What is the Projections Dominator?

Running the PD from a Flash Drive or CD-ROM

New Set Weights window

Info on Setting the Weights

PD Prediction Accuracy

Export Projections Dominator info to Excel

Articles:

Inside the Projections Dominator (need to be a subscriber to view it)

when's the next release?

Should be in the next day or two. You can get the latest projections though, by just doing a File -> Get Latest Projections.

thanks, but i'm looking more for the features/changes

e.g., will Mike Furrey be listed as a Detroit Lion now instead of a FA?

thanks Bruce

Hi Bruce, first I would like to say great job with the DD & PD this year. I love many of the features, especially the fact that I have the projections of 5+ experts I can use.

But I have found a problem with setting the weights for all players (all QBs, RBs, WRs, & TEs). I am trying to set the weights to Dodds 20%, Henry 15, Smith 15, Tremblay 15, Wood 15, and user 20 and it is not taking my requested change. Just upgraded to the 1.1d version.

Thanks,
Dino

If the user weight is anything but zero... it will not change the User Projections. This is by design, so your User Projections do not get overwritten.

The way the Projections Dominator was designed to be used... was to weight the experts the way you want to give you a starting set of User Projections. Then you make tweaks to the user projections to come up with your own set of projections... and then import these into the Draft Dominator.

To overwrite the User Weight, you can check the Overwrite User Weight box on the Set Weights screen. But again it will only apply the expert weights.

If you really want to weight in your own projections along with the experts... then I'd take over one of the year stats file. For example copy the dodds file to the 2003 stats file, then make your changes in notepad or excel. To open the file in excel, you need to use notepad and change the uppercase ID on line 1, to a lowercase id.

Thanks for the explanation Bruce.

So can you tell the last time each expert updated the projections? Just thinking this might help w/ regards to how high you weight each (or if you use them at all).

btw, DD and PD are both incredible tools.

-Bill (5 year retuning member).

The guys all submit a full projections list on Monday night. The Projections are then released on Tuesday. They do make minor tweaks throughout the week.

I'm sure all you staff experts have been keeping score as to who did the best job of prognosticating over the past few years. Can you share the results with us? If I'm going to use weights, I'd like to know who to favor.

Thanks!

Actually, this is the first year that a couple of them have made their projections public. So it might be a year or two before we get this kind of history. See this thread for a little background on the guys: Experts Background

Is there any way to import other projections? For example the Kubiak projects from FO?

For these, just edit the projections. Click File -> Setup -> Projections and enter the Projections from the desired Face-offs.

That's what I was afraid the response was going to be. As a future suggestion it would be nice if we could format external projects to be imported by the tool. Thanks for the quick reply.

If you copy/paste the projections into the VBD Spreadsheet... you can then import it.

I am getting an "Error reading Draft Data - File not found" message when I try to launch PD, try to re-open an existing PD file and when trying to import PD into DD.

I am current on both apps' versisons.

Help?

It sounds like the PD file got hosed somehow. Try deleting the ProjectionsDominator.ini file. This will let you launch PD. Then create your projections again... and click File Save As... and give it a new name.

Is there going to be new projections today or tomorrow morning??

Probably not... unless there is a key injury in the preseason games.

But to be safe... click File -> Get Latest Projections to get the latest.

Do the user entered data get deleted when downloading the updates from the website?

I don't want to wait until the last minute to add my stats, but I don't want old projections either.

Thanks

When you say user entered data, are you talking about your league variables and scoring system? or your tweak user projections? In both cases they are retained on updates.

I was talking about the user entered stat. Thanks for your help

The user entered projections that have a user weight greater than zero, will not get overwritten. By default when you edit the user projections line, the user weight jumps to 100% to protect the changes.

I open DD while on my wife's username to help her with her league.

When I went back to my username and tried to open DD for one of my teams, I get; Run-time error '52' Bad file name or number.

The first time this happened, I just downloaded DD again from the website and it opened fine. Now that it has happened a second time in one day, I am not wanting to download the program everytime I get this error. Any help?

Next time this happens... Try this: Exit the DD, delete the DraftDominator.ini file and restart the DD.

