About the Author: Isaac Petersen
260My name is Isaac and I’m an Associate Professor with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Why am I writing about fantasy football and data analysis? Because fantasy football involves the intersection of two things I love: sports and statistics. With this site, I hope to demonstrate the relevance of statistics for improving your performance in fantasy football. In particular, I use a statistical software package called R.
Why R?
R is free and open source, and has great flexibility for advanced statistical techniques and graphics. You can download it here. I strongly recommend the RStudio text editor for working with R scripts. R scripts and data files for this website are located in our GitHub repository. For info on how to download and run our data and R scripts, see here. For reasons why R is better than Excel, see here.
How Can I Learn R?
For info on how to learn R, see here.
About Me
Everyone has biases. For full disclosure, here are mine.
| I tend not to believe in | Instead, I prefer |
|---|---|
| The “Hot Hand“ | Previous performance does not affect future performance, yet our brains perceive order out of randomness and streaks out of nothing (known as cognitive biases) |
| Momentum in the context of player or team performance (also see here) | Random variation around the central tendency (e.g., mean) |
| The Madden, ESPN, or Sports Illustrated curse (also see here) | Regression to the mean |
| Picking players by judgment alone | Statistical methods |
However, I am willing to change my stance if sufficient evidence emerges!
Note: crowd projections are more accurate than individuals’ judgments. People often like to “go with their gut” when picking players. That’s fine—fantasy football is a game. Do what is fun for you. But, crowd projections are the most reliably accurate of any source. Do with that what you will!
I am a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.
Posts
These assumptions serve as an important conceptual building block for the analytical approaches that I discuss. In these posts, I show how to download and calculate fantasy projections, determine the riskiness of a player, identify sleepers, examine historical accuracy of projections, and pick the best possible players to pick in an auction and snake draft to maximize your team’s chances of winning your league championship. Thanks for reading, and I would appreciate your ideas, comments, thoughts, and suggestions in the comments below!
Do Stats Help in Fantasy Football?
See here.
In the Media
Learn more about Fantasy Football Analytics by listening to this Rotoviz interview with Isaac (segment starts about 25 minutes in—click the play button on the top of the page):
My CV
If you want to know more about my background, here is my CV:
https://psychology.uiowa.edu/sites/psychology.uiowa.edu/files/field/cv/Isaac-Petersen-CV.pdf
Contact Me
If you have questions best suited for the community, please ask them in the site’s comments section below an article (so I can answer other people if they have the same question). To contact us about FFA Insider, see here. To contact me personally, email me at: isaac@fantasyfootballanalytics.net. Serious inquiries only!
References
- Dawes, R. M., Faust, D., & Meehl, P. E. (1989). Clinical versus actuarial judgment. Science, 234, 1668-1674.
- Gilovich, T., Vallone, R., & Tversky, A. (1985). The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 295-314. doi: 10.1016/0010-0285(85)90010-6
Isaac, thanks for sharing this awesome site with the world! I am just now discovering my love for stats and want to learn R and programming fundamentals so I can build stuff like this. I work in upstream energy (exploration and production company in the Permian Basin in West Texas), which has so much data. I’m trying to figure out how to fit it into my routine at work. Let me know if you have any ideas.
Also, pardon the blank site. I set it up as a future place for any side projects I do outside work. I will let you know if there is anything worth reading ever posted to it.
Hey Daniel,
Glad I could help convert you! Not sure what you’re looking to do with the data, but there are lots of free R packages for doing almost anything. R is especially useful for advanced graphics and data visualization.
Good luck!
-Isaac
Isaac, How often do you update your information? I really want to use your app, but I am worried about injuries.
We update the data regularly. We will update again tonight/tomorrow.
-Isaac
Isaac, I cant use the app’s I keep getting a system error. please help.
Should be up now, thanks!
Really well done tutorials and tools. Any thought to running regressions on fantasy performance vs. defenses to get an expected points in specific upcoming weeks to optimize which players to play, which to bench, and which to pick up? Another shiny app where you can enter your team/bench/available waiver players and compare expectation and variance in next weeks points?
Hey Art,
I like this idea, but haven’t tackled weekly projections, yet. There is a lot more random variability in weekly performance than season performance, so it’s a much tougher prediction problem. We hope to look at in in the future. In the meantime, one of our readers contributed a script to scrape weekly projections from Yahoo:
https://github.com/isaactpetersen/FantasyFootballAnalyticsR/blob/master/R%20Scripts/Weekly%20Projections/Yahoo.R
-Isaac
This site is great man. I’m wondering if you will have an app to show weekly projections using those multiple sites like you have in the season long projections. Thanks
Hey Evan,
Our apps are for the season projections and we don’t currently have an app for weekly projections. This is a great idea and is on our to-do list. Thanks for the suggestion!
-Isaac
Isaac,
I have only poked around a bit on here but this is a great site and a real eye opener. I was recently thinking of an idea on how to successfully calculate week to week projections. After digging into it I am realizing how tough this is. If we look at some of the sites you mention, they are giving week to week projections but as we all know they are very inaccurate. If we think about what all is involved with a WR selection and all things that go into successfully projecting their performance I am wondering if it is even possible to predict this at a high success rate.
Lets take a WR for example. Think about all the things that go into his performance:
D Scheme | DB stats | D Line | QB Stats | ratio of Zone to Man play calls on any given down | WR stats in those environments | DB|S stats in those environments. The list goes on. And even if we were to figure out all the data points where do you get the data?
That being said with the introduction of FanDuel and DraftKings there is a unique business opportunity to support figuring this out. I am just in ah at how much data you would need to make this work.
I am a programer from Purdue U with about 16 years of experience and like to think of myself good at math but by no means am I a statistician. If you don’t mind discussing your thoughts on this I would love to have a conversion with you. This stuff is very interesting and I haven’t ran across anyone on a personal level that has put this much thought into it. My email address is attached with this post.
Either way, good work on all of this. Maybe one day we will figure it out.
Hey Bradley,
I agree—generating accurate weekly projections is very challenging. There are so many influences on a player’s performance in any given week. Also, because a game is a small sample size, there is a lot of random variability (chance) that one cannot reliably predict. I imagine big data might be helpful, but only to an extent—you’d still need to know the strength of each influence (strength of defense, weather, injury status, home/away, etc.) on player performance when taking into account the other influences. An alternative approach to generating your own projections might be to take a wisdom of the crowd approach (see more info here: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/identify-sleepers-using-wisdom-crowd.html) by combining the projections from many different sources. I have shown that the wisdom of the crowd is reliably more accurate than individual sources of projections (https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/best-fantasy-football-projections-2014.html). Just some preliminary thoughts. Let me know if you have other thoughts/questions.
Good luck!
-Isaac
Hey Isaac
Great website to get me started on something like this. Glad you could share your knowledge with us. Can’t wait to get started.
Thanks
Hey Isaac,
Thanks for some very useful information. I have been using the scripts on this site to come up with my own scripts to scrape data from websites. The intent was to create a script that can be used for multiple websites and I am using R lists and lapply at basis of retrieving the data. I have the code working for weekly stat projections and am in the process of adding the seasonal stat projection scrapes so that it will be ready for the new season 🙂 I have been able to add kicker and defense stat projections to the scrapes as well.
