one league — this is a fantastic investment.
Send us some of your favorite FREE Fantasy Baseball Draft tools and I’ll add them into the list if I think they’ll be helpful to readers. (If you’re a website or a writer, and I missed your creation, shoot me a note!) You can contact me through this link – but be specific with why your draft tool is so helpful to readers!
These free Fantasy Baseball draft tools are not ranked in any order. But I numbered them for referencing in other articles. Enjoy!
33 FREE Fantasy Baseball Draft Tools
1. FantasyPros.com’s Mock Draft Simulator
This is a) entertaining as heck, and b) very helpful.
“The Draft Simulator is an efficient way to practice for your draft. It’s similar to doing a live mock draft except that you’re drafting against our computer algorithm (which uses a random selection of expert cheat sheets and ADP sources).”
You select your league size, roster requirements and which spot in the draft order your team will be picking – and then begin your mock draft. It’s a very fast exercise. You can knock out a mock draft in less than 15 minutes! You can experiment, too. Draft one player to see what might happen a few rounds later, then if you don’t like it, you can revert your picks and try a different player. It’s all about being completely prepared for what might happen during your real drafts.
I did a 23-round mock draft in 10 mins. It even shows you the percentages of players that experts would recommend you pick. At any time in your draft, you can choose to auto-pick the rest of the way, or just start over.
If you upgrade to a PRO account, you’ll get more in-depth analysis, keeper support and more customizable settings. My guess is – you’ll like the free part of the simulator after using it a few times, and then you’ll fall in love with the upgraded version.
2. FantasyRundown.com’s Daily Article Discoveries
Goose at Fantasy Rundown sorts through all of the Fantasy Baseball articles that get posted daily on all of the other Fantasy websites. Then, unlike an RSS feed, he handpicks the best ones — and posts a link to them on his site, with a sentence about why that one is worth reading. (He does this for Fantasy Football, too.) He’s like your personal assistant, tracking down great content for you to read. The quick synopsis for each article makes it so you’re not just clicking blind. Great stuff!
3. FantasyPros.com’s Experts Consensus Rankings
You should be familiar with FantasyPros.com by now. While you might not have ever visited their site, you likely have seen their rankings widget on many Fantasy Baseball sites – like mine! Their free rankings on their site show the consensus rankings of over 35 writers, including me!
You can sort by all players, by all hitters, by all pitchers or by individual positions. And you’ll see the “Best” spot a player has been ranked and the “Worst.” You’ll also get the average ranking spot, as well as the players ADP, and a special “vs. ADP” column. You can adjust the number of games for position eligibility – and you can sort rankings by just your favorite columnists, or eliminate ones you think are no bueno.
4. RotoWorld’s Player Headlines and News
While Rotoworld isn’t necessarily the most extensive player news source out there, they do a great job of updating players you’re interested in – just before you realize you are interested in them! The smart move on your part is to open up their headlines page in one tab on your browser, and just bounce back and forth to it throughout the day. It auto-refreshes, so you’ll see the top breaking news on the day. It could be info on a big-name player, or a big piece of news on a small-name player.
5. FantasyPros.com’s Draft Analyzer
Along with the Mock Draft Simulator above, this tool analyzes how your team did and measures it up against other teams to see how you did.
That’s for free.
If you upgrade to a PRO account, you’ll get details on strengths and weaknesses, along with analysis of your ESPN and Yahoo drafts, and your real drafts. You can also import mock drafts from Yahoo! and ESPN.
6. CloserMonkey.com’s MLB Closer Depth Chart
If you’re a Fantasy Baseball player, you have really have to love awesome niche sites like this one. They do relief pitchers — and that’s it. No one does a better job of being in front of possible bullpen changes than this website. Sign up for their email updates to find out what bullpen changes have happened or are about to. But if you pay for their premium service, you’ll get their updates directly sent to your inbox, so you don’t even have to click the link to go read it from their site.
7. Rotoworld’s Fantasy News App
This ranks among the best apps to have on your phone, for sure, and it’s 100-percent free. Again, just flipping through the Fantasy headlines on this app is helpful enough, but when you’re on the go, and you need to make a decision on a player, just search his name on this app to see the latest news and analysis on the guy.
