Rhino Software Development & Consulting

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section of our web site provides answers to the most common questions that web site visitors and new customers ask us about our software products.

Before contacting us about the features and capabilities of a particular software product, or asking for help with a program that you just began to use, we recommend reviewing the FAQ page to see if your question has already been answered.

Questions & Answers have been grouped by product, and you can click the links provided at the top of this page to quickly jump to the FAQ section for the product that interests you most.     

Rhino Baseball | Rhino Viewer | Rhino Stats Service | Fantasy Baseball Handbook | Lotus ScreenCam

Rhino Baseball

Basic Questions

  1. Why are there 2 different versions of Rhino Baseball? 

  2. Do I access Rhino Baseball from the web to run my league? 

  3. What are the Minimum System Requirements for running Rhino? 

  4. Must I Buy a New Version of the software every year? 

  5. What is the Rhino Baseball Database?

  6. Where's the User-Manual? 

Stats Importing & Exporting

  1. Where do I get regular season Player Stats to use with Rhino Baseball?

  2. How do I Import Stats into my database?

  3. Can I export Stat Reports to Excel or Lotus?

League Management

  1. Can I run & manage Multiple Fantasy Leagues? 

  2. How do I setup my Fantasy Leagues? 

  3. What type of Stat Categories can I use?

  4. What type of Scoring Systems does it handle? 

  5. What type of Fantasy Team Stats & Scores reports are available?

  6. Can I track Player Salaries & Contracts for my keeper league?

  7. How do I record the Weekly Roster Moves?

  8. Can I share the Stat Reports via E-Mail? 

  9. Can I post Stat Reports to my own Web Site?

Forecasting & Draft Prep

  1. What types of Historical Stats are provided? 

  2. What types of Stats are needed to generate Player Projections?

  3. Can I create customized Dollar Values for my league? 

  4. Can I enter and analyze the Freeze Lists for my keeper league?

  5. How do I create my own Fantasy Player Ratings? 

  6. What is the Draft Assistant? 

  7. What kind of Cheatsheets can I produce?

  8. Can Rhino Baseball be used during a Live Draft? 

  9. Can I calculate Projected Fantasy Team Stats & Standings? 

In-Season Player & Trade Analysis

  1. Can I see Player Stats for any time period rather than just Year-to-Date?

  2. How do I compare Player Stats using Graphs? 

  3. Can I generate revised Player Projections during the Regular Season?

  4. What does the Stock Market report show me?   

  5. What does the Impact Ratings report show me?

  6. What is the Trade Analyzer? 

  7. What is the Player Evaluator? 

Q: Why are there 2 different versions of Rhino Baseball?
A: Rhino Baseball Deluxe is a very full-featured program, covering all the major areas of fantasy baseball from league management, to forecasting and draft prep/tracking, to analysis of players, stat trends, and trades during the regular season. Diehard fantasy baseball enthusiasts really love the Deluxe program because it contains everything they need in one comprehensive package.

But some people only need the draft prep & tracking functionality that's available in Rhino Baseball Deluxe. That's why we offer a slimmed-down version of the program called Draft Magic. Draft Magic provides only those functions required to generate preseason player projections, compute player dollar values and fantasy point ratings, prepare draft strategy, print cheatsheets, and track players taken/available during your live draft. By offering 2 different versions of Rhino Baseball, we enable customers to buy exactly what they need, rather than limiting them to a single option.  

Q: Do I access Rhino Baseball from the web to run my league? 
A: No. Rhino Baseball is software that you install and run from your desktop PC or laptop. It isn't web-based software that you access from the internet.    

Q: What are the minimum system requirements needed to run Rhino Baseball?
A: To run any of the Rhino Baseball family of products, you need:

bullet

A minimum 233 MHz computer running the Microsoft Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP operating system.

bullet

A minimum 16 MB of RAM and approximately 160 MB of free hard drive space for installation. A CD-ROM drive is required for installing the disk version of the software. 

Q: Do I need to buy a new version of Rhino Baseball every year?
A: No, we don't require that you buy a new version of the program every season. If you buy the software this year, it will work just fine next year, and for many years after that. You only have to upgrade when you see fit to do so. When we make minor software upgrades within the same calendar year, you can download them for free from our web site.