In determining the aggregate projections I am taking a little different approach as I am aggregating the stats first before calculating point projections. The thought behind that is that each stat (Passing yards, rushing TDs etc.) follows it’s own probability distribution and the calculation of points is therefore technically a calculation involving several random variables. In terms of estimating the points this approach will not yield significantly different results than calculating the points first, but there is a difference in determining the variance. Say for example that TDs are 6 points and yards are 0.1 points per yard. Then I calculate the variance in the point projection as 6^2*var(TD) + 0.1^2*var(yards). I applied this in the risk calculation as well, so determining the average standard deviation in rankings I use sqrt((sd(ecr_ranks)^2+sd(pts_rank)^2)/2) to determine the risk factor. The last adjustment that I made was to use the mean average deviation to calculate in variance used for the confidence intervals. The reasoning for that is that mean average deviation is a more robust measure of variance. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_absolute_deviation)
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and experience
Hey Dennis,
Sounds like you’ve done some great work! That’s one of the reasons I share my scripts—so people can use and improve them. Would you be interested in sharing your weekly projections scripts with the community? You would receive credit for it, and I think a lot of the users in the community would find it helpful. Some might even build on it. See here for more info:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/10/download-run-r-scripts.html
For instance, users have shared their scripts to scrape weekly projections by uploading (i.e., creating a pull request) here:
https://github.com/isaactpetersen/FantasyFootballAnalyticsR/tree/master/R%20Scripts/Weekly%20Projections
I follow your logic about aggregating stats from different sources at the individual stat level (rushing yards) rather than at the point level. This is consistent with what we do for calculating total projected fantasy points. Unlike our approach, it sounds like this is what you do for calculating variance as well. The reason I opted not to go for that approach is then you would have to use some kind of weighted average where the variance from the high-scoring stats would have to be weighted more highly than the variance from the lower-scoring stats. It seems like that’s what you’re doing when calculating the variance in the point projection: 6^(2*var(TD)) + 0.1^(2*var(yards)), right? Could you explain these? Why are you multiplying the variance by 2?
I love the idea of using median absolute deviation as more robust way of calculating players’ risk than using standard deviation. When re-creating each player’s distribution of projected points from the MAD (for determining a player’s ceiling or floor), the MAD would need to be rescaled to be on the same metric as the SD using a scaling factor of 1.4826, but it seems R thankfully does this by default (http://www.math.ucla.edu/~anderson/rw1001/library/base/html/mad.html):
http://link.springer.com/content/esm/art:10.1007/s13253-013-0135-0/file/MediaObjects/13253_2013_135_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
I’m definitely interested in incorporating these ideas, so hoping to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
-Isaac
Hey Isaac. I am not multiplying the variance by two. The formula should read (6^2)*var(TD) + (0.1^2)*var(yards). This is basically a statistical formula: X has variance var(X) and Y variance var(Y) then a*X + b*Y has variance (a^2)*var(X) + (b^2)*var(Y).
I will certainly consider sharing the scripts – just need a little modification for readability and more general use. A couple of recent changes that I have done includes working with the free version of SQL Server to store data, as well as leveraging getHTMLLinks to extract playerId from the web pages. I am also wrapping the whole thing in a Shiny app.
Thanks,
Dennis
Hey Dennis,
Thanks for clarifying. Doesn’t that assume that the variables are independent (which you wouldn’t expect would be the case in fantasy football)? The formula for a linear combination of variances is: (a^2)*var(X) + (b^2)*var(Y) + 2ab*cov(X,Y):
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/406498/showing-mathrmvaraxby-a2-mathrmvarxb2-mathrmvary2ab-mathrm
Sounds like you’re doing some very interesting work! Let me know if you’d be interested in contributing to the site (articles, analytics, server development, etc.)
Cheers!
-Isaac
Isaac
Really glad I was able to find this site right before the NFL season and my draft. My league has some unique scoring that was almost all handled by your shiny app. It is also a keeper league. When running our scoring through the system it showed Matthew Stafford as the 12th best QB while Russell Martin was 5th. We only give 2.5 pts per td, sacks -1 and int -1. I had Stafford as a potential 6th round keeper. I traded him and drafted Wilson in the 10th. I was able to finish in the money and that move alone probably saved me. I also get to keep Wilson in the 7th rd next season. I have a weeks worth of texts and emails telling me Stafford was top 5 if not top 3 qb going into the season. I said “well my numbers show him to be 12”. They all are eating their words!! Thanks very much.
I am messing with R myself. Really a beginner. Wanted to learn it for daily baseball leagues. Do you know of anyone doing anything like this for baseball?
Thanks again
*Russell Wilson
Hey John,
Glad you found the resources helpful for your league! The good thing about baseball is that there’s a wealth of statistics available and people have been doing baseball analytics for decades. I don’t know about anyone doing fantasy baseball analytics in R, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you find some. Here’s a book you may find useful:
http://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-Baseball-Data-Chapman-Series/dp/1466570229
Also, I searched R-bloggers for baseball articles and there are a lot:
http://www.r-bloggers.com/?s=baseball
For example:
http://www.r-bloggers.com/lahman-a-new-r-package-for-baseball-stats/
Hope that helps, and good luck!
-Isaac
Thanks for the feedback. I have the Chapman book. It has helped me learn more about R. I will check out those links you posted and let you know if I find anything interesting.
Any thoughts on doing some analytic’s for 2 qb leagues?
Hey Tyler,
Our draft tools allow you to specify 2 QBs for 2 QB leagues. The drafting principles should be similar for 2 QB leagues. For auction drafts, you want to draft the starting lineup that maximizes your projected points while minimizes its downside risk (https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2013/06/win-your-fantasy-football-auction-draft.html). For snake drafts, you want to draft the best player available according to value over replacement while minimizing risk (https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2013/09/win-your-fantasy-football-snake-draft.html). Is there something in particular you’re looking for?
-Isaac
Hi Isaac,
First off, thanks for this site and your work. It’s the only of its kind in the fantasy realm with such willingness to help.
I am interested in using R to make projections not for football, but instead for hockey. Do you think the scripts you have shared on GitHub could be edited to work with NHL, or is it more complicated than that and would require brand new scripts.
Just looking at the surface it seems that I would be able to change the values and stats, and scrape the projections for hockey instead. But I wanted to see your thoughts, being that I do not have much of a background.
Thanks,
Ryan
Hey Ryan,
The principles for scraping hockey projections are the same, but some of the specifics might be a little different. For instance, you would initiate the scrape with readHTMLTable(), specifying the URL and table you want to scrape (these are likely different from the ones in my scripts). Once you scrape the data, then you will need to process the data to have a particular structure (variable names, variable types, etc.; this would also differ for hockey projections). After you do that for multiple sites, you can aggregate the projections of raw statistics. Then, based on your league’s stat category multipliers, you can calculate custom projections for your league. This logic is the same in my scripts for football projections, but some of the particulars will be different. I would recommend using the scripts as a starting point (no need to re-invent the wheel), but you’ll certainly have to modify them for different sites, table structures, variables, etc. Good luck and let me know how it goes! I’d encourage you to share your hockey scripts with the community so that others can use and improve them—I’d be happy to add them to our GitHub page:
https://github.com/isaactpetersen/FantasyFootballAnalyticsR
Hope that helps!
-Isaac
Awesome. I will definitely start to work on it, make take some time, but will post back with results!
Thanks again,
Ryan
Isaac,
Is there a way to download the projections app
http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/projections
into excel?
