Yes, this is the Wolfman, back after being away for about a year, to once again help the newsletter prosper in 2018 and happy to be involved with this amazing new edition of our Essential Baseball Draft Guide.  I wish to help and make sure the Guide can get into the hands, as soon as possible, to all of the members of our newsletter and within the Strat Baseball Community.  Its good to be back as your editor ... now le'ts  discuss the guide ...

When I do a personal review of any book or a new tool I read and explore, which might be able to help other Strat Gamers improve their level of play, I always look at it from the perspective of a so-called normal gamer, who could be utilizing it. I like to make sure that when any gamer works directly with the guide itself, that it is very easy to get around and use all of its features and capabilities as well as, are the instructions easy to follow? Having had a hand in the development of the 2017 Draft Guide, of which many of my recommendations were carried forward into the new edition, therefore, I can honestly say that you will very quickly adapt to work with this new strategy tool if you aren't already familiar with it.

Next, let's talk about what you will receive within the "2018 USBN Essential Draft Guide", itself.  As stated before, all the players who will receive their first Strat Baseball Card are fully evaluated.  The Panel looked at five areas of each players performance capabilities that includes:

How well did they perform in 2017.  What is the expectation of their future career, for as we all know, young prospects sometimes take a few years to get going.  And how durable are they health-wise  (vs. not being injury prone) so you can count on this player to help your team for many years to come. 

A ranking system of 1-5 was used in all of these evaluations with "1" being the worse and "5" being the best.  There is also two other evaluation categories for each positional player as the hitters are rated for their offensive and defensive abilities while each pitcher is ranked upon the variety of their pitches and the command of their pitches. Finally, (and sorry we could not show this feature on the preview of what the guides looks like above), the Evaluator of each player also wrote a powerful comment to describe the player's abilities and skills as he is at present and what his future potential can be like too.

The beauty of this guide and where it shines is that we were able to use a built-in function in MS Excel where you can literally sort through this special player's list within the guide, in any way you wish.  You could quickly just view, for example, those players who are rank a "5" in the future or the positional players who are a "5" offensively. Or conversely, you can view which players are a certain age like 22, or just sort all the players by age if you wish (using the built-in sort capability).  There is no limit how you can view these players. The ability to change this view of your guide quickly and easily makes this guide very valuable indeed.  In other words, it has the Wolfman's Stamp of Approval.

Another aspect shown in our snapshot of the Draft Guide above is that each player is given an overall ranking value - Points from 5-25, or an actual ranking index from 1-5.  Within the guide, the initial ranking page shows all of the players being sorted by their overall ranking value.  But also, we have gone one step farther and given to you, two other ranking pages which are shown by the main playing positions for each player so you can find that best young and upcoming 1B or pitcher depending upon the needs for your team. Plus in the back of the guide, in the appendix, is a done for you ready worksheet that you can print the entire ranking listings from without lifting a finger.

And if this isn't enough to help you, there are also included two Stat pages, one for the hitters (the positional players) and one for the Pitchers to show you how they did in 2017 including their lefty-righty stats as well.  For my money, the USBN Essential Draft Guide Development Team not only did their homework but they went out of their way to add extra features that will make your life much easier. I just haven't seen such features in similar guides ever before.  Every part of the "Essential Draft Guide" is simple to use and fully explained so you don't have to be a computer jock to immediately dig into the guide's important data.  So, whether you are an expert with Excel spreadsheets or just a newbie you will be able to use this guide quickly with a minimal of efforts and obtain the key information you require to make thoughtful draft picks for your team.

There is even a very detailed instruction page that will make sure you don't get lost and have a good idea of what you are doing.  This is one complete "well thought out" package.

From Marc Wass, the initiator of the guide, "It is a pleasure to bring to our community such a great tool for the Strat-o-matic gamer to use when planning their upcoming drafts.  I have always enjoyed the extra resources that other fanatics (like myself) have brought into the community in years past, so I thought there was a void for this type of draft guide and that we could do it .... and so we did it last year and had to bring it back for this year (2018)!"

And from the Draft Guide Coordinator, Doug Brunet, as part of his message to the users of the guide that is shares within, "On behalf of everyone at the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter, we greatly appreciate your interest  in our 2018 Draft Guide. I consider it an honor to have managed this project. Once again, it’s been a labor of love. I wanted to make this new edition in regards to the great respect I have for all of you, the Strat players out there, who are, most likely, as crazy and obsessed as I am."