8. Baseball HQ Friday Weekly Newsletter
Every Friday, from Jan. 25 through Sept. 6, the BH crew send out this awesome newsletter – fo’ free. Every Friday, when I get the email, I purposely don’t open it until I have enough spare time to read it through entirely. It’s informative on several levels, including analysis on some of the biggest issues of the week, and while it has a lot of “Fanalytics” talk in it, the newsletter never talks down to you. Fantasy Baseball players of all levels will get some great information out of this email. You’ll get player analyses, statistical insight, Shandler’s Master Notes and innovative game strategies with every newsletter.
9. Roster Resource’s MLB Depth Charts
This isn’t your grandfather’s version of MLB depth charts. You’ll get a team’s projected 25-man roster, including a projected batting lineup, bench, starting rotation and bullpen. They also show the platoons they expect to see, and indicate which players are on the outside looking in. Finally, they show notable minor leaguers for each squad, at each position.
Just a ton of information for each baseball team. Well done. It’s also something I refer to frequently when writing articles, building player rankings, etc.
10. CBSSports.com’s Roster Trends
In 2006 and 2007, I sat in on meetings at CBSSports.com where they were trying to think of ways to data-mine all the information they had from owners playing on their Fantasy league services. This “Roster Trends” page was the result of those meetings, and other league services have since copied that, much like they did the original Commissioner.com product that CBS SportsLine used.
With this page, you can see the the “Most Added,” “Most Dropped,” “Most Viewed,” and “Most Traded” players in CBS leagues. If you are in a CBS league already, you can view this within your league, and it will show you which players are available on the waiver wire — which is absolutely invaluable!
11. ThomasGeorge.com’s Dollar Values Calculator
I remember working with Robert Burghardt back in like 2000 and 2001, when I owned FantasyRef.com. Smart guy! I really like this tool, too! Cool way to get dollar values for a league with a specific size and style. And you don’t end up seeing 40 catchers with dollar values, like you would at some of the major media sites. (Very few leagues are drafting 40 catchers – much less spending $1 or more on them!)
You can even adjust the percentages you would like to spend on each position. They also show you their projections for each player for the coming season, so you understand why there’s a difference in price.
12. Continuous Article Feed From theRotoFeed.com
Similar to FantasyRundown.com, these guys pull in all of the most current Fantasy Baseball articles throughout the day. It’s one of the best free Fantasy Baseball tools because it’s instant – as soon as those articles are posted and hit the RSS feed, they’re available here.
13. FantasyPros.com’s Cheat Sheet Creator
Let’s face it – we can all be our own Fantasy Baseball experts. You do the research, the reading and the statistical analysis, so why not create your own cheat sheet? You can set up some different tiers for each position, and you can write in some specific player notes to help you during the draft.
14. ThomasGeorge.com’s 2017 Position Eligibility Chart
A quick one-page, table-view look at position eligibility of players in standard Rotisserie leagues that use 20-games played as the eligibility mark.
15. ThomasGeorge.com’s Free MLB Stat Downloads dating back to 2001
As I mentioned before, ThomasGeorge.com has been doing this forever. So if you ever want to do your own projections, download the previous three years or so, average them out, then adjust those stats accordingly. Enjoy 13 SEASONS’ worth of stats!
16. MLB Trade Rumors
This is like the ProFootballTalk.com of Baseball! They have their fingers on the pulse of every Major League Baseball team, and you’ll know about possible deals (and possible players to pick up) before nearly everyone else.
17. Reddit.com/r/FantasyBaseball
If you’ve ever spent any time over at Reddit, then you know that a great Reddit, with active Redditors, can provide a ton of great information. It’s essentially like crowdsourcing out your Fantasy GM job, getting help with player news, analysis, figuring out who to pick up and drop, and Fantasy strategies. Even if you don’t post comments, just reading what everyone else writes is extremely helpful.
Also, don’t forget their Reddit.com/r/FindaLeague page. Use this free forum to find a league to join – or to find players to join your Fantasy Baseball league.
18. TheBaseballCube.com’s Stats Sorter
Another great source for stats. As a matter of fact, they claim to be the only site to have Major League, Minor League and College Stats for players all on the same page. You gotta love that! (ESPN’s Tristan Cockcroft turned me on to this site back in 2003 and I can’t get enough of it.)
They have some great stat records dating back to the late ‘50s. Wondering who had the most doubles at home in April while batting leadoff between 1990 and 1999? Then look here. (It was Devon White, with 11.) I could play with this for HOURS!… Seriously, though, don’t you want to know which right-handed hitting catcher had the most home runs in August (my birth month) since 1971?…. It was Carlton Fisk with 71 homers!