Nathan Silver has nothing on you!
Haha, thanks Corey! An option to download the data to .csv (which you can open in Excel) is on our to-do list and we hope to release it soon!
-Isaac
You can now download the projections to .csv in the app.
Cheers!
-Isaac
Make sure to save in .xlsx format, if not, when you go to open it up again, after doing a bunch of sorting and color coding for several hours, you are gonna be super super sad.
Love the site, will donate 10% of all winnings to Paypal
Thanks for your support, Joseph!
-Isaac
Hello
How do I edit the ESPN scoring? My ESPN leagues are more custom and each time I click into the scoring all the boxes are grayed out.
Also, can you add BYE week to the rankings tab so all pertinent info is in 1 place.
Thanks. Love the site.
Hi Aaron,
You should be able to edit the ESPN scoring. The gray boxes are the defaults that you can change. Just type a new number in the box. It works for me. Let me know if you can’t type a new number in the box.
Regarding bye weeks, see here:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2015/05/2015-fantasy-football-projections.html#comment-29759
-Isaac
Hi Isaac,
I copy and pasted the information into google sheets if you want a copy. I also added colors for positions. Will the data update as rankings and predictions change and it gets closer to the start of the season?
Hi I have really enjoyed this site so far and there are many intriguing things I have noticed. Many similar to my thoughts. Is there a way to load and save league data? Also, if this is possible is there a way to pull the info. with the Data features of excel?
Hi Mike,
You can download the data in the app by clicking “Download” in the upper right hand corner of the screen, which you can then open in Excel. Is that what you mean?
-Isaac
No, I mean how can I save the League settings so evertime I return to the site I don’t have to enter them again? As the projections / averages change so will the download.
-Mike
Saving league settings is on our to-do list.
Thanks,
Isaac
Hi Isaac, I seem to be experiencing an issue with downloading projection results.
When I hit download it goes to a page with all the raw data from projections output, am I doing something wrong here?
Does it only work if I have excel? Im on a macbook and have the Numbers program that is similar to Excel.
Any info or help is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.
Hi AJ,
If the data are separated by commas, it’s a comma separated values (CSV) file. Save it with a .csv extension, and it should open in Numbers, Excel, or most text editors. For more info on how to save it, you might look at the following exchange:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2015/05/2015-fantasy-football-projections.html#comment-31033
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Isaac – your site is amazing. I have been working on some of the same types of things for a site I run which is how I found fantasyfootballanalytics.net. Didnt have any questions just wanted to say that this is really impressive and to tell you to keep up the good work.
Isaac – thanks for the great site! Are the projections updated on a regular basis?
Hi Terry,
Yes, we update them regularly and will continue to update them through the draft season. An infobox listing the “Date Updated” is on our to-do list.
Thanks,
Isaac
Hi Isaac,
Awesome site and great work!
Do you know of any scripts that will scrape weekly projections from a large mix of sources?
Alternatively, are you planning to build a analytics app for weekly projections?
This would be incredibly valuable!
Thanks,
Nick
Hi Nick,
We do have some R scripts for scraping weekly projections here (they will likely need to be updated for the current season):
https://github.com/isaactpetersen/FantasyFootballAnalyticsR/tree/master/R%20Scripts/Weekly%20Projections
We do have plans to release tools for weekly projections.
Cheers!
-Isaac
Hello there! I am a math dunce ( I think more conceptually/narratively), and this site has been incredibly helpful for me in putting my thoughts into actionable data – this is incredible stuff, and thank you for it!
Is there an updated Auction Draft Optimizer for the 2015 season? I tried opening the app from the top, but it seems to be based on the projections from last season.
Thanks,
A grateful fan 🙂
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the kind words. We’re working on the Auction tool, and hope to have it ready soon. Stay tuned!
-Isaac
I just want to say WOW! … I just found your site. I am trying to wrap my mind around it. When i have some logical questions I will ask. For now.. WOW!!!!
I appreciate the site I am having trouble changing the data settings for the snake draft. It keeps saying:
An error has occurred:
error in evaluating the arguement ‘conn’ in selecting a method for function ‘dbGetQuery’: Error: object ‘siteDB’ not found
In call:
dbGetQuery(siteDB, paste(“SELECT subscription from analyst a join sites s on a
…………………………….
Assuming you are way smarter than me, hopefully you can figure out what kind of error is going on so I can put this app to use for my draft next week!
Thanks bro!
Hi Mark,
Should be fixed now. Let us know if you continue to have problems.
Thanks,
Isaac
Hi Isaac,
Thanks for all your hard work on this. It looks like the Auction draft tool is using old data. Do you know when it will be updated for this upcoming season?
Thanks again,
levi
Hi Levi,
Just released the 2015 Auction tool.
Cheers!
-Isaac
Hi Isaac – I love your site, great work! When was the last time you updated / scraped the projections data? Would you also be able to post when the individual site updated their own data? It’d be helpful to understand the quality / recency of the data and which sources to include / exclude as a part of your tool.
Thanks!
Hi Mike,
We update the data regularly. A “Date Updated” infobox for each analyst is on our to-do list.
Thanks,
Isaac
are these apps updated and valid for 2015 drafts?
Yes! Good luck!
-Isaac
Isaac,
For your projections system, does it not matter how many teams there are in the league? I noticed that for the Lineup Optimizer, it asks for the number of teams and how many players on each roster, but for the Projections system, it doesn’t. Also, would I not be able to use the Lineup Optimizer for a snake draft?
Hi Matt,
Players’ point projections don’t depend on the number of teams in your league. You could adjust the VOR baseline values based on the number of teams in your league (e.g., # of players drafted at each position within top 120 picks for 12-team league). The Lineup Optimizer is for Auction drafts. For snake drafts, use the Projections tool:
http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/projections
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Thanks Isaac, I recently found this website and I absolutely love it! Have so much to learn
How do I change the number of players in the AuctionDraft Optimizer? I have a 14-team league but it defaults to 10 and I can’t change the number of players (its grey’ed out)…
My draft is tomorrow – please reply as soon as you can! 🙂
Thanks in advance!
Hi Adi,
It works for me—just enter a new value in the textbox. You might try disabling your adblockers/popup blockers or try a different browser.
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Isaac. First, your work is brilliant. Thanks for this tool.
Question: I have an auction draft tomorrow (Sunday night) and have a question about how to use the Lineup Optimizer. I intend to use the Optimizer during my live auction draft. How do I update my Optimized line up if I loose a bidding war for a player? The “Pick” button in the left hand column adds players to my team and then your program re-structures my draft for my next pick, which makes sense if I bid and win. What do I do if the player to be chosen is overbid and chosen by another team? How do I restructure my lineup? Thanks in Advance.
Hi PK
Just click on the player name.
-Eirik
Thanks Eirik,
I guess I should have figured that out. 🙂
Hey ISAAC, I posted in a previous post on an issue I’m having with the Snake Draft Otimizer Tool. I am drafting in a few hours and really need this tool to work. Is it down right now for maintainence? This is an incredible tool and I’m excited to use it tonight.
+1 on getting the site up and running… planned to use the Lineup Optimizer in 20 minutes!!!
Works for me, try clearing your cache.
