I've never used the formula builder before. Does any have on comments or criticism on it?

I find you are better off manually ranking.

Some people seem to like it. More people seem to not like it.

It's probably best used as a starting point. Then manually rank to fine-tune your draft lists.

I didnt use it one year, then used it this year.

I wont use it again, mainly because the ratings and position played are determined by WIS. So you could have a guy listed as a SS... but he has the ratings of a 3B or RF. So you could set "draft me 12 ss's and 12 CF's"... and actually end up with guys that will never be adequate of playing said position.

That's not a problem with the formula builder.

I've had problems with it drafting too many pitchers. If you set the total points assigned to position players to about 67-68, and the total points assigned to pitching to around 55, you seem to get about equal numbers.

Obviously, the formula builder totally ignores your position settings. I asked WIS about it and they said it DOES honor position settings. When I pointed out to them that the formula builder once drafted me 23 pitchers, they didn't respond.

I agree with the comment that it's a good starting point, then manually rank as many as you care to.

I think that the formula builder is great. I usually have to move a couple of guys around that it misses, and move a guy up or down a couple of spots, but it saves almost an hour of ranking time for me. I had to play with the numbers for about an hour the first time I used it, but I found some a setting that I really, really like.

Quote: Originally posted by tecwrg on 1/16/2010
It's probably best used as a starting point.   Then manually rank to fine-tune your draft lists.

That's how I use it.

It could certainly be improved (e.g., I wish the example players were good enough prospects to actually mean something when you change your settings), but I think it helps. Except when you end up drafting 23 pitchers.

Works great for me.. Raise the values of the areas you are looking for in a player and it pretty much sets it up for you. Tweak the ranking as tec said and you should be ok.

Regarding how the draft will net you 23 pitchers:

It will still honor your position settings on the main page. I ended up overloaded with (mostly cruddy) pitchers because I had the "any" button checked below. Since I wanted to weight the formula toward pitching at the top, the formula went with the pitcher almost every time because I didn't restrict the positions.

After learning how the draft works, I still stink at it (because of still being relatively new and having lower budgets and picks than I'd like), but the formula builder does provide a good start.

I use the formula builder to bring the prospects that meet my criteria to the top. Then I manually rank my top 100 prospects. Works pretty good, but certainly not perfect.