When a new edition of Rhino Baseball is released, we offer it to existing customers at a discount (usually 20-30% off the regular price for new users). The only new things you need each baseball season are seasonal player stats files (which you can purchase by subscribing to our Rhino Stats Service or obtain from a 3rd-party stats provider) and/or updated MLB Player Info (which you can get for free as part of our stats service, purchase separately as a 1-time download, or simply maintain yourself). 

Q: What is the Rhino Baseball Database?
A: The Rhino Baseball Database works hand-in-hand with the Rhino Baseball software, enabling you to store, retrieve, and modify data such as roster transactions, stats, and team point scores. The database comes preloaded with AL/NL Combined player stats all the way back to 1994, ballpark ratings, and major league player info for over 1500 players. Because it's a relational database based on SQL (Structured Query Language), the Rhino Baseball Database lets you perform complex, large-scale queries in a very fast and efficient manner.

Q: Where's the Rhino Baseball user-manual?
A: Everything you need to know to use Rhino Baseball is contained in the program's help system. Most windows in Rhino Baseball have a Help button that you can click to get both a general overview & step-by-step instructions on how to use that particular window. There's also a Table of Contents window (easily accessed by pressing the F1 key) which outlines the program's major functions and helps you learn what combination of screens to use to perform each major task. The Help menu also provides access to the Search function (simply type a word and find all help topics associated with it), and the Glossary (which contains a list of fantasy baseball terms and their definitions). A selection of over 30 training demos are also included. You can select & play these demos directly from the Help menu, or by clicking the Demo button on each individual window.

Q: Where can I get regular-season player stats to use with Rhino Baseball?
A: A 1-season subscription to the Rhino Stats Service is included with every new purchase of Rhino Baseball Deluxe. Our stats service provides year-to-date major league batting, pitching, and games-by-position stat files that are updated on a weekly basis (every Monday). These stat files can be downloaded from our web site and imported directly into a user's Rhino Baseball database.

Old customers not wishing to purchase the new version of Rhino Baseball can purchase a one-season subscription to the Rhino Stats Service for $55. The software also supports the importing of stats files from several 3rd-party providers, such as TQ Stats, Computer Sports World, and STATS Inc.      

Q: How do I import stats into my database?
A: First, you need to download the player stats files from our web site (or your 3rd-party stat provider's site) and save them to your computer's hard drive. If the stats are stored inside a ZIP file, you must unzip that file to extract the stat files contained inside it.

Then you simply open the Stats Importing window in Rhino Baseball, specify the stats type & stats date of the stat file you're importing, and click the Import button to start loading them into your database. It only takes about 5 minutes to import 3 stat files (batting, pitching, and games-by-position stats). If you use the Rhino Stats Service, no initial setup is required prior to importing your first set of stats.

If you're getting player stats from another service, you'll need to use the Stat File Layouts window to define the file format and structure of the stat files. Most types of plain Text (.TXT) or DBase (.DBF) files can be imported into Rhino Baseball provided that batting and pitching stats are split into separate files, and player names adhere to a "LastName, FirstName" format. Secondly, you'll need to use the Cross-Reference window to specify the major league Team IDs used by your stats service. Our technical support team will be happy to answer any questions you might have about setting up your system to import files from a 3rd-party stats provider. 

Q: Can I export stat reports to Excel or Lotus?
A: Yes, most of the stats displayed in Rhino Baseball can be saved to a file on your hard drive in Microsoft Excel, Lotus 123, tab-delimited Text, or DBase 2 or 3 format. This is a very handy feature if you want to save stats and then load them into a spreadsheet and perform your own custom analysis.

Q: Can I run multiple fantasy leagues with Rhino Baseball?
A: Yes, you can use Rhino Baseball to run as many fantasy leagues as you want, and each league can be setup to use different stat categories, scoring systems, roster rules, etc. The only limitation is the size of the Rhino Baseball Database, which cannot exceed 2 gigabytes in size. That's large enough to run over 125 unique fantasy leagues. Please keep in mind that the single-user license of Rhino Baseball allows you to manage any private leagues that you participate in, but does not permit you to use the software to run a professional stats service. If you're interested in using Rhino Baseball to run a stats service, please contact us for customization options and special licensing details.

