What do you think of Crank Score? (1 Viewer)

[fflmonster]

Here is a link on crank scoring:

http://www.fftoday.com/articles/waldman/07...projections.htm

Has anyone found this to be useful.

It seems that this could be a good way to decide between players in the same tier.

Example: i have m. colston and tj housh in the same tier BUT tj housh higher then colston.

here is colston's crank for last year using wcoff scoring (ppr):

rk name tm gms crank av/g %<21.46pts %<17.46pts %>17.46pts

4. Marques Colston NO 16 28.86 17.76 37.50% 56.25% 43.75%

here is tj housh's crank for last year:

7. T.J. Houshmandzadeh CIN 16 24.58 18.73 31.25% 50.00% 50.00%

this says that colston is the more consistent player and thus in a HEAD TO HEAD league colston should be the correct pick.

However Houshmandzadeh scored more points.

HAS FOOTBALLGUYS EVER THOUGH OF ADDING THIS OPTION TO DRAFT DOMINATOR?

 

[Riffraff]

HAS FOOTBALLGUYS EVER THOUGH OF ADDING THIS OPTION TO DRAFT DOMINATOR?

It's copyrighted material and from a competitor FF site. So probably not without the expressed written consent (and payment) to Wildman/Waldman.

 

[obxlegends]

HAS FOOTBALLGUYS EVER THOUGH OF ADDING THIS OPTION TO DRAFT DOMINATOR?

It's copyrighted material and from a competitor FF site. So probably not without the expressed written consent (and payment) to Wildman/Waldman.

I've been doing something similar to CRANK for years. It values consistency above a player's overall score. I admit my formula isn't as well thought out or in-depth as theirs is, but there's something to be said for it.Funny you bring this up with morning as I just read the article last night in Fantasy Football Pro Forecast magazine.

I'm a little surprised it hasn't been addressed before now, at least that I've seen.

 

[obxlegends]

HAS FOOTBALLGUYS EVER THOUGH OF ADDING THIS OPTION TO DRAFT DOMINATOR?

It's copyrighted material and from a competitor FF site. So probably not without the expressed written consent (and payment) to Wildman/Waldman.

I'm not sure you can copyright a math formula.

 

[Wildman]

I think it's an interesting way to look at historical performance, but as a stand-alone model for predicting future performance it's not there yet. I use it for my personal draft and share my experiments with readers, but I need to continue looking at ways to create/identify a more systematic method for projecting consistency. I've had success with it, but I have to admit I haven't turned the projections part into a clear cut systematic process as done with AVT or VBD.

 

[Mike]

I think it really highlights who the valuable players were in FF in prior years by knocking down guys who ended up with decent end of year stats but either (a) hit it big statistically for a couple weeks and were below average the remainder, or (b) players who were just ho-hum the entire season never getting into the #1 or Elite category.

Chad Johnson vs. T.J. Houshmandzadeh is a good example of how the Crank Score works the past 2 seasons. Both end up with very similar end of year stats, but per the Crank, Housh has been more valuable. Housh was a #1 scoring WR in 8 games in 2006 while CJ hit that mark only 5 times. In 2007 Housh hit it 7 times, CJ only 5 again. To me Housh has clearly been more valuable than CJ the last 2 years even though just looking at the end of year numbers don't show that.

To respond to fflmonster's initial post, I do think it a great way to help decide between players in the same tier. That is one obvious application to helping project future performance.

The only thing I'm not sure of is the actual numbers the Crank Score Calculator/formulas spit out and how to draw conclusions from the magnitude of those numbers. Take last year for example between Brady (103)*, Manning (52) and Romo (49). Was Brady really twice as valuable as Manning and Romo? Thats a little hard to believe but maybe it is the case if you think about the number of fantasy games Brady helped teams win vs. the other two. This is why I like to look at the "View Number of Games" stats. This is only a small gripe of mine wrt Crank Scores. Not even a gripe really, just a misunderstanding. Heck, I could say the same thing about the Value numbers spit out by VBD as not having a lot of relevance at face value.

* 12 team, 1 QB starter, standard scoring 4 points per pass TD

 

[Wildman]

To further Mike's point...one thing I like viewing is the percentage of elite, #1, and sub par games players have during a measured period of time. These categories give me options to prioritize data in different ways that can be useful.

 

[David Dodds]

We will publish our consistency ratings as pay material in late July.

Link to last year's article

David

 

[DoubleG]

Here is a link on crank scoring:

http://www.fftoday.com/articles/waldman/07...projections.htm

Has anyone found this to be useful?