Let me know if this takes care of it.

My guess is it is trying to open your wife's league since it was the last one opened... but the path has either changed... or you do not have access rights to your wife's file.

How do I delete the .ini file?

With the Windows Explorer or My Computer... browse to the C:\Program Files\ProjectionsDominator subdirectory... and delete the ProjectionsDominator.ini file (Right Click and selecting delete is probably this easiest way). Make sure you get the ini file and not the exe file. You can click Tool -> Folder Options -> View, and uncheck the Hide Extensions for Known File Types to see the extensions.

I tried running DD on TWO of the computers at work (both running WinXP Pro fully updated) and it crashes as soon as it opens. won't even let me select anything... any clues?

Nevermind. I set the ShowSplash=no in the mask.ini and that seemed to fix it.....

Okay, so I am not feeling like a college here, but I enabled the viewing of hidden files. I went to Program Files > DraftDominator and here is a list of the files:

DD_NewFAQ_files (folder), VBD Revisited_files (folder), adp & adp_ip (excel), Auction (DAT), DD_NewFAQ (word), DepthCharts (DAT), DraftDominator (Compiled HTML), DraftDominator (Application), DraftDominator (Config), Mask (Config), NFLSchedule (DAT), PlayerNotes (DAT), Players (DAT), Players (Text Doc.), projfordd.php (PHP), Readme (Text Doc.), SOS (DAT), Tick TimeCountDown TimeExpired TimeWarning Touchdown (Wave), unins000 (DAT), unins000 (Application), VBD Revisited (HTM), Whistle (Wave).

Sheesh, that was more trouble than what it is worth. Anyhoo, no .ini file. Li'l help?

DraftDominator (Config) is the ini file. It wasn't hidden files we wanted to select... it was turning off the Hide Extensions for Know File Types. You might have to select to List the files by Details to see the extensions too.

When I click Click File -> Print -> Cheatsheets. the pages come out blank?

any help?

Nothing but nothing.

You need a Default Printer defined in windows. This is a Windows Restriction, so that the DD know how to format the page.

From Windows click Start -> Control Panel -> Printers and add a printer and make it the default.

Bruce,

Will we be able to use the PD for the TD and the LD?

Joel

There is no plans to update the PD during the regular season.

A couple of the PD experts will be busy keeping the LD current. Dodds will do the weekly projections and Henry will do the forward projections for the offense. Norton will do both for the IDP guys.

Too bad -- While I always place a high value on Dodds' projections, having the input from a few experts is always good.

Maybe next year

Joel

I have trouble setting the flex numbers. I have a league that starts the following:

QB - 1
RB - 2
Pk - 1
Def - 1

four flex for a total of nine starters.

Max RB = 4
Max WR = 4
Max TE = 4

SO, it could be RB - WR - TE

4-2-0
4-1-1
4-0-2
3-3-0
3-2-1
3-1-2
3-0-3
2-4-0
2-3-1
2-2-2
2-1-3
2-0-4

Can't figure out how to set the flex.

Thanks for any help you can provide

I'd be tempted to set it up as:

RB=2, WR=2, TE=0, and Flex = 2.

This will combine TEs with WRs... Thus simplifiying the calculations... Worst case, I can't envision starting more than 2 TEs... I also can't envision starting less than 2 RBs and 2 WRs...

Bruce,

Now that we are in year 2, do we have results from last year that we can use for helping us weight this year for importing into 8.0b?

Thanks,

Joel

I'm not really sure how to quantify the projections against year end stats and to grade them accordingly. I'm open for suggestions though.

It only took me three days to find this post:
Expert Rankings by Islander

Maybe we need to ask Maurile Tremblay or ping Islander...

Joel

I bumped his thread from last year and sent him a PM.

Guys, what good is it to set weights in the PD file if you are going to import it in DD and then get latest projections?

It seems to me that the weights go out the window.

Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to import the latest projections into PD and then adjust weights, and then import these numbers into DD?

It seems like we are working backwards by getting latest projections in DD?!

Maybe I am missing something?

Yes, import the latest projections into PD and then adjust weights, and then import these numbers into DD?