19. NFBC Average Draft Positions
Everybody loves them some ADP.The industry standard for Average Draft Positions has recently become the ADP rankings from the National Fantasy Baseball Championships, run by the guys at Stats.com.
20. MLB.com’s 2017 Fantasy Player Preview
Fred Zinkie and Zach Steinhorn do a great job with MLB.com’s Fantasy Baseball content, and the design team over at MLB just makes beautiful pages. These are prettier than most baseball cards, to be honest.
21. Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy
The fellas at DraftBuddy.com put these free Fantasy Baseball Draft tools together. The Cheatsheet Compiler creates custom cheat sheets, tailored to your league, in an Excel spreadsheet. You can adjust their projections however you like. The Draft Buddy runs along with your draft, updating rosters and showing projected standings in all categories. For auction leagues, it also adjusts auction inflation calculations.
22. FantasyPro.com’s Who Should I Draft?
I like their “FAST” tool – Fantasy Advice Search Tool! You input the two player names you are choosing between, and the app spits out a percentage that shows how many Fantasy Baseball experts like one player over another. That basically means — this percentage of experts would choose “this” player over “that” player.
23-25. Three Great Closer Charts
Many Fantasy Baseball sites have closer charts, showing which pitchers are considered the closers, who’s the setup guy, who’s next in line for saves and maybe even some dark-horse picks for saves. So we listed our three favorite closer charts, so you could pick your favorite one!
26. Prospect 361.com’s 2017 Dynasty League Rookie Draft
These guys are new to me, but I like that they do a deep dive into Fantasy Baseball prospects. Four outfielders are among their top six picks for 2017!
27. Google Alerts: Fantasy Baseball
Have you ever set up a Google Alert for anything before? It’s pretty awesome. Type in things you are interested in, and every day (or however often you choose), you’ll get a Google Alert email with links to all of the most recent articles on that topic. For instance, if you add “Fantasy Baseball” to your Google Alerts, you’ll get links to all the top Fantasy articles sent to your inbox from news websites like CBS Sports, RotoWorld and USA Today. It’s a great way to start every day!
28. Baseball America Prospect Report
Another one of the best emails I get each morning is this Prospects Report from Baseball America. They track down all the top prospects and show you their boxscores from the previous night’s games. From the minor leagues to the winter ball and Arizona Fall leagues, they’ve got you covered on prospects. Free Fantasy Baseball draft tool, ahoy!
29. FNTSY Sports Network Live TV
Sign up for a free account and watch their shows live every day! These guys also have deals with a few Cable TV providers. I like watching them through my Xbox One and pretending my Cable TV provider finally has a Fantasy Sports channel! You can also watch their shows through their free FNTSY mobile app!
30. Fantasy Baseball Today on CBSSports.com
Each weekday, host Adam Aizer takes you through all the day’s upcoming action in this live video show. You can email or call into the show between 12 and 1pm ET, too.
31. Fantasy Baseball War Room — Razzball: 3000
Love this one! Basically, it’s a draft tool that will help you track where your team is at during every point in the draft. It shows if you have too many steals or home runs, or if your ERA or WHIP are too low. The tool goes off of Razzball’s projections and rankings, and you can use the tool post-draft, as well, to see how the team stacks up. Great concept, easy interface.
“It’s a draft tool to help you track where you are at any moment in a draft. It shows you if you have too many steals, homers… Or if your ERA or WHIP are too low. Or too high. Or if your lamb is still rare or should be turned (results vary on lamb). If you’ve already drafted a team, go into the War Room, enter your team and it shows you exactly how stacked/dreadful the team is.”
32. SCFE’s Fantasy Baseball Email Advice
Everyone loves to get free advice from “So-Called Fantasy Experts”! Just submit a question and they’ll reply with an answer. Pretty simple! Did I mention it’s free!?! Well, everything on this list are free Fantasy Baseball tools, so yes, yes I did.
33. Fantasy Baseball on Twitter!
There is absolutely no way to get faster news and reactions to news than by following Fantasy Baseball writers on Twitter. In this link, we’ve listed 99 of the best Fantasy Baseball tweeters out there.
Don’t forget to check out the 67 Great Free Fantasy Baseball Draft Tools over at SoCalledFantasyExperts.com!
So do you have some free Fantasy Baseball draft tools that I don’t know about yet? Shoot me an email through my “Contact DG” page and I’ll check it out — and possibly add it! You’re also welcome to comment on this post about any of the tools above and your experiences with them. Good luck!
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