Q: How do I setup my fantasy league?
A: There are several functions available in Rhino Baseball that assist you in setting up your fantasy league. From the Home window, click the Setup League tab to access the list of functions pertaining to setting up your league's rules, fantasy teams, and rosters. Simply use these functions in the sequential order that they're listed, and you'll have your league setup in short order. You can also press the F1 key at any time to view the Table of Contents window. This window lists the major functions available in Rhino Baseball. Simply click a topic to get an overview on how to perform that major function (such as setting up a fantasy league, creating teams & rosters, importing stats, and so forth).

Q: What stat categories can I use?
A: Rhino Baseball contains over 100 built-in batting, pitching, fielding, and games-by-position stat categories. In addition to these, you can define your own stat formulas using the program's Formula Builder function (accessed from the Stat Definitions window). Many sabermetric statistics (Runs Created, On-Base Plus Slugging, Isolated Power, Strikeout-to-Walk Ratio, Win Potential, etc.) are already defined for you, making it easy to perform advanced player and team stats analysis.

You can track any statistic for scoring and/or reporting purposes, including your own user-defined stat formulas. To specify which stat categories your fantasy league uses for scoring, and which stats to show on screens & reports, use the Scoring Options window. The software supports more stat categories than most stats services provide, so it's very important to ask your stats provider what statistics they offer and go with a service that meets your particular needs. To see what raw stat categories (such as Hits, Runs, Home Runs, Wins, Saves, Innings Pitched, etc.) are provided by the Rhino Stats Service, please visit our Stats Center page or click here to download a sample of our baseball stats.    

Q: What types of scoring systems does Rhino Baseball support?
A: Rhino Baseball supports 3 different scoring methods (Rotisserie, Proportional Rotisserie, Fantasy Points) and 2 different ranking methods (Cumulative Points or Head-to-Head). The Rotisserie scoring method is the most commonly used, with teams ranked from 1 to N (where N = the number of teams in the league) in each statistical category.

Proportional Rotisserie
scoring generates graduated results in each stat category based on how close your team's stats are to the best and worst team in that stat category. With this scoring method, the closer your actual stats are to a given opponent's stats, the closer your point scores will be. This eliminates a frustrating aspect of the standard Rotisserie scoring system, in which you earn 1 point more than the team just below you in a given stat category regardless of whether you beat them by a microscopic or huge margin.

The Fantasy Points method is used by leagues that assign point values to each stat category (e.g. HR = 3 points, RBI = 1 point, etc.). After fantasy team point scores are calculated based on one of the 3 scoring methods, the league standings are determined by ranking the teams according to their Cumulative Points, or comparing their points to determine winners & losers in weekly Head-to-Head games. Rhino Baseball can support head-to-head leagues that play only 1 opponent or multiple opponents each week.  

Q: What type of fantasy team stats & point score reports does Rhino Baseball provide?
A: The Team Stats & Scores window in Rhino Baseball provides a wide-range of stat reporting options, including the ability to view and calculate year-to-date, weekly, biweekly, monthly, and fantasy playoff period stats & scores. You can even generate full-season fantasy team projections. Stats can be shown for any of the 100+ built-in stat categories and any user-defined stat formulas that you've created.

Teams shown in the Point Scores section of the window are ranked according to total points, and scores are grouped into batting, pitching, and fielding categories, with subtotals shown for each. For Head-to-Head leagues, weekly game results are accessible via the Head-to-Head button. The Stat Analyzer button provides access to a 2-part report that analyzes your league's scoring categories, and shows strength ratings for basic fantasy team characteristics such power, speed, pitching control, and so forth. 

Q: Can I track Player Salaries & Contracts for my keeper league? 
A: Yes, Rhino Baseball lets you track salary and contract status for every player in your fantasy league. Salaries are numerically precise down to the penny, so if you need Barry Bonds to have a salary of $2.96 in your league, the software can handle that just fine. There are 8 predefined Contract Codes (MY=Multi Year, PF=Pending Free Agent, OE=Option to Extend, AE=Arbitration Eligible, AO=Arbitration+Option, ML=Minor League, FA=Free Agent, NA=Not Applicable), but you can also make up your own 2-character contract codes if necessary. There's also a field that tracks Years Remaining on a player's contract. 