Of course. You'd be silly not to take as much available information into account as possible when looking at various players. I use several different sites and their methodologies when judging between players. CRANK scores is a factor - not the only factor, not necessarily the most important one either, but it is definately one I consider as well. No site, even FBG's which I consider the best, is going to have everything - and not every site is going to focus on or value the same things. And that's a good thing. I like reading varying points of view, differening opinions, etc.

 

[fflmonster]

We will publish our consistency ratings as pay material in late July.

Link to last year's article

David

david i looked at your article from last year and although it has some of the consistency rankings, i think it lacks the math.what i would like to see is footballguys create a way to put our stats in a compilier and create how many times a qb scores more then x number, y number and less then z number.

the ability to do this and add it to our notes for the draft dominator could be very impressive.

example: i play in the wcoff.. i want to know how many times each qb in 2005, 2006, 2007 has scored more then 23 pts..18pts and less then 15pts.

this give me a very valuable way of deciding on who i like in the same tier.

 

[gheemony]

Not useful as the sole factor in determining rankings, but a useful tool to distinguish within a tier. I think the math is a little off, but the general results are useful. I think it could be more relevant with some tweaks to the formula.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Evolution?

Its a minor thing at most.

Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.

Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

 

[FantasyTrader]

Evolution? Its a minor thing at most.Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

I'd venture to guess that if you're deep enough into FF to be caring about CRANK scores, you already know most of what it has to tell you on a subconsious level. I'd put this just above bye week checks and just below preseason SOS when attempting to split hairs between players in a tier.But, like others have said, it's one more useful nugget.

 

[AB in DC]

this says that colston iswas the more consistent player and thus in a HEAD TO HEAD league colston should have been the correct pick.

Fixed.Just because a player was more consistent last year, doesn't mean he'll be more consistent this year.

 

[Mike]

Evolution? Its a minor thing at most.Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

I disagree. Even "so called" or self-appointed astute owners need to be hit over the head sometimes to break away from their preconceived biases, and especially to act against those biases. This analysis identifying what players are actually helping fantasy players win the most games vs. players who aren't helping as much as you otherwise think is solid.

 

[geoff8695]

this says that colston iswas the more consistent player and thus in a HEAD TO HEAD league colston should have been the correct pick.

Fixed.Just because a player was more consistent last year, doesn't mean he'll be more consistent this year.

See Chad Johnson 2003-05 vs. Chad Johnson 2006-07 for a perfect example of a player who continues to put up virtually identical stats for several years and does so in very consistent fashion for 3 of the 5 and then very inconsistent fashion for the last 2 of 5 years. This occurs despite similar targets, usage patterns, and virtually the same supporting cast. Pretty tough to draw any useful correlations for future consistency.

Prior to 2006 a 'crank' score would have likely led you to grab CJ because of his consistency. However prior to 2007 a 'crank' score would have warned you not to value CJ as highly as his end of season stats would seem to indicate. Now here we are going into 2008 and the 'crank' score is going to red flag CJ again, right?

Well the problem with that is that there is no gaurantee that CJ will be any more or less consistent going forward, and IMO there isn't nearly as much predictive value in 'crank' scores as some might wish to believe.

 

[tamales]

this says that colston iswas the more consistent player and thus in a HEAD TO HEAD league colston should have been the correct pick.

Fixed.Just because a player was more consistent last year, doesn't mean he'll be more consistent this year.

/end thread

 

[FantasyTrader]

Evolution?

Its a minor thing at most.

Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.

Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

I disagree. Even "so called" or self-appointed astute owners need to be hit over the head sometimes to break away from their preconceived biases, and especially to act against those biases. This analysis identifying what players are actually helping fantasy players win the most games vs. players who aren't helping as much as you otherwise think is solid.

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year. Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Until then, CRANK is just giving me cute historical tidbits to chew on.

 

[GoRaiders]

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year. Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you. Until then, CRANK is just giving me cute historical tidbits to chew on.

We hammered this a few years back on the board and the conclusion was just as mentioned above, nice info to have, but consistency in year X does not predict consistency in year X+1. I would not be drafting a lower ranked player because he had a higher consistency score.

 

[obxlegends]

VBD

ADP

SOS

CRANK

Injury History/Concerns

New Coach/Coordinators

Personnel Changes

Age

These are all useful tools that we fantasy owners use to evaluate and determine what players we want for our teams. CRANK is just a piece of the puzzle.

