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Projections... (1 Viewer)

MG345

Footballguy
I have been messing around with my Excel sheets recently. I have never done projections, mostly just ranking guys into tiers, but with football so far away I needed something to fill the void. I started to make some basic projection type formulas based on past performance, and I realized that they are so arbitrary that it is about the same as me just guessing.

I know a lot of people use projections, I was just wondering how and what type of formulas/data you use? I have tried using moving averages, etc, but they don't take into account a player improving. What do you suggest?

 
I have been messing around with my Excel sheets recently. I have never done projections, mostly just ranking guys into tiers, but with football so far away I needed something to fill the void. I started to make some basic projection type formulas based on past performance, and I realized that they are so arbitrary that it is about the same as me just guessing.I know a lot of people use projections, I was just wondering how and what type of formulas/data you use? I have tried using moving averages, etc, but they don't take into account a player improving. What do you suggest?
I start out with top 200 at each position (more or less - less for TEs and QBs), take year-2 stats and multiply by one third, then take year-1 stats and multiply by two thords and then add the result. After that I fudge it based on playe4r movement, coach movement, gut feeling etc.PK's I don't bother with at all.ETA" the reason I do top 200 is I participate in a 32 team league with 25 roster spots, smaller leagues would need less players
 
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I have tried using moving averages, etc, but they don't take into account a player improving.
The trick is to be aware of what your formula takes into account and what it doesn't -- and then make adjustments by hand to account for the stuff that your formula doesn't consider.A very simple formula would be: Performance in Year N = Performance in Year N-1.

This takes into account nothing other than last year's stats. That's okay, but it means you will have to make a lot of manual adjustments for each player.

Another formula is to start with last year's stats, and then regress them toward the mean by an amount you determine to be reasonable based on data from previous years. You can do this for each stat individually rather than for fantasy points. Some stats, like TDs, will be regressed a lot more than others, like yards.

Getting slightly more complicated, you could use regression analysis to do projections in one statistical category based on a player's performance the previous year in many different statistical categories. For example, let's say we want to project a player's rushing TDs for this year. It might turn out that his rushing yards from last year will be even more important than his rushing TDs from last year, for purposes of making this projection, but his yards per reception, his team's winning percentage, and a bunch of other stats will be useful as well. Regression analysis can figure all this stuff out for you and give you a formula that you would have never come up with on your own.

You can keep adding in other variables like age, changes to the offensive line, and so on. Theoretically, you could use a program that takes every bit of available information into account and then spits out a projection that you cannot improve on by making any manual adjustments to it.

But that's just theoretical :lmao: stuff. As a practical matter, you will still have to use your own head and your own subjective judgment quite a bit.

Regardless of everything I wrote after my first paragraph in this post, I actually think a perfectly good "formula" is just to use last year's stats as a starting point.

Then look at a player's previous history to put last year's stats in context. If a guy rushed for 5.2 yards per carry last year, that seems pretty high, and is likely to come down next year just because of normal regression to the mean. (Regression to the mean deserves at least a few paragraphs of its own. I won't get into it here, but it is not magic or voodoo. It is a normal phenomenon that can be explained mathematically.) So if all you know is that he rushed for 5.2 ypc last year, you might expect him to rush for something like 4.7 next year. But then if you check the guy's previous history and notice that he rushed for over 5.0 ypc in each of his last four seasons, that 5.2 doesn't look like an aberration anymore. It seems like a reasonable prediction for the following year as well.

After you look at what a player did last year and put it into the context of what he's done before that in his career, you can start considering things like his age, his health, and so on.

Is he expected to improve this year, or is he on the downside of his career?

Will his role on the team change this year? Is a new offensive coordinator going to use him differently? Did the team draft a hotshot young player at the same position who will challenge him for playing time?

Did the OL get better or worse?

Will this year's schedule be tougher or easier than last year's?

Etc., etc. Basically, try to consider as many different factors as you can think of, and try to figure out how they'll all fit together to affect how next season will be different from last season.

When you're done, not only will you have a final projection for him that you can reduce down to a three-digit number (e.g., 285 projected fantasy points). But much more importantly, you will have thought about the player's skill level, his role on the team, changes to his coaching and surrounding personnel, and a bunch of other factors that will give you a solid gut feel about his prospects for next season. During the draft, that gut feel may be more important than the three-digit number since it will include info about a player's risk level and other stuff that is not reflected in the final projection but that may nonetheless be important to evaluating how he'll fit in on your fantasy team.

 
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For each team, I try to look at the coaching first (disclaimer: I am not IDP leagues). When possible, I look at the previous 2-3 seasons or previous seasons as coordinator or HC elsewhere. I look at the percentages, then I hand out the touches accordingly. Looking at the Rams in 2006 for instance:

Based on Linehan's history as a playcaller, I expected him to run/pass 55/45. The team had between 960 and 1002 offensive plays on average in 2003-2005. With an increased focus on running, I guessed 1000 plays in 2006. So, 550 pass plays, 450 run.

