Mack 2.0 Discussion

[MikeK@HQ]

Well, we have an issues thread... let's also create a discussion thread to talk about your thoughts on Mack 2.0

[GeorgeOscarBluth]

Granted I only had time to look at it today for about 15 minutes. It looks way too "busy" for me. Lots of tabs and links. I liked Mack 1.0, simple, very user friendly and did its job.

[Tom_T]

Granted I only had time to look at it today for about 15 minutes. It looks way too "busy" for me. Lots of tabs and links. I liked Mack 1.0, simple, very user friendly and did its job.

I think you need to give it more of a chance. I had nothing to do with Mack 2.0, so this isn't a case of me defending my "baby", but 2.0 offers far more functionality than Mack 1.0. The fact that you can create multiple teams and customized reports, and that we permanently store them on the HQ server, means that Mack 2.0 is a tool you can come back to time after time.

And, Mack 1.0 did not always do its job. There have always been technical issues with it. Not everyone found it to be user-friendly, either. It was hardly a one-click operation.

[RAY@HQ]

I hated the user interface on MACK 1.0. Bad fonts, colors, readability was bad. Now MACK is in line with the rest of the site, style-wise. And the durability of your teams being stored on our server is a huge win.

[Tom_T]

If you store your roster on Mack 2.0, as soon as our first winter projections come out, you can immediately run a report for your team. I like that.

[PRHood]

I must say I like the MACK 2.0 interface. Easy to use. The player Add function is very good. The report function needs some work - I noted a printing issue in the other thread - but other than that it works nicely.

I really like using MACK 2.0 to compare groups of players. I've created a "pitching" team and an "OF" team in which I can post various players and run a quick & dirty comparison of projections. Nice.

[cmnova04]

Love MACK 2.0.

However there are some stats missing that I'd love to see added:

1. HR/F for batters
2. Batting average vL and vR for batters
3. Batting average against vL and vR for pitchers

Are these difficult enhancements to make? Would any other users here find these moderately useful so it's worth the time of the developers?

More info the better in my book

[slaman992003]

I agree with Cmnova04 on the vL or vR thing. This would be so useful (especially if OBA) for scoresheet -- albeit, I realize it is a small sampling.

[RAY@HQ]

I agree with Cmnova04 on the vL or vR thing. This would be so useful (especially if OBA) for scoresheet -- albeit, I realize it is a small sampling.

Actually, slam, you would not want this for SS at all. Scoresheet uses pre-defined L/R splits for each player, they're on the SS site. So you'd want to use a player's full-season (or proj) BA/OBP/SLG and apply the SS-supplied adjustements to those numbers. How a player actually does v.L or v.R each week does NOT get factored into SS results.

[ABTY]

A couple thoughts on the new MACK;

The good
-the appearance is much improved. It’s easier to read, and I like the links to each player’s playerlink page.
-Very happy to see some key BPIs added like G/L/F splits, xBA, H% & S%

The bad
-the adding/removing players interface is very clunky. I actually liked the old interface for this better, where I could see who was on the team already and add and remove guys all on the same page. I really dislike having to go back and forth between the “add players” and “remove players” links.
-There are still a few stats that I would like to be able to add to my reports like hr/f and SBO%. In a perfect world we could view any stat that BBHQ analysts cite in the articles through MACK.
-I’d like some form of a trade evaluator – I could never get the old one to work properly, but it would be nice to be able to compare the cumulative stats & projections of one set of players to another set with ease. Sure, I could do this manually in Excel but I’m lazy… help a brotha out!

Overall I think MACK 2.0 is a nice upgrade over the original, there are just a few little things that would make it better.

[Tom_T]

-I’d like some form of a trade evaluator – I could never get the old one to work properly, but it would be nice to be able to compare the cumulative stats & projections of one set of players to another set with ease.

Couldn't you just create a new team containing the players you want to evaluate for a trade?

[RAY@HQ]

The "trade assistant" feature from the old MACK will be migrating to MACK 2.0 at some point, as will the "Power Search" feature.

[ABTY]

Couldn't you just create a new team containing the players you want to evaluate for a trade?