Does anyone have anything more innovative to add to the list?

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Player Talent Evaluation|||||ADP|VBDPeer Opinions (mass)||Injury History/ConcernsPersonnel Changes|New Coach/CoordinatorsSOS|Age|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||CRANK

 

[fflmonster]

Evolution? Its a minor thing at most.Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

i totally disagree with this statement.i have a tier of moss, wayne and owens.. are you saying your more likely to look at stats alone? please moss has only been good one year, 2007. what has he done before that for the last three years.EVERYONE IS GOING TO HAVE HIM NUMBER ONE.not me.. i have owens, wayne and then moss.. now is this ranking due to crank alone.. NO. like others have said its a piece of the puzzle, but i think is is much higher on MY LIST then the bottom and it is not worthless.but the fact that crank has them also in this order then i have to look at this. BUT I BET YOU WILL DRAFT MOSS AND SAY I AM CRAZY. but we will see in the end who is right.

 

[Lancer4Hire]

Evolution? Its a minor thing at most.Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

i totally disagree with this statement.i have a tier of moss, wayne and owens.. are you saying your more likely to look at stats alone? please moss has only been good one year, 2007. what has he done before that for the last three years.EVERYONE IS GOING TO HAVE HIM NUMBER ONE.not me.. i have owens, wayne and then moss.. now is this ranking due to crank alone.. NO. like others have said its a piece of the puzzle, but i think is is much higher on MY LIST then the bottom and it is not worthless.but the fact that crank has them also in this order then i have to look at this. BUT I BET YOU WILL DRAFT MOSS AND SAY I AM CRAZY. but we will see in the end who is right.

What was Moss' CRANK score going into last year? How would CRANK scoring have helped predict Moss' year last year? That is the point of the counterargument, CRANK in no way predicts who will do better or worse, relative to last year's stats.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

You have a tier of Owens, Wayne, Moss... splendid.

Though crank adds almost nothing to it. It makes virtually no difference. Despite your caps.

 

[AB in DC]

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year.

Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Better yet, someone should study, "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to score more fantasy points than player B this year."The key is to draft the best players, not the most consistent players. If it turns out that an inconsistent player is more (or less) likely to regress the following year, that would be very good to know.

Chase? Doug?

 

[BigSteelThrill]

So you take Wayne over Moss.

And you want to use crank as the crux...

Moss, Randy  NWE 18.00 13.00 7.00 21.00 7.00 4.00 28.00 ----- 18.00 8.00 20.00 9.00 4.00 18.00 19.00 18.00 22.00   8.00 18.00 6.00 8.00 19.00 10.00 7.00 18.00 6.00 20.00 13.00 ----- 10.00 7.00 8.00 7.00 19.00Wayne, Reggie IND

dont get hooked on crank

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

We will publish our consistency ratings as pay material in late July.

Link to last year's article

David

david i looked at your article from last year and although it has some of the consistency rankings, i think it lacks the math.what i would like to see is footballguys create a way to put our stats in a compilier and create how many times a qb scores more then x number, y number and less then z number.

the ability to do this and add it to our notes for the draft dominator could be very impressive.

example: i play in the wcoff.. i want to know how many times each qb in 2005, 2006, 2007 has scored more then 23 pts..18pts and less then 15pts.

this give me a very valuable way of deciding on who i like in the same tier.

You mean like this?2007 QB Games of 24 or more fantasy points

 

[Mike]

Evolution? :(

Its a minor thing at most.

Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.

Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

I disagree. Even "so called" or self-appointed astute owners need to be hit over the head sometimes to break away from their preconceived biases, and especially to act against those biases. This analysis identifying what players are actually helping fantasy players win the most games vs. players who aren't helping as much as you otherwise think is solid.

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year. Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Until then, CRANK is just giving me cute historical tidbits to chew on.

So ultimately you want something to project future performance. What do you use now to project future performance for football? The author himself is not peddling Crank Scores as a be all to end all predictive tool, so I think some of the criticism here and outright dismissal by BigSteelThrill in particular is unfounded.Lets take it back to basics. To me, the Crank Score data helps show me who some better (and worse) players for fantasy are then the end of year stats do. We want to know who the better players are so we can draft them, right? So a review of Crank Scores is a worthwhile exercise. Identifying the "better players" is essentially saying the same thing as the sentence of mine you bolded.

I'm not saying its the only thing to look at or consider, but it has value.