Q: What steps are involved in recording the weekly roster moves?
A: Most fantasy sports programs make you step thru a series of screens to record weekly player moves. Switching from team to team and clicking thru several menus can be a real hassle. Rhino Baseball provides one window from which you can record all of your weekly roster moves. Making a roster move involves typing the first few letters of a player's name into a search box, pressing the Enter key to quickly locate his database record, then choosing his new roster status from a listbox. That's it. In a typical week, you can record all the moves for your league in about 15-25 minutes. We've tried many other programs and online applications, and we can safely say that no other fantasy software available on the market today handles roster management as fast and easily as Rhino Baseball does.                

Q: Can I share stat reports with my other league members via e-mail?
A: Yes, Rhino Baseball enables you to save full-color snapshots of your data as PSR report files. After you've created several key reports (such as team stats, point scores, player stats, rosters, transaction list, etc.) you can bundle them up into a ZIP file and e-mail it to the other members of your league. Those people can then use the Rhino Viewer program to view, print, search, sort, filter, and manipulate the reports in a variety of ways. The Rhino Viewer program is available to all your fantasy league members at no extra cost. 

Q: Can I post stat reports to my own league web site? 
A: Yes, in addition to creating reports in its native PSR format, Rhino Baseball can also generate HTML web pages. The majority of on-screen reports can be directly saved in HTML Table format via the Save As File button on the program's main toolbar.

For those reports that can't be saved directly in HTML format, you can save them in PSR format and then use the built-in PSR-to-HTML Converter utility to convert them into web pages. Rhino Baseball also provides a function called the Links Page Creator that automatically generates a web page containing links to the entire set of web reports that you've just created. The software also lets you directly access your FTP program (such as WS_FTP or Cute FTP) to upload your links page and web reports to your league's private web site. 

Q: What types of historical stats are provided with Rhino Baseball?
A: The Rhino Baseball database comes fully loaded with AL/NL Combined year-end player stats from 1994 through the last completed MLB season for approximately 1500 players. You can view player stats from any single season, and view 3-year stats scans (including straight or weighted 3-year averages).

Q: What type of stats do I need to calculate player projections?
A: AL/NL Combined player stats needed to compute preseason forecasts come preloaded in the Rhino Baseball database. The program's stats forecasting engine analyzes the last 3 years of historical stats for each player. During the regular season, Rhino Baseball uses both historical and regular season stats to generate player projections. Regular season AL/NL Combined stats can be obtained from the Rhino Stats Service (or from another 3rd-party stats file provider) and imported directly into your Rhino Baseball database. 

Q: Can I create customized Dollar Values for my league? 
A:
Yes, Rhino Baseball enables you to compute player dollar values based on your fantasy league's stat categories, roster rules, draft-day salary cap, freeze lists, and the most recent set of stat projections (or Year-to-Date stats if computing regular season dollar values). In addition to the raw dollar values that Rhino Baseball calculates, you also get draft prices adjusted for inflation, optimal bid prices, and net profit (draft value minus salary). A filtering feature is also provided that lets you see only those players who meet certain price criteria (e.g. shortstops with draft values in the $15 to $20 range).

Q: Can I enter and analyze the Freeze Lists for my keeper league? 
A: Yes, if you play in a keeper league it's easy to create freeze lists for all the teams in your fantasy league using Rhino Baseball. You can see the amount of money each team has left to spend, how many players they need to draft, and which players are protected under Topper Rights. There's also a powerful analysis tool called the Freeze List Analyzer that evaluates players by their Profit/Loss, VALS (Value Above Last Starter), and Keeper Risk Level. It's a terrific tool for helping you decide which players to freeze and who to cut loose. You'll have a lot of fun trying out several variations of your freeze list before finally settling on your official set of keepers. 