I guess - but it would be nice to have them all on one page. Plus the relative clunkiness of the add/remove players functionality makes it a little more cumbersome. As I mentioned, I'm kinda lazy.

[jk88]

i'm just starting to use the mack feature and it is very helpful. as for possible improvements:

(1) i would love to be able to add date ranges to the reports (last 7 days etc.) to help set weekly lineups based on who looks like they might breakout without clicking through individual player pages.

(2) it really should have the option to use all hq stats.

[BLMJ]

i'm just starting to use the mack feature and it is very helpful. as for possible improvements:

(1) i would love to be able to add date ranges to the reports (last 7 days etc.) to help set weekly lineups based on who looks like they might breakout without clicking through individual player pages.

(2) it really should have the option to use all hq stats.

Being able to view the Past 7 and Past 31 ranges listed on the player pages, maybe as a drop-down menu when looking at the reports would be a nice addition (and not too difficult?).

[loddar]

Thumbs up to MACK 2.0. To be able to store teams on your server is worth its weight in gold.

One thing I am missing,though, is the ability to sort your team by columns (by pBPV or pR$ for example). Will that function be made available in the non-BETA version?

[Roondawg]

Is there any discussion about adding the 5 start average PQS as an option to Mack 2.0?

[Howie M]

yeah, the old Mack constantly losing my info - sometimes in mid-evaluation - was maddening.
anything that solves that, I'll learn to work with it.

[RAY@HQ]

Is there any discussion about adding the 5 start average PQS as an option to Mack 2.0?

Interesting idea.

[ABTY]

I'll second the above suggestion about having the option to view the last 30 days or 7 days stats in MACK. As a daily MACK user the numbers don't change much from day to day (or even week to week at this point).

Especially when evaluating free agents, it would be extremely valuable to be able to look at what someone has done recently. A lot of the guys in the pool got dropped after lousy starts, so we'd have a big advantage if we could recognize recent skills or luck trends.

[Uri@HQ]

Hi All!

My name is Uri and I am BHQ's newest programmer. I am happy to report that MACK 2.0 now has the ability to sort your data using any column you wish. To access this new feature:

Click on MACK 2.0 Team Tracker
Click on Use Your Team
Click on Full Report Data
Click on any column heading to sort

Please let me know if you run into any problems.

Thank you,
Uri

[royalfan]

Either I'm an idiot or this doesn't work. I've really missed the old Mack and how you could sort ALL players by any column or a combination of two parameters (position and RAR, age and RAR, IP> and RAR, to name a few). In the previous post, I believe you tried to explain how to do this, but I tried it and you can't do it. I go to Mack tracker and click on "Use Your Team", but then it tells me I don't have a team set up. I go to the place where you are supposed to set up your team and call it "AL", in hopes of creating reports using all AL players, both pitchers and batters. You can't run a report until you select some players (and nowhere do I see where you can select "Full Report Data" - your Step #3). It also tells you when you go to select players, that you can only select a maximum of 60 players. Am I missing something here? I tried to follow your directions but am getting lost. I really would like to get some of the reports I ran last year before I start my SS draft. Last year, I was able to sort all AL players by each position and then sort those players again by RAR. I can't figure out how to do that anymore without checking 60 different boxes for each position (that would be too much of a pain!). Help!!!!!

[RAY@HQ]

Right royalfan, the options you're talking about are what were called the "Power Search" options in MACk 1.0. Those don't exist in MACK2 yet, but they're the next things we intend to add to the tool.

The options that Uri talks about above are related to single-column sorting you can do once you build a team and a report.

[royalfan]

OK, thanks Ray. I thought I was just missing something. Thankfully, I'm neither an idiot nor does your stuff NOT work!

[Howie M]

Just tried Mack 2.0 for the first time, liked it ok.

My projected 10 keepers, plus my projected 13 'buys' (several of whom I paid more than list value for, as one would expect in a keeper league) produced stats that would have been worth 97 pts in my league last year.

I won with that exact total in 2005, and while usually it takes 100-105, of course we all get better with dump trades when in contention.
So that part I like.

The real challenge - if my team still exists tomorrow!
This is out of Firefox now instead of IE, maybe that helps?