Another point of this thread I think that is a bit off track is the interpretation of consistency. Consistency is a double edged sword. Being extremely consistent is not the goal, unless you can be extremely consistent-good, which is difficult to do. To win at fantasy football, some inconsistency can be a good thing and maybe a great thing.

Take your total team fantasy points for the year over 13 games and divide by 13 to get the average weekly score. If we assume you scored that exact amount every single week, then how did your team do? Probably not great, not terrible. Something in the middle like a 7-6 record. Add some inconsistency (on the good side) where you have 1-2 different players "blow up" for an Elite or #1 score each week across your fantasy schedule, and then all of a sudden your team starts piling on the wins.

The Crank Score is developed in such a way to try to reward good consistency, and penalize bad consistency. I appreciate the thought process behind that.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Add some inconsistency (on the good side) where you have 1-2 different players "blow up" for an Elite or #1 score each week across your fantasy schedule, and then all of a sudden your team starts piling on the wins.

The Crank Score is developed in such a way to try to reward good consistency, and penalize bad consistency. I appreciate the thought process behind that.

That appears to contradict itself.I like inconsistency in some players, as long as I know they are inconsistent. Those big days pay off.

I love shoving MJD and Steve Smith down peoples throats.

As you eluded to, having a CRANK team isnt a title team.

I mean, unless you just have the top guys any way... and then whats the point of crank again?

 

[Mike]

Don't see the contradition and I eluded to no such thing.

Listen, Brady does not have the top Crank Score from '08 because he was absolutely the most consistent player week to week. He has the top Crank Score because he landed in the Elite and #1 category the most often and Subpar the least often. The Crank Score recognizes weekly performance, not just pure consistency.

Now, Brady is not the best example because even looking at the end of year stats one could tell he had a phenomenal year. Go back to my Houshmandzadeh vs. Chad Johnson example from page 1. What did the end of year stats tell you? What does the Crank Score for those players tell you?

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Don't see the contradition and I eluded to no such thing.

Listen, Brady does not have the top Crank Score from '08 because he was absolutely the most consistent player week to week. He has the top Crank Score because he landed in the Elite and #1 category the most often and Subpar the least often. The Crank Score recognizes weekly performance, not just pure consistency.

Now, Brady is not the best example because even looking at the end of year stats one could tell he had a phenomenal year. Go back to my Houshmandzadeh vs. Chad Johnson example from page 1. What did the end of year stats tell you? What does the Crank Score for those players tell you?

Chad is the absolute most inconsistent big wide out in the game - and everyone knows it. *We dont need a catchyname score to tell us that. Unless you are new to the NFL.

Brady was/is the #1 guy, so who cares about the catchyname score. Irrelevant.

Lee Evans is incosistent. We know this. MJD, same thing.

What are you going to do with this? Explain how Amani Toomer is worth more then Ronald Curry?

If you study players and EVALUATE PLAYER TALENT - the catchyname score idea takes care of itself.

Furthermore, if the unknowing (new guy) went by this... they would likely miss out on those players which show the ability to blow up and have monster statistical offerings in the NFL based on those "burst" performances. Instead they draft the fantasy wide receiver who is playing like a tight end 'cause he keeps getting 40 yards - consistently.

And if he already understands that true situation of the player... then whats the point of crank again?

*When I say "We" I mean "I".

 

[GregR_2]

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year.

Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Better yet, someone should study, "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to score more fantasy points than player B this year."The key is to draft the best players, not the most consistent players. If it turns out that an inconsistent player is more (or less) likely to regress the following year, that would be very good to know.

Chase? Doug?

Doug Drinen took a look at this back in 2000 in a follow up to his article The Bell Curve and Fantasy Football.

3.

However, we don't play fantasy football in theory (well, now that I think about it, fantasy football is 100% theoretical, but you know what I mean). How much (if any) actual difference can these factors make in terms of your actual win-loss record? Let's take them one at a time:

1. This is actually the one that appears to have the most impact on your chances of winning a game. However, there's a big problem: we don't know before the season starts who the consistent and inconsistent players are going to be, so we really can't make use of this information. Check out some of the guys who appeared on the Consistent list: Jeff George (??!?!), Marshall Faulk, Derrick Alexander. Likewise, we see names like Elway and Jake Reed on the Inconsistent list. Anyone know whether George is going to be more consistent than Elway next year? Unless you can tell me, the conclusion of this section is useless to you.