There is no need to get latest projections in DD if you are importing from PD.

Joel

One thing I notice is that all players do not have projections from all experts?! So, if I set the weights anything other than 100% Dodds, I run the risk right now of having faulty projections.

If I set Bob Henry @20% across the board, there are several players he hasn't done projections on yet.

What is the plan or what am I missing?

TIA

It's a bug. Good examples:

Brad Johnson. Doods has him at 22 completions, Henry at 23, MT and Wood at 20. Chris Smith projects 0 all the way across. The average of the 4 is 21.25, but since there is a zero and 5 listed, the projection is 17. If Smith actually has him at zero it's correct.

But then there is Trent Green.
Chris Smith isn't listed as projecting for Trent Green; Green has only 4 inputs, but his projection is still incorrect. It's still showing 20% average weighting, even for the 4 inputs. The average is based on 20% across 5 and the projection is incorrect.

I reinstalled PD1.1K from last year. In 1.1k, the weights were correctly adjusted based on the number of experts projecting. If weights were set to 20% across 5 experts, but there were only 3 experts input, the weightings for that player changed to 33%. However, if an expert put 0's across, those 0's were averaged in.

Bruce will need to take a look at it.

Joel

The divvying up the projections for the expert that didn't project a player... was causing more problems than not... so I took it out. It was put in last year to cover someone not projecting a player. Technically though, it should not be there. For example, lets take an extreme example where Dodds has Barry Sanders projected to score 100 pts, and Jim Brown projected to score 0 points. Wood has Barry Sanders projected to score 0 pts, and Jim Brown projected to score 100 pts. If we average Dodds and Wood at 50% each, and use the method from last year, both Barry Sanders and Jim Brown would be projected for 100 pts each for a total of 200 pts (another 100 pts has been incorrectly introduced into our fantasy universe). The method this year, would put Barry Sanders at 50 pts, and Jim Brown at 50 pts, for a total of 100 pts.

So the burden is on the experts to rank the players that will have an impact this year. So if you see some experts that aren't ranking players, you will need to email them and see why they aren't ranking certain players. Sometimes it might be an oversight, sometimes it is early in the season, and the starters haven't been totally set yet, and other times, they may actually feel that they won't contribute much if at all.

Bruce,

I think your math might be dependent on the way the data is input.

Looking at last years PD:

For Sanders, if Dodds projects 100 points and Woods projects 0, then the system will spit out 50 points. HOWEVER, if Dodds projects 100 points and Woods doesn't put in a projection (he's not even listed), then the system projects 100 points.

That system makes sense to me and might be more accurate over the entire range of players than this years system.

If you still have PD 1.1K, check out Jay Fielder and Bruce Gradowski for two good examples.

Best regards,
Joel

Which players are not projected by all experts this year? If we start a list here, I can bump the experts and I think the problem will take care of itself.

QB:
Derek Anderson (J. Wood)
John Beck (D. Dodds)
Duante Culpepper (D. Dodds)
Trent Green (C. Smith)
Doug Johnson (Dodds, Henry, Smith)
Dan Orlovsky (C. Smith)
Aaron Rodgers (M. Tremblay)

By projections, Doug Johnson and everybody below are not complete.


RB:
Chris Henry (Henry, Smith)
Tony Hunt (Henry)
Sammy Morris (Henry)
Chris Perry (Dodds)
Jason Wright (Henry)

By projections, Kenton Keith and most everybody below are not complete.


WR:
Drew Bennett (Woods)
Ashley Lelie (Henry)
Ruvell Martin (Smith)
Eric Parker (Smith)
Tab Perry (Smith)
Josh Reed (Woods)
Steve Smith (Smith)

By projections, Antonio Bryant and most everybody below are not complete.

TE:
Randy McMichael (Henry)
Zach Miller (Smith)
Greg Olsen (Smith)
Ben Utecht (Woods)


PK:
Shaun Suisham (Smith)

By projections, Michael Koenen and most everybody below are not complete by Dodds, Smith

Defenses are all present.


I'll let somebody else look at IDP.

Joel