Q: Can I use Rhino Baseball to create my own player ratings?
A: Yes, you can create your own custom ratings and stat formulas using the Formula Builder function in Rhino Baseball. These custom ratings are displayed on all of your stat reports, and on the Fantasy Point Ratings report alongside several other popular player ratings. In addition to being able to create your own ratings, it's important to realize that Rhino Baseball also precisely tailors its dollar value, impact point, and stock market value calculations to fit your league's particular rules. Thus, the values you get are realistic within the context of your league, and are far superior to the generic rotisserie baseball values that you see published by most fantasy web sites and magazines.

Q: What is the Draft Assistant?
A: The Draft Assistant function in Rhino Baseball lets you create an assortment of draft plans prior to your annual rotisserie baseball auction. A draft plan is created by assembling a team of players that you would like to draft (including those players already on your freeze list). The Draft Assistant enables you to stay within your available draft day spending budget by helping you find players that meet certain price & position criteria. The bid price for each player that you include in your draft plan can be based on his draft-inflated dollar value or his optimal bid (current salary is used for frozen players). The Draft Assistant also shows the projected stat totals for the collection of players in your draft plan.

After you've created a batch of different draft plans, you can compare them using the Draft Plan Analyzer. This function lets you enter the statistical goals that you want your fantasy team to reach, then analyzes your draft plans to determine which plan gives you the best chance to meet those goals. We've pioneered these unique and powerful draft prep tools, and there isn't another fantasy baseball program on the market that offers anything like them. 

Q: What kind of Cheatsheets can I produce?
A: Rhino Baseball lets you create a variety of cheatsheets that you can print out and take to your draft. In addition to showing detailed statistical projections for major league hitters and pitchers, the Player Forecasts function also provides a handy report that shows the top-20 projected stat leaders for each of the stat categories used by your fantasy league. The Draft Cheatsheet shows the list of players who are available to be drafted, with the players grouped by position and sorted within each position by their draft dollar value or fantasy point rating. There's also a neat little cheatsheet generated by the Draft Plan Analyzer which shows your two best draft plans (including target players and their bid prices) side-by-side on a single sheet of paper.    

Q: Can Rhino Baseball be used during my live rotisserie auction or simple draft?
A: Yes. Rhino Baseball contains draft tracking functions that enable you to do several things during your live draft. The Draft Central function lets you track available & taken players, dynamic inflation-adjusted dollar values, and money spent during your live rotisserie auction or simple draft. You can also view in-depth player info, including projected stats, 3-year averages, and final stats from last season, for each player that comes up for bid during your auction/draft.

The Draft Rosters and Spending Analysis function lets you view the current rosters and team spending analysis for all the fantasy teams in your league at any point during your live draft. See how much talent has been accumulated so far (in terms of dollar values & profit, or fantasy points) for every fantasy team. 

Use the Draft Researcher to generate player rankings based on your chosen filter and ranking criteria. This is very handy for identifying who the best available players are in certain stat categories, at certain positions, or based on dollar values or point ratings.

Use the Draft Advisor during your live rotisserie auction, adjust your favorite draft plan on the fly. If a player on your wish-list has been drafted by somebody else, ask the Advisor to show a list of recommended replacements who play the same position, and whose price and stats production are similar. You can even see how the projected stats of the players you've drafted so far compare to the statistical goals that you've set for your team.

Q: Can I calculate Projected Fantasy Team Stats & Standings?
A: Yes. The Projected Lineups function in Rhino Baseball lets you create typical starting lineups for every fantasy team in your league. Once those lineups have been set, you can use the Team Stats & Scores window to calculate and view full-season projected stats and point standings for the teams in your league. This is a terrific post-draft tool for evaluating how well your team did in the annual draft and what potential problem areas you should address during the regular season.

Q: Can I see player stats for a chosen time period rather than just Year-to-Date? 
A: Yes, in addition to showing year-to-date stats in the Player Stats window, you can also select a starting and ending date and let Rhino Baseball calculate period-to-date statistics. This is especially useful for checking out how players have performed over the last week, 2 weeks, or last month. You can view period-to-date stats based on actual major league stats or fantasy stats.      