-Isaac
I’ve tried clearing my cache and accessing the data from two different computers and I get the same error as mentioned above. No data displayed and nothing to select in any of the drop-list boxes. It worked fine just a few days ago. Great site otherwise, I have learned a lot and did very well in my latest draft this past weekend!
Hmm, not sure. If we can’t reproduce the problem you’re seeing, it will be difficult to fix. Let us know if you figure it out.
Thanks!
-Isaac
Still no luck here… even rebooted everything again just to make sure. I was trying to see if you have any weekly projections (I only have one starting lineup decision left to make). Your data and analysis was extremely helpful and confirmed my thought process going into my last draft, so thank you for all your excellent work! However, I can no longer access any data because of whatever updates were made on Sept 9. Would love to hear if anyone else can successfully retrieve the data from your site now; thank you.
I’m in the same boat Jim. Really enjoyed the original data projections using my custom league scoring, but I can’t access this data at the moment.
Ok, we’re not able to reproduce it. Could you give us some info to help us figure it out? What OS, browser, which tool, have you tried clearing cache, etc?
Thanks!
-Isaac
I get the same errors from Windows 7 Professional 64-bit or Windows 8.1, both with Internet Explorer 11. Cleared cache and rebooted both machines, and the error persists. Thank you again for sharing your insights and information!
Finally I was able to get some new data! Not sure if I did anything differently than before… I may have refreshed the Web page one more time for good measure. :-/ To me it appears that Week 1 projections for each player are generally in a fairly narrow range across all sources. Is that a fair assessment? Thanks again!
Thanks for the great site! I was curious if you could add a team filter in your optimization app. For example I would like to filter to have a 9 person team based off of the 2 Monday night games tonight (4 teams).
Hey Matt,
I’ll put this on our to-do list.
Thanks,
Isaac
Hey,
Great site! I’ve been thinking about this years, but didn’t have the statistical knowledge or time to pursue it.
Do you update the projections app data at any regular frequency during the season?
Thanks!
-Ahmad
Yes, we update them regularly.
Hi,
Not a stat guy at all, but have found your site very helpful. I keep getting an error when using the projection app that says, “Type of RHS (‘integer’) must match LHS (‘double’)”. Am I doing something wrong?
I’m not getting any errors. Let me know exactly what changes you make to get an error so we can reproduce.
One more question. In the projection app, is it possible to determine VOR for a flex position? For example, a RB3 might show a value over replacement RB, but what if I want to know his value over a replacement RB, WR, or TE (since my flex spot can play any of those three)?
Thanks!
VOR is only relevant for snake drafts (presumably with seasonal projections). For weekly projections, VOR isn’t as important as the sum of projected points calculated by the Optimizer tool:
http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/lineupoptimizer
For snake drafts, VOR for flex positions is on our to-do list.
Hello Isaac,
I love what you are doing and appreciate hard work that goes into Analytics. I am having issues with the IDP.R. Error in `[.data.frame`(IDP, , c(“Player (Pos, Bye)”)) :
Do the website changes cause this. Also any upcoming releases to include Draft Kings or Fan Duel data…
Thanks Again….
Yes, website changes can cause that. Upgrading the scripts on the repo is on our to-do list. You can access DFS data in our optimizer tool:
http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/lineupoptimizer
We’re working on some issues with it now, but hope to have it working soon.
Does player exclusions by any chance be one of the issues? When I try to exclude a player, it just attempts to update the data forever and never loads.
Absolutely great website by the way! Love all the work that you’ve done.
Working on it, thanks.
Hi Isaac,
just found your site. I’m new to fantasy football and I’m trying to apply a scientific approach. Your site is awesome.
One thing that I miss though. I wish I could just pick a lineup and then see the total projected points for my lineup. It seems like it would be a very simple thing to incorporate into the projections app. DO you have such a function, have I just missed it?
Thanks, keep up the good work.
On our to-do list, thanks.
can’t wait! Thank you.
Hey Isaac,
I absolutely love your site and resources. Earlier this week I was able to edit and download some custom rankings from the projections app as a CSV, but since the 9/29 update I can only download as an HTML or text file. Any tips on how to make the data a little more workable?
Thanks!
For what it’s worth, I was finally able to get the data displayed in Excel how you present it. Just thought I’d mention it.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Found this site a couple weeks ago.. awesome job! The lineup optimizer doesn’t seem to be working for week 4. It says “generating optimal lineup…” then after about 20 seconds or so it disappears and the lineup sections are just blank.
We’re working on it, thanks!
Isaac – do you all have a basketball version of your site?
Not yet, but many of the same principles would apply. A lot of the scripts could likely be adapted for basketball if someone is interested in creating a pull request on GitHub:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/10/download-run-r-scripts.html
Isaac – I can’t find a direct e-mail contact so I figured this would be the best way to get an answer.
I have a projection model that, when run as a generalized linear model with all of my predictors regressed against actual pts. scored, spits out an R-Squared of about 0.15. However, in the post where you examine accuracy of each site it seems that you regress their projections against actual results. Doing this with my model spit out an R-Squared of around 0.90. My question is how much faith I can put into my model given these R-Squared outputs
Hi Spencer,
It’s not clear to me what your goals are and what models you’re comparing. R-squared isn’t usually a good way to compare models: http://people.duke.edu/~rnau/rsquared.htm. See this section from a free online forecasting textbook for which metrics to use to compare forecasting models, and for how to use training/test sets or cross-validation: https://www.otexts.org/fpp/2/5.
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Hey Issac,
Was just curious if the source code for the apps side of the site with the lineup optimizer is open source? I have daily projection data for the NHL and was hoping to apply it with a similar methodology to your lineup optimizer.
Thanks
The code for the apps is not open source, but the functions/R scripts they use are open source in our GitHub repo: https://github.com/isaactpetersen/FantasyFootballAnalyticsR
Hi Isaac,
I am a huge Fantasy/Excel junkie and I have recently started working on a basic power rankings formula for my league.
Do you have any suggestions as to wear to start? What should be factored in? Maybe a favorite formula for power rankings?
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Rankings for what? Fantasy players? Fantasy teams? NFL teams?
For the fantasy teams in my league.
Simplest would be sum of points scored or mean of points scored per game. You could also consider averaging it with median or robust average, which will be less affected by extreme weekly performances that are less representative of a team’s performance. You could also incorporate an index of week-to-week consistency (e.g., coefficient of variation).
Thanks!!
Greg, I create a power rankings every week for my league as well. I use what I call an Overall Win % to rank the teams. Basically it is your win % if you played every team in every week… (Top point scorer in one week will be 11-0, second 10-1, and so on). When totaling these up, it gave a pretty solid ranking of which teams were being blessed by a lucky schedule, and which teams should be at the top.
ESPN does their power rankings based on a “Fantasy Score” which is:
(win% x Total Points Scored) + Total Points Scored
I found this to put too big of an emphasis on win%, as the rankings typically stayed exactly the same to the regular standings.
Power Rankings in fantasy might be pointless, but it’s still a fun thing to have and show the league
I love your apps, i tried to figure out how all of this works by getting on GitHub and fooling around, but its all way beyond me. i check in every week and play the lineups from your Lineup Optimization App in my FanDuel account and they’re usually the only winners i have.
Will we be able to choose week 10 projections before the game starts tomorrow night? i don’t see it as an option – it only goes to week 9.