Update (7/7/2000): I ran some numbers on this, and it turns out that my guess was on the mark. That is, consistency in year N is a very weak indicator of consistency in year N+1. To be specific, I looked at all players from 1995-1998 who had over 50 fantasy points, and I measured their game-by-game standard deviation for that year and the next year. For RBs, I got a correlation coefficient of .09. For WRs, it was .29, and for QBs, it was -.11. Players who were consistent one year showed no strong tendency to be consistent the following year.

 

[GregR_2]

There's also more on this from a Drinen entry in the FBG's blog from last year. Not sure if this is premium content or not so I'll just link to it (http://blog.footballguys.com/2007/07/16/in-search-of-consistency/) and quote one or two lines:

Which leads us to the second issue: how do you find consistent players?

I’ve studied that issue. A lot. A whole lot. And I always end up concluding that predicting future consistency from past consistency is very difficult if not impossible.

 

[Mike]

Don't see the contradition and I eluded to no such thing.

Listen, Brady does not have the top Crank Score from '08 because he was absolutely the most consistent player week to week. He has the top Crank Score because he landed in the Elite and #1 category the most often and Subpar the least often. The Crank Score recognizes weekly performance, not just pure consistency.

Now, Brady is not the best example because even looking at the end of year stats one could tell he had a phenomenal year. Go back to my Houshmandzadeh vs. Chad Johnson example from page 1. What did the end of year stats tell you? What does the Crank Score for those players tell you?

Chad is the absolute most inconsistent big wide out in the game - and everyone knows it. *We dont need a catchyname score to tell us that. Unless you are new to the NFL.

Brady was/is the #1 guy, so who cares about the catchyname score. Irrelevant.

Lee Evans is incosistent. We know this. MJD, same thing.

What are you going to do with this? Explain how Amani Toomer is worth more then Ronald Curry?

If you study players and EVALUATE PLAYER TALENT - the catchyname score idea takes care of itself.

Furthermore, if the unknowing (new guy) went by this... they would likely miss out on those players which show the ability to blow up and have monster statistical offerings in the NFL based on those "burst" performances. Instead they draft the fantasy wide receiver who is playing like a tight end 'cause he keeps getting 40 yards - consistently.

And if he already understands that true situation of the player... then whats the point of crank again?

*When I say "We" I mean "I".

Oh you're evaluating player talent. Excuse me. And I thought that is what we were doing through a variety of tools at our disposal. Actually, I take that back. We/I already know all about player talent. What is the point of whatever it is you're doing?

 

[gheemony]

If we're talking evolution, I wish FBG posted similarity scores on each player page or had a similarity score tool. They know how to do it - someone wrote an article about it - but choose not to use it or make it available for use. Would be a great tool.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Oh you're evaluating player talent. Excuse me. And I thought that is what we were doing through a variety of tools at our disposal. Actually, I take that back. We/I already know all about player talent. What is the point of whatever it is you're doing?

Evaluating player talent is the name of the fantasy game.What is my point? I'm answering the original posters question.

In my first post: Crank is a minor thing at most.

Not anything close to a "evolution" of fantasy ball.

FTR: You addressed me. You are the catalyst betwen us, not me. You now seem butthurt.

And if you know player talent, my opinion would be that crank is a waste of preperation time.

Pro Football Fantasy Forecast certainly wasted a lot of page space.

 

[Mike]

Not sure what FTR means. I disagreed with your point and was fine to leave it at that, as I was responding to FantasyTrader's post. You came back with a "I know it all, and what's the point?" response, and then again with the same thing. If you've got nothing new to add then you should expect a sarcastic response sooner or later.

 

[obxlegends]

I don't understand all this hate on the CRANK. It's an available tool. Why not use it? It's up to you of course.

I'm not a math wizard by ANY standard, but yesterday I tried to develop my own/newer version of the CRANK just to see if it was worthwhile. Now granted, as some have pointed out, a lot of us sharks have built in CRANK in our brains. The numbers are only going to confirm what we may already know.

With that said I give you two WR's.

Kevin Curtis - 77cathes 1110yds 6td 65.80 Total Points (my league uses fractions for categories.)

Santonio Holmes - 52 catches 959yds 8td 56.72 Total Points

As I said I was trying to update my formula. I compiled that average game for the combined WR starters in our league (30) plus the (10) flex positions we use and the average scoring game for us is 4.1 points per game.

With that Curtis: 4 games out of 16 played were 4.1 or greater.