Q: How do I compare player stats using graphs? 
A:
Rhino Baseball provides a neat graphing function that lets you choose a group of players and visually compare their stat trends over time. For example, you could compare the HR rates of Sammy Sosa, Jim Thome, and Vladimir Guerrero over the last 3 months. All you need to do is open the Player Graphs window and select the players, stat category, and series of year-to-date stat values that you want to compare. Then you simply click the Draw Graph button and Rhino Baseball generates a beautiful color graph that's easy to read and which can also be saved in PSR report format.  

Q: Can I generate revised player projections during the regular season? 
A: Yes, Rhino Baseball's built-in stats forecasting engine not only lets you generate preseason player projections, but regular season forecasts as well. You can generate new projections any time you want using the Player Forecasts function, and those projections take into account the actual stats that players have posted so far this season. So if your preseason projection said that Larry Walker would get 120 RBI, and 2 months into the season he's sitting on only 15 RBI (well under his original projected pace), his revised full-season RBI projection would be quite a bit lower. Rhino Baseball also lets you compute Remaining forecasts, which are the stats that a player is projected to post over the remainder of the regular season (very handy for identifying players who may go on a late season tear).         

Q: What does the Stock Market report show me? 
A:
The Stock Market Report generates stock values and Buy/Sell/Hold recommendations for a selected group of players. A player's Stock Value is derived by comparing his actual year-to-date stats versus his projected stats to determine how much better/worse he's doing relative to his expected stat production. Large changes in a player's stock value signal a Buy or Sell recommendation by Rhino Baseball's stock picker. The Stock Market Report is useful for identifying players who are underachieving and due for a rebound (guys you should buy) and players who are overachieving and likely to see their stats output decline (guys you should sell).   

Q: What does the Impact Ratings report show me? 
A: One of the most important questions to ask yourself before picking up a free agent or acquiring a player via trade is, "how much will this player really help me in the standings?" Identifying whether a certain player can pull your team up or drag it down your league standings is what the Impact Ratings report is all about. This report shows you the number of points that the average team in your fantasy league would gain or lose if it had a particular player on its Active Roster.

The beauty of this analysis tool is that it determines each player's true impact based on your league's current standings, and not on some generic league whose stats & standings context might be vastly different from yours. For instance, it's quite possible that a given player could be +2 in one league (gain you 2 points in the standings) and -2 in another league (drop you 2 points in the standings), all because of the different statistical dynamics affecting the stat categories used in those leagues. 

Q: What is the Trade Analyzer?
A: The Trade Analyzer function in Rhino Baseball lets you propose a fictional trade between two or more fantasy teams, and see what effect it has on the projected point scores of every team in your league. How does the Trade Analyzer work? It creates updated stat projections for the players involved in the trade, then uses them to adjust the projected stats of the trading teams. New point scores are then calculated and compared to the pre-trade scores to produce a report showing the amount of points each team will gain or lose as a result of the trade. Sounds pretty complicated, huh? Well the good part is that you only need to choose the players being traded, then Rhino Baseball does all the complex analysis for you at the click of a button. So before you swing that major blockbuster deal you've been pondering, run it through the Trade Analyzer to see if it will help or hurt your fantasy club.

Q: What is the Player Evaluator? 
A: The Player Evaluator is another advanced analysis tool that's unique to Rhino Baseball. Like the Trade Analyzer, it's main purpose is to help you analyze trades and keep/drop scenarios, but it takes a totally different approach. The Player Evaluator lets you choose groups of players to compare, and then calculates a Quality Rating for each player based on an assortment of 10 different factors (age, salary, contract status, actual year-to-date stats, projected stats, position, etc.). Those quality ratings are then compared to determine whether the given trade or keep/drop scenario would be beneficial to you. What's really neat about the Player Evaluator is that it doesn't just focus solely on a player's stats, but also realizes the value of youth, a low salary, position scarcity, and other non-stats related factors. It's an extremely useful evaluation tool for team owners who play in keeper leagues.