Projections and salaries are up for this week. Here’s our general schedule:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2015/05/2015-fantasy-football-projections.html#comment-3365
Hey Issac,
I’m trying to determine if a player that I’m thinking to trade for in my league has a history of injuries or not and to what frequency and severity. Do you know of any sources to view or download week-by-week injury data from the past few years?
Thanks,
Dominic
You might try Sports Injury Predictor. That’s where we get our injury risk information:
http://sportsinjurypredictor.com/
Any chance you can put up web tutorials about how to use your apps? Just found your site and am intrigued, but find it not user-friendly. I am a high volume player (more than 100 teams) and fairly successful.
Tutorial is here:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/custom-rankings-and-projections-for-your-league.html
Isaac,
I’d love to talk to you what possibly working together.
I have been promoting the advantages of consistency in Fantasy Football but I have little to no knowledge about the backend and I’m looking to create an app for it.
Please contact me if your interested.
Sincerely,
Bob Lung
Don’t forget to add WR Javontee Herndon to your player pool for the Saturday update.
Isaac –
Thanks so much for a great site. Since I began using the weekly projection app, I’ve seen my fantasy league standing rise from 7th place to currently playing for the league championship!
As of this morning, 12/24, the online projections app is down with a stack error, “Packets larger than max_allowed_packet are not allowed.” Holidays notwithstanding, is there any way to please get the app back online? I’ll be depending on it to set my lineup, including with respect to two prospective players for this evening’s Thursday Night Football game. Hope you’re still plugged in and can fix it easily!!!
Should be up now, thanks!
Wanted to reach out and say thanks. For years, I would copy and paste the ESPN Consistency rankings and use them to develop my own strategy. This year, I felt like doing something different and found your draft tool. Obviously, I did not use it verbatim but I did perceive some risk using your ranks. For example, I had no idea who Devonta Freeman was and I was scared of picking up Sammy Watkins. Both of which are on my championship team that scored the most league points and is in the second week of the finals up by 50. I led 3 out of 4 leagues in points. Two of those leagues are 12 team and very knowledgeable fantasy football players. I already won one league and, hopefully, about to win another one.
I love the site. I am new to all this, and want to start learning and getting into all this. I have a very customized scoring league, so this information for the coming 2016 season will be greatly beneficial for me. My question for you is (not knowing how all these programs work yet) is if I have “x” amount of drafting history, can I set something up to who drafting tendencies among my league mates? We have been together 10+ years now, and would love to see if I can come up with something. Thanks.
Hi Quin,
There’s not currently a feature for accounting for your opponent’s tendencies, but a good idea for a feature request. In the meantime, you can remove players who you think other people will draft by clicking their name in the app.
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Hi Issac, I was checking out the stock portfolio analysis app and was curious how it worked. What are the charts supposed to tell me?
Hey Jason,
I just updated the accompanying post to explain how to interpret the graph, see below:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2015/03/fantasy-football-is-like-stock-picking.html
Hope that helps!
-Isaac
I have a quick question, how do you calculate the price of a player in an auction draft?
See here for how auction costs are calculated:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2013/06/win-your-fantasy-football-auction-draft.html
Are you updating this for 2016? Seems I get some errors when trying to change data points, etc.
Which tool are you using, what errors do you get, and what are all of the steps you take (or changes you make) to receive the error? We need to be able to replicate the error to fix it, and it’s working for me.
Isaac, have you ever considered doing a workshop? I opted to take one of my colleges courses on Big Data Analytics solely to learn R for fantasy football scripts. I have been playing around with your scripts, but I think something like a workship would be really amazing!
Hi Sophia,
I love the idea of creating a workshop! We are thinking about creating videos to show people how to (1) use our scripts, (2) learn introductory stats using fantasy football and/or, (3) learn how to do better in fantasy football using advanced stats. Thanks for the suggestion! In the meantime, we have something exciting to release soon that should make the scripts more accessible to more people. Stay tuned!
-Isaac
Hey Isaac, used this for the first time last year to good success and I really appreciate what you do.
Finding an issue on the Snake draft projections app when I set custom scoring (actually just the ESPN default scores) – after I do this, the “click name to remove” function doesn’t work, whilst it does work on the default scoring settings.
Thanks, Peter. We’ll look into this.
Hi Isaac
I found a bug in the projections, it happens in Safari (perhaps in other browsers) when I change the scoring of fumbles and interceptions from -3 to -2. the error I get is “An error has occurred:
INTEGER() can only be applied to a ‘integer’, not a ‘list’
In call:”
thanks!
Sorry for the hassle! I can’t replicate on Chrome, IE, or Safari. You might try clearing your cache or trying a different browser.
Hope that helps!
-Isaac
Isaac, I want to thank you for your projections. I truly believe that it was the reason I had the most points this past season. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the playoffs, but I still led the league in pts. How crazy right?
Question on if you can add a couple of items to your projection settings:
1) points for first down for receiving and rushing.
2) Points for rushing / receiving 20+ yards, currently you only have 40+ yards.
We can add these to our to-do list. Which sources provide projections for those categories?
Thanks,
Isaac
It’s all on NFL.COM/stats by player cateogory:
http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?archive=true&conference=null&statisticCategory=RUSHING&season=2012&seasonType=REG&experience=&tabSeq=0&qualified=true&Submit=Go
Those are historical stats.. do you know of sources of projections with that info?
Yahoo only gives projections for 1st down receiving and rushing. Can’t find anything that will give you projections for 20+ yards rec/rush.
Issac,
I love the site and love the analytics idea of FF. My league scoring is super unique when it comes to yards gained. An example would be for RB’s and WR’s every 10 yards from 0-79 is 1 point, 80 – 139 is 2 points per 10, and 140+ is 3 points for every 10. How difficult is it to customize that here or would I have to try it on my own with R?
Keep up the good work.
Issac,
Hi, my name is Dan Verdun. I have written three books about college football in Illinois and am also a Chicago Now blogger on the state football programs. I am working on a piece about the likelihood of two former Eastern Illinois players (Tony Romo and Jimmy Garoppolo) being NFL opening weekend starting quarterbacks.
With your experience as a football writer, what are your thoughts on this? Is it surprising, especially given the fact that the two played a decade apart? How historically significant is this potentially?
Finally, what are your projections for Romo and Garoppolo for 2016?
Thank you for any thoughts you may provide.
Sincerely,
Dan Verdun, Author
Hi,
You wouldn’t happen to have weekly projections, would you?
I’d like to try out some machine learning to do draft kings line ups, but historical weekly projections are hard to come by.
If you had: player, week, year, proj pts that’d be awesome!
Thanks,
Matt
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#historicalProjections
Hope that helps!
-Isaac
It does! If I export week 4 for 2015, do the predictions take into account all the games in 2015, or just the first 4 games of 2015?
Week 4 are the player projections for that week (not for the first 4 weeks combined).
thanks!
Hey – looks like the projections page is down. Love this site!
Apps should be up now!
Isaac,
Thanks for setting this up. It is a great way to visualize the power of stats and I wish I had this back when I was battling them in college.
2 questions-
1) In the weighting option within the app, what are the variables?
2) Do you take into account defensive strength/strength of schedule or do you use 3rd party analysis for this component.
I am new to your site so please forgive me if I am missing something.