From there, I expected SJax to get 75% of the offensive carries. He had avg'd 4.1 yds/carry in 2005, so I thought he would get about the same the following year (especially benefiting from fewer draw plays--maybe you disagree with my logic, I am just explaining how I do this quessing/projecting thing). So SJax was projected to get 75% of the 450 rush plays with a 4.0 avg per rush....(330-1330).

Same idea for WRs/TEs/RBs in the passing game....I look at who the QB likes to throw to and determine what percentage of the 550 targets will go to each player, and then account for their catch percentage (taking into account who is throwing--I focused on the historical accuracy/catch percentage in games played by Bulger in 2005, not back-ups)...so Holt was projected to receive 27% of the 550 targets and catch 63% of the balls thrown his way. I use the same means of assessing potential yds per catch as I do the rushers per carry. So expecting Holt to get 13 yds/rec, he was projected for 95-1238.

I use a thought process like Maurile described above for TDs.

After I have projected the rushes and receptions for the RBs/WRs/TEs, the QBs numbers just need to be added up amongst targets, receptions and TDs of the other position players.

I like my projections on paper, but haven't won in 2 years since using this system.

(Edited by Jeff Pasquino to tweak the italics. You use [] not <> on this board, not HTML stuff).

 
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Wow, thank you everyone for the responses, much better than I had expected!

To msommer: I have been trying to incorporate some type of weighting as you have, do you find that the 1/3 and 2/3's works well?

To Maurile: I can see you have put a lot of thought into this. Great post, very insightful. I am seriously copying your post into a text file to go into my fantasy football folder. Much appreciated.

To JerseyH8r: I have been trying to incorporate some non-player-statistical info like head coaching changes and offensive philosophy (No IDP's in my main league either). Is there a website that you can find this information? While I follow the league as closely as I can, I doubt I could accurately say what each Head Coach and OC's tendencies are.

As of right now, I am applying standard deviation to individual stats and then using that to get a range of projections. In short I am taking standard deviation plus/minus the average of the last six years (or less if the player has fewer years played). That gives me a High and a Low projection, and then I am averaging those two to find a Mid projection.

From there, I am looking at it with real world football knowledge, and noting whether or not the player will fall within the High to Mid, Mid to Low, etc. I realize that projections cannot be 100% accurate, that is part of the reason I am doing a range.

What do you guys think of this method?

Again, thank you all for the responses so far!

OH! Also, I know it doesn't make much sense (lack of data) but what do you do about players with only one year of experience? Do you just guess?

 
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Projections have a place - but don't freak out / stress over them.

The point is to group players in tiers, pick players you like to have good years within those tiers, and get them. Use ADP info as draft day approaches to figure out what values will exist.

Whether a player will get 265 or 275 fantasy points isn't as important as knowing when he'll be likely to be selected and whether you like his upside (and his downside risk) when it is you on the clock.

 
Projections have a place - but don't freak out / stress over them.The point is to group players in tiers, pick players you like to have good years within those tiers, and get them. Use ADP info as draft day approaches to figure out what values will exist.Whether a player will get 265 or 275 fantasy points isn't as important as knowing when he'll be likely to be selected and whether you like his upside (and his downside risk) when it is you on the clock.
I completely agree. Like I said, I have never used projections before and I have done alright without them. I have always done tiers based on my gut feeling, and I would think that on average the tiers I would come up with using projections would be very similar to ones just using intuition and knowledge of the game. But at the same time, it never hurts having another perspective to look at. I think more so than anything, what I am looking for with statistical analysis is trends and consistency. But, just because my formula spits out that Larry Johnson should get a total of 2500 yards doesn't mean he will. It is always good to have a skeptical side when it comes to these things, and to trust your gut feeling on players.
 
Projections have a place - but don't freak out / stress over them.The point is to group players in tiers, pick players you like to have good years within those tiers, and get them. Use ADP info as draft day approaches to figure out what values will exist.Whether a player will get 265 or 275 fantasy points isn't as important as knowing when he'll be likely to be selected and whether you like his upside (and his downside risk) when it is you on the clock.
I completely agree. Like I said, I have never used projections before and I have done alright without them. I have always done tiers based on my gut feeling, and I would think that on average the tiers I would come up with using projections would be very similar to ones just using intuition and knowledge of the game. But at the same time, it never hurts having another perspective to look at. I think more so than anything, what I am looking for with statistical analysis is trends and consistency. But, just because my formula spits out that Larry Johnson should get a total of 2500 yards doesn't mean he will. It is always good to have a skeptical side when it comes to these things, and to trust your gut feeling on players.
Agreed, but it helps when a guy "pops up". That alone forced me to grab Michael Vick in several drafts last year.
 