Here is a comment we received from Bart Ewing, who was one of the evaluators of the 2017 Draft Guide, about his experience helping to create the guide, he wrote:  "It was a (very) cool project ... I think this is going to be the best guide of its type ever produced for Strat ..."

And finally a few comments we received from our happy strat league gamers who purchase the 2017 version of the draft guide:

Hi - I am enjoying using the guide and especially like the individual comments about the players - they go beyond the numbers and the guide saves me the time of having to look up each player myself!  Thanks -- CW

The draft guide you produced is as good, or better (closer to better) than any other guide of it's type I've seen, and priced more than reasonably!  Thanks...  Dan H.

In Summary: With the success and the kind praises we received from those who purchased the 2017 USBN Essential Draft Guide, we felt it was vital and important to make the 2018 Draft Guide available this year.  Our Draft Guide development team put in a lot of sweat and time to make this the best guide of its kind for all Strat Baseball Gamers.  When this special draft guide was first designed last year, the Draft Guide development team was thinking about what they would want see in a guide such as this, if one was available.  The Draft Guide Team is once again very proud of this new edition which includes a few tweaks and updates and they believe you will be as excited about its final design as they are!

So I, the Wolfman, (returning to help, once again as the USBN editor), highly highly recommend that you have to, at least, take a real good look at this guide. It will absolutely help you to know which of these upcoming young superstars who are receiving their 1st strat cards should certainly be considered to be added to your team or teams.  I think for the price the Draft Guide Team is charging, it's a steal with all the power and features you are going to be getting.  As a matter of fact, through the process I use to prepare for my own league's draft, I have discovered that by having access to this Draft Guide, I found it was easier way to work with the Ratings Book, that Strat-o-matic releases each year, so I could do the multiple sorting views of the players to find the information I desire to read about the players I was researching the most, without having to work so hard.  There is no doubt whatsoever, with our Draft Guide and the Ratings Book, you will have everything at your fingertips and be super ready for your next league's draft day.

I am very proud to have been associated with this group of creative gamers and you can be sure that the Essential Draft Guide will be a key tool offered by the newsletter for years to come that no doubt will continue to see new improvements and enhancements. Maybe you may even consider to join our team going forward as a future player evaluator!

All the best,
success in your league, tournament and replay gaming,

Wolfman Shapiro
editor, Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter.

PS - so if you are ready to order your copy see below ...

HOW TO PLACE YOUR ORDER AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS?

We have set it up for you to order your copy of the 2018 USBN Essential Draft Guide via Paypal. This is the easiest way for us to receive your order on-line and to expedite your delivery to receive your copy of the Draft Guide quite quickly. You will see below a "Buy Now" button which is linked directly to the Paypal Ordering System. If you don't have a paypal account, you can still use any credit or debit card to place your order through Paypal.  Also we added some additional options if you wish to make a contribution to support our work with the newsletter where you add a little something to the price of the Draft Guide, or just send a token contribution. 

Special Note: Upon receipt of your payment, within 24 hours we will be sending by email to you the 2018 Draft Guide as two files as an attachment. We have found that sometimes the email linked to your paypal account is not the email you wish to receive your messages and information at.  Therefore, before completing your order, make sure in the Notes Section on the ordering screen, you indicate a different email for us to use to send your guide to. 

After your order is completed on-line, here is what happens next:  We will both receive an email from Paypal, confirming your order, so make sure you find this email in your in-box.  Once we have this email confirmation from Paypal, we will then send to you an email with the two version of the draft guide attached.  Within the Draft Guide are instructions how to use the guide completely along with a brief explanation of our evaluation system and the various built-in functions within MS Excel that will help you to view all the information in the guide.

If you have any other questions or a problem to receive your Draft Guide, feel free to contact us at our general email at:

info@ultimatestratbaseball.com

If the price of the draft guide is a little bit out of your affordibility, send us an email to the address above and we open to find a way for you to get your own copy.  We believe the price being asked for the guide is fair but we don't want the price to be the factor that causes any challenge to get your copy.  Just email us!
 

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