Thanks,
Doug
Hi Doug,
1) Not sure what you mean by variables in the weighting options. The “weighting” option is to calculate a weighted average of the different sources of projected points, with the default weights defined by historical accuracy (but that can be modified by the user). For more info, see here:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/custom-rankings-and-projections-for-your-league.html
2) We aggregate multiple sources of projections and have shown that this “wisdom of the crowd” approach is the most accurate of all of the sources of projections (see here). Because we aggregate multiple sources of projections, we are implicitly accounting for whatever variables they accounted for (e.g., injury risk, defensive strength, strength of schedule, etc.).
Hope that helps,
Isaac
Is there anyway to download the draft app for offline use? I loved using it last year, but ultimately found that the re-calculation of players took too long for the app to really be viable for use during a live draft. I’m not sure if this is a result of it being online or simply because of the amount of data being processed, but I suspect it would run quicker offline. Thanks for all your hard work!
We don’t have an offline version yet, but we can add that to our to-do list. Thanks!
Will the auction draft optimizer be available at some point today? I keep getting an error message. Thanks, Q
Isaac,
I’ve enjoyed your apps for a while now and I started my first FFL last year. I’d love to be able to use your app to import my leagues draft summary to create some sort of Draft Report Card, or to pull in each week’s matchup to see how my team compares to my opponent’s team and where i might have match-up opportunities.
Are either of these things something you have on your list of things to add in the future?
Or, do you have a way to scrape the data from my ESPN league to analyze each team’s roster against each other and identify good replacement opportunities from undrafted players???
Mac
Not a current feature but sounds like an interesting idea for the future!
Just notifying you that the Snake Draft app appears to be down at the moment. VOR, several previously available project sources, and position weight are not showing in the “Change Data Settings” page (and VOR + several other fields not displaying on player list). Error is occurring on Chrome (desktop), IE, and Android Chrome. Maybe its just because sources are being updated at the moment? Sorry if this is something you are already aware of!
Isaac, can you help me with loading the scripts with R?
What specific question do you have?
Fantastic site Isaac. I used it last year and loved it. Projections app seems to be down at the moment. Just an FYI.
Thanks, Ian. The apps are down at the moment due to heavy traffic during peak hours of peak draft season. We’re hoping to generate revenue to cover increased server capacity. In the meantime we recommend a) downloading the projections to use offline, and b) using the apps during non-peak hours.
Hope that helps,
Isaac
It appears that the data scraped for Fantasy Sharks does not match the data on the Fantasy Sharks Website. For instance Fantasy Sharks has Dez scoring 133 pts with ESPN scoring, but when pulled using the app he comes out with 202. Any idea why this is happening? Thanks.
There is a similar difference on FantasySharks site itself depending on whether you look at their high precision projections or not. We use the high precision projections and the points value are matching there.
Issac, thank you for creating such an awesome website. I plan on using the weekly projections based on my unique scoring system each week. Is there any way to save the scoring system so I do not have to re-enter the information several times? Appreciate your time and help!
Not currently, but it’s on our to-do list, thanks!
I’m having trouble using the Projections App and customizing the scoring for my league. I click “change data settings”. Then deselect “DST” as we don’t use that. Set calculation type to “average”. Leave all four sources checked. Then change the scoring settings for each position. Then click “load” in the bottom left. After I do so, I get the error: “An error has occurred: INTEGER() can only be applied to a ‘integer’, not a ‘raw’ In call:” There is nothing after “in call”. I used this tool last season and won our fantasy bowl, so I want to keep the good times rolling. Thanks for all your work here! It’s really appreciated.
Hi J. Brian,
I’m not able to reproduce. Which scoring changes do you make? Ideally, you’d be able to pinpoint the *specific* change that causes the error. Also, you might try deleting your cache, disabling your adblockers, and/or a different browser.
Thanks,
Isaac
Hi Isaac,
Wondering why the default is not to include dailyfantasynerd and fantasypros projections in the projections app. In one of your articles you state that DFN is a subscription projection source. Are these not in fact available to you to be used in the app? Would prefer not to include a bunch of zeros thereby throwing off the projections if that’s the case.
By the way, love the website!
Thanks!
TJ
Hi TJ,
See the “Analysts” section of the following article:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/custom-rankings-and-projections-for-your-league.html
Hope that clarifies!
-Isaac
Not sure if anyone else is running into this, but as of this morning (European time), whenever I edit the scoring settings in the Projections app, it fails to load the new data with a popup error of “An error has occurred:
connection with pending rows, close resultSet before continuing
In call:
“
We’d need more info to reproduce. Also, try these first:
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors
When trying to optimize a lineup for DFS is seems to take a very long time to generate. Is this normal?
I’m trying to access the full season projections for 2011-2015 but keep getting the error “could not run statement: Column Count does not match value count at row 1”. Is there any way to get these projections?
The ‘Sign In’ button and ‘Change Data Settings’ button is not working on the Weekly Optimizer. Tried on two different PC’s and multiple browsers, one PC I’ve never used to access this site. Please help.
We will look into this error, thanks!
This is happening to me too!
I’m getting errors as well when using the weekly optimizer app. The error states “onnection with pending rows, close resultSet before continuing” In call: “, Production server: True”.
It happens frequently and I often have to sign in and out, close my browser, or restart. And, it doesn’t seem to be a browser issue as I get the same error using other browsers. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for providing detail, we will look into this error!
Hello,
I have subscribed and paid, the site has worked for weeks and now the last 2 weeks, when I log in it is only showing up as a “FREE ACCOUNT” and I can not populate the daily lineups.
I have cleared my cache – I have tried different browsers, I have even gone incognito.
I could not populate last week, and again this week.
Please help.
Hello, I am having trouble trying to get historical data from both the R script and the projections tool. Is it broken or am I doing something wrong?
Just wanted to thank you for the site…. it’s awesome! Another free source that you might want to consider adding to your weekly rankings is Justin Boone from The Score. He has been in the top 10 in rankings over the last few years.
http://www.thescore.com/author/justin-boone
Hi Isaac,
First I just want to say I recently stumbled upon and signed up on your website and I’m absolutely loving everything I am reading. I enjoy reading about analytics and I especially enjoy seeing the results play out.
I have just have a few comments:
1. In the app, I think the Positions section under Grid Filters would work much easier if there were check boxes with the different positions that you could check off followed by an “Apply” button. Currently you have to type in one position at a time or click on the position you want to remove and press backspace to remove it. I think it would be easier to check the positions you want and hit Apply to initiate the update instead of the current method which updates after each single addition or removal of a position, which just takes longer. I hope I explained this clearly.
2. If I am wrong please enlighten me, but why hasn’t your site received more attention or recognition? I mean no disrespect, I’m just wondering if the advice found here either hasn’t been fruitful enough yet, or it has and it’s just a gem that not many know about.
3. Do you have any other success stories from other followers of this site?
4. Is there a fantasyfootballanalytics podcast in the future?
I appreciate and look forward to your response, thank you for your work on this site I really enjoy it.
Hi Issac, I have been just a play here or there from winning the league the last two years using the free content on your site. I still cannot wrap my head around R and am only using the web apps.
Our league is a auction style keeper. That means there will be some players kept at way below their predicted value. This should increase the money available and the value of the players available in the auction.
Is it possible to adjust the values of the remaining players based on the remaining salary cap and VOR?
Thank you
Hi Ben, we do not have an option to do that currently but we are always looking to add new features.