Projections have a place - but don't freak out / stress over them. Whether a player will get 265 or 275 fantasy points isn't as important as knowing when he'll be likely to be selected and whether you like his upside (and his downside risk) when it is you on the clock.
I'm still new at this, but I think this is exactly right. I'll look at the past numbers (my own concoctions) to get an idea of who's talented and the situation they're in, but after that it's a qualitative evaluation of upside vs downside risk. I don't bother trying to project exact totals. My system seem to end up with a fair number of players who are relatively undifferentiated from the rest of guys in their tier, but that's ok with me. What I'm trying to do is avoid the guys with big downside risk and grab as many guys with big upside possibilities as possible. All vs ADP, of course.Last year I avoided Edge altogether, and grabbed Gore in every draft I could. Not because I was sure I was right or I had accurate projections, but because I thought the risks were so unbalanced. I'm looking for guys who, as Jeff calls it, "pop out" -- both good and bad.
 
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Yeah, I agree. My first couple of years I worked out all sorts of stats, projections, etc. until I realized what a colossal waste of time it was. Now I just go off of tiers and gut feel, and it works out ok.

However, as the original poster pointed out, projections are not necessarily a waste of time in March thru May when you need a fantasy football fix ;-)

 
...I have always done tiers based on my gut feeling, and I would think that on average the tiers I would come up with using projections would be very similar to ones just using intuition and knowledge of the game. ...
I think projections are likely to give you a better feel for the size of the gap between tiers.The other place I think they are a benefit comes if you project a team at a time instead of individual players. I've found if I project a player at a time, I'm likely to under-project the low end players. If I project the entire team at once then I have to do a better job accounting for the fact that the team is going to have 400+ rushes and those carries have to happen somewhere. Sometimes I'll find a guy ending up higher ranked than I'd had thought of him as an individual only because I saw him getting a workload I hadn't taken into account.Which is a seque to saying I really like projecting by team instead of using a formula. What was previously said, I put down the last few years of stats for the players on the team and the team itself (total carries, etc), and then I start factoring in what happened last year, what has changed this year, and come up with a number.
 
I think more so than anything, what I am looking for with statistical analysis is trends and consistency.
You're not going to find that in fantasy football. Not in any form that you can rely on.My advice is that if you're used to ranking players based on gut, you've got to incorporate that directly in your approach. If you don't, it's going to sneak into your numbers subconsciously anyway, which would make your supposedly objective number crunching almost worthless. Instead, start with the player's stats from last year, then adjust them up or down for a variety of factors that may be either subjective or objective. For example, you'll also want to look at previous years' stats and account for them to the degree that it makes sense for any given player, but do this on a case-by-case basis; a one-size-fits-all formula is going to get you nowhere.Don't waste your time with your own regressions at first; there is plenty of that sort of analysis on Footballguys, Doug Drinen's blog, and elsewhere, so see what has already been done and what has (and has not) been studied already. Besides, as in the stock market, past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results, and more often than not, the sample size is too small to draw any significant conclusions.There's nothing wrong with adding some quantitative analysis to your arsenal, but don't expect that you'll find some mathematical formula that will outweigh your gut.
 
Which is a seque to saying I really like projecting by team instead of using a formula. What was previously said, I put down the last few years of stats for the players on the team and the team itself (total carries, etc), and then I start factoring in what happened last year, what has changed this year, and come up with a number.
I really like this idea. Really similar to factoring in HC and OC tendencies/philosophies. The way I have my stats setup in Excel (using pivot tables) I can easily select all of a certain position (say RBs) and add up their carries, yards, etc, to get a team total...so I don't see this being to hard to implement into player projections.
abrecher said:
You're not going to find that in fantasy football. Not in any form that you can rely on.My advice is that if you're used to ranking players based on gut, you've got to incorporate that directly in your approach. If you don't, it's going to sneak into your numbers subconsciously anyway, which would make your supposedly objective number crunching almost worthless. Instead, start with the player's stats from last year, then adjust them up or down for a variety of factors that may be either subjective or objective. For example, you'll also want to look at previous years' stats and account for them to the degree that it makes sense for any given player, but do this on a case-by-case basis; a one-size-fits-all formula is going to get you nowhere.Don't waste your time with your own regressions at first; there is plenty of that sort of analysis on Footballguys, Doug Drinen's blog, and elsewhere, so see what has already been done and what has (and has not) been studied already. Besides, as in the stock market, past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results, and more often than not, the sample size is too small to draw any significant conclusions.There's nothing wrong with adding some quantitative analysis to your arsenal, but don't expect that you'll find some mathematical formula that will outweigh your gut.
I definitely agree, as I said in my first post any forumla that I am coming up with is basically so arbitrary that it would be the same as guessing. I've followed football for a long time, and have been playing fantasy football now for 10 years. That experience alone probably gives me a better understanding of where players fall in rankings than any formula or projections could. But, when it is this time of year, I tend to get antsy and need to get my football fix. I have always keep track of stats, and I personally think knowing what HAS happened gives you a better understanding of what WILL happen. Of course no projections are accurate, that is why they are called projections. And as for suscribing to to any Fantasy Football site, I would love to but it is hard for me to justify spending money on it. Maybe if I was in a high stakes league, where losing really hurt, I would suscribe. But for now I am happy piddling with my own rankings, and getting insight advice where I can find it.
 

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