Rhino Viewer

Q: Can I download the Rhino Viewer for free?
A: If you are a member of a fantasy league whose commissioner is using Rhino Baseball or Rhino Hockey to run your fantasy league, then YES you can download the Rhino Viewer for free. An email containing instructions on how to download the Rhino Viewer software from our web site is sent to each customer who purchases one of our fantasy sports software products. If you're a business customer who needs a program to view and manipulate PSR reports produced by 3rd-party business applications, then you must purchase the stand-alone version of the Rhino Viewer.

Q: What are PSR Reports?
A: PSR report files (also known as PowerSoft Reports) are created by programs such as Rhino Baseball and Rhino Hockey. These programs were designed and written using the PowerBuilder programming language. Unlike plain text or spreadsheet files exported from other database programs, PSR report files retain all of the data, formatting, and colors of the original on-screen reports in a true, what-you-see is what-you-get format. More importantly, since the underlying database structure of these report files remains intact, you can easily perform advanced sorting, filtering, searching, and numerical analysis on the report data using the Rhino Viewer program.

Q: What does the term "filtering" mean?
A: A filter is simply a set of criteria used to eliminate data from a report so that you can focus on only the information that you're interested in. For example, suppose you're viewing batting stats and only want to see those players who have 15+ HR, 12+ SB, and a Batting Average of .285 or higher. You can build a filter in Rhino Viewer and apply it to your PSR report, so that only those players who meet the specified stat criteria are shown. The ability to create filters gives you a virtually unlimited number of ways to analyze report data in Rhino Viewer.

Q: Can I sort by multiple columns?
A: Yes. For example, suppose that you wanted to sort a report containing a set of pitching projections by Age, then Player Name, then Innings Pitched. Using Rhino Viewer's custom sorting function, you could choose all three columns as your sort criteria, and Rhino Viewer will instantly re-sort the report data for you. 

Q: Can I create a new PSR report based on an existing report?
A: Yes. You can load an existing PSR report into Rhino Viewer, then use the Rank or Formula Builder functions to spin-off new reports based on the original data. For instance, you might have a stat report containing 600 batter records and want to produce a smaller report showing only the top 50 hitters ranked by OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging). The Rank function will let you do that. Or you might want to dynamically add new columns to a stat report so that you can evaluate players using your own special stat formulas. The Formula Builder and Export functions can be used in tandem to create a new PSR report that includes your own custom stat formulas.

Rhino Stats Service

Q: Which sports do you provide statistics for?
A: We provide player statistics for Major League Baseball and NHL Hockey.

Q: How often are the statistics updated?
A: Files containing updated player statistics are uploaded to our web site once a week. These new stat files are typically posted in the Baseball Stats Center or Hockey Stats Center every Monday by 1:00 PM EST (Eastern Standard Time) during the regular season. All player stats are through Sunday of the most recently completed week of that sport's regular season.

Q: Which specific stat categories does your stats service provide?
A: Rather than list all of the stat categories here, we suggest that you visit our Stats Center page to see the current list of available categories. Or you may download a sample set of stats to see exactly which statistics are provided. Click the links provided to download sample baseball stats or sample hockey stats.

Q: Can I work with these statistics using spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel?
A: Yes. Our baseball and hockey stats files are provided in tab-delimited Text file format, which means that they can be imported into most spreadsheet and database programs quite easily.

Q: Where do you get your statistical data from?
A: Our raw statistical data feed comes from the Associated Press. That data is then compiled into a database,  double-checked by hand for accuracy (and any necessary corrections are applied), and then our own in-house software called Stat Magic is used to perform any necessary calculations and create Rhino Software stat files using our own particular file formatting, player names, and unique Player ID numbers (which remain consistent from season to season).   

Rhino Fantasy Baseball Handbook

Q: Can I purchase the spiral-bound version of the Rhino Fantasy Baseball Handbook?
A: No, the Rhino Fantasy Baseball Handbook is not currently sold separately. An electronic version of the handbook (in WordPad format) is included with each copy of Rhino Baseball and can be accessed from within that program. 

Lotus ScreenCam Player

Q: What does the Lotus ScreenCam Player do?
A: The Lotus ScreenCam Player allows you to play computer-based movies that demonstrate how to use many of the functions found in our software. There are currently over 30 different ScreenCam movies for Rhino Baseball, many of which can be downloaded directly from this web site by visiting that product's demos page

 

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