I am having trouble scrolling through the entire blogs to read the bottom of the webpages in both Chrome and IE. It happens also in the show column drop down. If I zoom out of the page I can see more, but still not scroll to the bottom.
Really like the website and started using it extensively last year. Preparing for the upcoming 2017 season, the projections don’t seem to work. Tried firefox, chrome, and edge. Error I get reads: “The page at https://ffashiny.shinyapps.io says: DataTables warning: table id=DataTables_Table_1 – Ajax error. For more information about this error, please see http://datatables.net/tn/7. I’m guessing this might be related to your “Shiny Call for Help” post but just want to confirm with you. Thanks again for all the work!
Hi Chris, can you provide more information on what exactly you’ve tried to do within the app to get to this error? We need more information to troubleshoot.
Please see here for information we require: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors
Thanks!
Hi,
As a bioinformatics grad student, I know a thing or two about programming and statistics, but I’m still quite a ways from becoming an “expert”. I’m aware that supervised machine learning is becoming a big deal in a lot of data science subfields, but could you describe how useful it is for fantasy football? I know that a big part of machine learning is feature selection, and a big part of feature selection is evaluating the redundancy of predictors in addition their predictive powers. Do your consensus projections produced under the assumption that each source is independent from one another? Just something I was pondering.
Your site has become my new favorite source for fantasy info. Keep up the great work! 🙂
-Eric
*Are your consensus . . .
Typo
In past versions of your projections, when downloading previous year’s data it would include both the projection and the actual result. Is there any way to still get that? In the past have found this very useful. Thanks.
We are working on adding this back into the apps.
There seems to be a problem with the auction optimizer tool. Under league settings, when you attempt to change the number of players from 9 to anything else, you aren’t able to save the new number…Please advise.
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors
Isaac,
Log in for projections app inst working. When clicking “sign in” nothing happens.. it just stays there. Can’t get in and add my own settings, or download, etc.
Thanks for everything.,
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#loggingIn
I keep getting a message to verify my email before logging in, but when I click the link in my email I get a message that the site is down or gone. What’s up?
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#loggingIn
Isaac, I can’t get any apps to work, and I’ve gone through all the steps you recommend (disabled ad blocker, cleared cache, tried Incognito, other browsers, etc.). Please advise. Thanks.
Please provide the requested information here: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors
Seems to be working properly again!
Each time I enter in a “1” for points per reception, the rankings puts Tyler Locket at number 1 and the rankings are all off. What am I doing wrong? Trying to make the custom rankings based on projections and with the PPR scoring system.
There was an issue with a portion of the data scrape, this has been fixed now!
Hello, I tried downloading the raw projections and it resulted in an error since yesterday (Aug 23, 2017). It says server error when i try to download. Never had any issues before. It is not my internet connection as I can download the custom rankings no problem. Just thought I would bring it up in case other people are having this issue.
We are aware of this issue and should have it fixed soon, thanks!
Hello, love the site and the analytic approach. I tried to download the custom projections today (8/25) and I’m getting everything except the player name. I downloaded a week ago and was able to get the player name but for some reason it’s not working today. Let me know if you think I’m doing something wrong or if its an issue on the download which would impact others. Thx
Should be fixed shortly!
Is there an easy way to download R? It seems like there are several more apps and packages that I need to download before I can even use R. Is there an easy way to do all this?
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2014/06/learn-r.html
Having trouble saving custom settings.
Please provide the additional detail requested here: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors
Are you going to have weekly gold mining this year?
Great stuff here.
I’ve been looking at the raw projections downloaded form the app, and I see a data error … that the Chargers DST is labeled as the LAR team, and vice versa (the Rams are LAC).
Also, any plans to update the github repo for the 2017 season? Last year I was using that to get the projections through your scraping, but so far this year it looks like I’ll need to download your raw projections instead.
Thanks!
Use the R package! https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2016/06/ffanalytics-r-package-fantasy-football-data-analysis.html
Perfect! I was looking at the wrong repo on Github. I will use this… thanks!
Hi Isaac,
Do you have historical actual data available for download? I’m looking for stats like receptions, yards, touchdowns, etc. by player by game for the past few seasons.
Thanks,
Drew
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#actualPoints
Isaac, I’m an English teacher who has a vast interest in fantasy football and basketball. I’m wondering if we can chat more about bringing your website to the next level? I use your site for my personal fantasy leagues with tremendous results. I would be more than happy to blog/write for you and take on more of an analyst role on many of the models you produce. Additionally, I think the most money to be made is producing data in the daily fantasy realm with written analysis/content to support it. I’d love to Skype with you to discuss this opportunity to produce more consistent content and perhaps be partner with you. My email is travisjamesfrey@gmail.com
-Travis
Isaac,
First of all I just found your site and I love it. I work in the pharma industry and before a recent move I was in analytical method development. More specifically, I was adept at using statistical analysis to evaluate what factors had significance in analytical method dev/drug stability modeling. We use JMP for this. After some pretty intense stats training and then utilizing the techniques I discovered how accurately I could model these things and instantly tried to apply this to my fantasy league (we were doing auction for first time). Let’s just say things didn’t quite go as planned. However, if I had found your site earlier I think it would have gone better as I made three huge mistakes. 1) I didn’t look at risk objectively for the players I was drafting (David Johnson injury killed me), 2) I only used two sources of projections and didn’t model off of our league’s (ESPN) AAV, 3) I budgeted too much for my bench. I just ran an analysis of last year’s draft and it seems (barring one outlier, luck or skill I’m not sure yet) that the more money spent on starters did lead to higher point totals in general. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough data to accurately build transfer functions regarding starter budget (or budget per position) to final points scored. I love your simulator but I am trying to figure out the optimal inputs, the Harvard analysis just says “most” or your budget on starters while minimizing risk. Basically, I want to simulate a range of budget allocations and risks as factors with projected points as a response. I was thinking about how to design the experiment so that I can simulate the outcomes and I was wondering if you had any insight into this.
Thanks,
Steve
Thanks for the awesome site. I downloaded projections and found that some players are duplicated. To test it out, I just downloaded the CBS projections and, for example, found that Brice Butler was included 16 times. Same for Tom Savage, Trevor Davis, and a few others.
You have a fantastic site and I appreciate your work. I just downloaded the 2018 projections to CSV to use for my draft and found something that I wasn’t expecting. The VOR Floor and Ceiling potentially appear to be flipped for certain players. For example, Todd Gurley VOR is 163.90. His Floor VOR is 171.12 and Ceiling VOR is 159.78. The floor being greater than the ceiling seems counter intuitive. This is the same for Bell, Johnson, Kamara, Gordon, and many others. However, Ezekiel Elliott has a floor of 136.58 and ceiling of 142.64. Same for Hopkins, Beckham, Rodgers, etc.
So some players appear to be flipped while others look normal. The points floor and ceiling all appear to check out fine. If you could help me out with this I would appreciate it.
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2013/03/isaac-petersen.html#comment-22964
It looks like you are looking at the Floor VOR and Ceiling VOR. These are *not* the Floor and Ceiling of VOR. They are the VOR based on Floor and the VOR based on Ceiling, respectively (rather than the default VOR based on points). In other words, you are looking at VOR values, not Floor/Ceiling values. There is no reason to expect a player’s Floor VOR will be lower than their Ceiling VOR. If you are interested in the player’s floor and ceiling, se the “Floor” and “Ceiling” variables (not the “Floor VOR” and “Ceiling VOR” variables).
Hope that helps!
Hey Isaac,
Love the site, have been using your projections the last few years and definitely improved by drafting. I’m having issues with the projection apps timing out when I try to access them (happened on multiple computers). Any ideas how to work around this?
Thanks!
We’re not able to reproduce. Could you provide the info requested here (https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#errors) so we can reproduce and fix it?
Thanks!
I’m guessing it’s my ad blocker, uBlock Origin extension for Chrome. I’ve tried turning off the adblocker on the app page but still getting the same error.
Error – nothing loads, gets a message in the lower left saying “Disconnected from Server” with a reload link
Chrome Version 68.0.3440.106
Windows 7 Enterprise
Isaac,
The Cost projects in the auction draft don’t seem to vary with tweaks to VOR or the addition of keeper picks. Especially with respect to VOR, I would expect that these could move drastically. Is this a feature that I need to purchase a subscription to get? Or are the Costs just built to be static?
https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2013/06/win-your-fantasy-football-auction-draft.html#comment-22929
In using the app for draft projections I noticed a couple of oddities this morning. Players on IR are included as if they weren’t injured. See Dalvin Cook as a top rated rb. also, as soon as I change the setting to equal my league settings the date refers back to 8/31 rather than 9/4.
I am concerned about its accuracy
Hello, will you be posting weekly projections this season? For week 1? Many thanks!
Issac, love the site (am paying member). Can I help you get it into an aws environment so that the apps time out less? Or is it a disk space issue? Let me know if I can help
Are you going to be doing seasonal rankings, because when I choose season for general settings, its not updated. For example, Tyreek Hill is still put in the top 5
The Yahoo DFS player salaries in the lineup optimizer are incorrect for this week (Week 4). This is the second week out of four that this has happened, and it makes the lineup optimizer unusable for that particular DFS platform. Just giving you a heads up. Thanks!
Is there an option to see playoff projections in their entirety? Not just week 18.
Thank you
I was wondering when the 2020 season projections will come out. Love the projections every year
They’re up!
I was also wondering when the 2020 data would be available.
also wondering, the people want to know. thanks for these, very helpful
They’re up!
They’re up!
Isaac, if you are business as usual for 2020 please reply. Your site is my go-to! Thanks!
hear anything back?
They’re up!
They’re up!
Looking forward to complete projections including rookies and DST!
When will DST and Rookies be added to the rankings. Thanks
Awesome site, Isaac – it’s my ‘secret weapon’ that’s helped me finish in the top 3 of my league each of the past 5 years and win a couple of titles! Value over replacement (VOR) is the great equalizer to figure out draft order but I had one question regarding the # of players I should input into that part of the scoring algorithm (which I assume drives the replacement player point calculation). Should I use the # of players that are drafted at a position for the entire draft (using prior drafts as a proxy) … or just the # of starters by position … or something else? What’s the best way to think about a ‘replacement player’? Thanks
Hi Isaac,
I used this baby last year and it was really a joy. From a fellow user of R who is familiar with stats, this ride has been a real treat. This year I attempted to use your app, but I consistently receive a message “Disconnected from the server
Reload” in what seems to be a response from the shiny app.
I tried several computers with the same response.
Is it possible that your server is getting overloaded?
Alternatively, do you think the problem is over here?
Thanks for your amazing work here.
I see the tool has now been monetized via a subscription service.
Please disregard my previous message.
Yes, please see the FAQ for how to address this error. We’ve offered a subscription for the last several years, but you can still use the free features without a subscription.
Isaac — Like the comment above I keep getting a “Disconnected from the Server. Reload” message 9 out of 10 times when I try to access the shiny app or even the web app to subscribe. Is your server over-loaded?
Works for me! This error is most commonly caused by SameSite behavior in Chrome. Have you tried disabling SameSite behavior, as described in the FAQ?
Hi Isaac, love the site! i’ve been using the web app to help with drafting and i just now started getting the “disconnected from the server” my draft is in 15 minutes so a little nervous! I did the SameSite disabling and clearing cache but still not working. Able to assist?
Hi Joey! Sorry for the difficulties you’re seeing. Please follow the steps in the FAQ. Thanks!
Thanks for everything Isaac!! Seem James Robinson’s (JAC) numbers haven’t updated last 2 weeks. Same projections, and considerably lower than other sites. Guessing may be a tech issue? Thanks!
Hi Isaac, loving the site! Depend on it hugely. Unfortunately seems there may be an issue with some individual projections? My particular example is James Robinson (RB, JAC): shows “17” in “rushAtt”, but “NA” in “rushYds”. Seems to say 17 rushing attempts, but 0 or n/a rushing yards. Am I misreading? Otherwise seems to be working beautifully! Thanks! Peden Harris
I have used and appreciated the site for a long time. However, I am now unable to log into the projections and have been getting the ‘disconnected from server’ error for several weeks. I have used different browsers, computers, and tried the tips available from the site (including the ‘same site’ setting). I have also not been able to find a way to contact for help directly – the links seem to send me in a loop of the different help pages. Sorry if I’m missing something but I can’t even log in to cancel my subscription at this point.
Sorry for the trouble! We are aware of the issues and are working to fix them. Please email us at sales@ to unsubscribe: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/about-the-site/faq#ffaInsider.
I am have a request to see passing yards per game added. Essentially I am trying to do (Passing Yards/17)-100 * the scoring rules for it.
I have added it to the scoring rules, but I cant get it output to the projections_table. I checked aggregate_stats but it isnt showing there. the field is added in the scrape data after all sources are done.
Any help on why I isn’t calculating those points>
Nvm I figured something temp out. impute_na_off is removing the stat column for some reason even though there is no NA or NAN. I added it in my own gitub branch to add that column under the stats_aggregation function.
Hi there — I noticed that in custom scoring for receiving for RB it is missing the inputs for 100 yard 150 yard and 200 yard bonuses etc — also, some leagues we different bonus levels (e.g., for RB and TE, there’s a 5 point bonus at 75 receiving yards, and another 5 point bonus at 150 yards) — is there anyway you can at least add the receiving yard bonuses for RB (sometimes the boxes come up and sometimes it doesn’t) and, if I’m lucky, a way to customize what level that 5 point bonus is awarded? If not, no biggie, and I’m so happy you added a premium pay option because what you’ve built is easily worth the premium!
Hello doctor Petersen. I was wondering if I could bypass the prerequisite of you explaining the origin of the universe and the terrifying thought of understanding and installing what I need to do. I can’t wait to buy my AI robot that would communicate with you while I go for a run. Doc, I’m 73 yrs old & no patience. Life use to be so simple.
So just a quick question, do you sell your fantasy football projections, and if so, could you email them to me?
I’m going to guess the answer is NO, that would be too easy for me to be happy, but thought I would take a shot.
Our seasonal projections are available for free via our webapps: https://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net. Our weekly projections are available with an FFA Insider subscription: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2016/08/introducing-ffa-insider.html. We also have an API option to purchase access to the projections: https://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2018/06/fantasy-football-analytics-api.html. Hope that helps!
Do you still provide projections for the entire playoffs or just week by week of the playoffs?
This question was probably answered already but are these projections based off of Standard, 0.5 pt PPR, or 1 pt PPR? Thank you! Thinking about becoming an Insider today!
You can customize your league settings to get projections for any of those!