Holmes: 8 games out of 13 played

I know I'm not breaking any new ground here. I know I'm not splitting the atom by showing that Curtis was less consistent than Holmes by a long shot. However, if you didn't have the names attached and were just looking at the stats then most would probably assume that their seasons were similar if not Curtis having a better season. The CRANK showed that they were not. By the way comparing Holmes to Plaxico Burress showed similar results.

As it was said before there no way in telling if a player is going to be consistent from year to year. Unless you were able to correlate it on a more historical basis. I'd have to see if that bares out at all.

My true goal is to adapt this to the IDP side of the ball where CRANK may be a bit harder to account for at first hand.

 

[obxlegends]

One more thing, I would use CRANK a lot like Baseball uses Quality Starts. It's just another tool to evaluate.

 

[AB in DC]

Better yet, someone should study, "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to score more fantasy points than player B this year."

The key is to draft the best players, not the most consistent players. If it turns out that an inconsistent player is more (or less) likely to regress the following year, that would be very good to know.

Chase? Doug?

Doug Drinen took a look at this back in 2000 in a follow up to his article The Bell Curve and Fantasy Football.

3.

However, we don't play fantasy football in theory (well, now that I think about it, fantasy football is 100% theoretical, but you know what I mean). How much (if any) actual difference can these factors make in terms of your actual win-loss record? Let's take them one at a time:

1. This is actually the one that appears to have the most impact on your chances of winning a game. However, there's a big problem: we don't know before the season starts who the consistent and inconsistent players are going to be, so we really can't make use of this information. Check out some of the guys who appeared on the Consistent list: Jeff George (??!?!), Marshall Faulk, Derrick Alexander. Likewise, we see names like Elway and Jake Reed on the Inconsistent list. Anyone know whether George is going to be more consistent than Elway next year? Unless you can tell me, the conclusion of this section is useless to you.

Update (7/7/2000): I ran some numbers on this, and it turns out that my guess was on the mark. That is, consistency in year N is a very weak indicator of consistency in year N+1. To be specific, I looked at all players from 1995-1998 who had over 50 fantasy points, and I measured their game-by-game standard deviation for that year and the next year. For RBs, I got a correlation coefficient of .09. For WRs, it was .29, and for QBs, it was -.11. Players who were consistent one year showed no strong tendency to be consistent the following year.

This really addresses the original question (past consistency predicting future consistency), not my question (past consistency predicting future total points).For example, if someone ran a regression on FP using both Consistency(year N-1) and FP(year N-1), that might show whether past inconsistency would imply the player would improve or regress in the following year.

 

[Doug Drinen]

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year.

Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Better yet, someone should study, "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to score more fantasy points than player B this year."The key is to draft the best players, not the most consistent players. If it turns out that an inconsistent player is more (or less) likely to regress the following year, that would be very good to know.

Chase? Doug?

Doug Drinen took a look at this back in 2000 in a follow up to his article The Bell Curve and Fantasy Football.

3.

However, we don't play fantasy football in theory (well, now that I think about it, fantasy football is 100% theoretical, but you know what I mean). How much (if any) actual difference can these factors make in terms of your actual win-loss record? Let's take them one at a time:

1. This is actually the one that appears to have the most impact on your chances of winning a game. However, there's a big problem: we don't know before the season starts who the consistent and inconsistent players are going to be, so we really can't make use of this information. Check out some of the guys who appeared on the Consistent list: Jeff George (??!?!), Marshall Faulk, Derrick Alexander. Likewise, we see names like Elway and Jake Reed on the Inconsistent list. Anyone know whether George is going to be more consistent than Elway next year? Unless you can tell me, the conclusion of this section is useless to you.

Update (7/7/2000): I ran some numbers on this, and it turns out that my guess was on the mark. That is, consistency in year N is a very weak indicator of consistency in year N+1. To be specific, I looked at all players from 1995-1998 who had over 50 fantasy points, and I measured their game-by-game standard deviation for that year and the next year. For RBs, I got a correlation coefficient of .09. For WRs, it was .29, and for QBs, it was -.11. Players who were consistent one year showed no strong tendency to be consistent the following year.

While I don't really blame Doug v2000 for running and publishing this study, Doug v2008 wouldn't find it very convincing. It's just a really tricky issue. I have studied it a lot, and I do still believe that week-to-week consistency is so difficult to predict that you're probably better off not trying to predict it. But I still haven't figured out a clear way to demonstrate that.

 

[obxlegends]

While I don't really blame Doug v2000 for running and publishing this study, Doug v2008 wouldn't find it very convincing. It's just a really tricky issue. I have studied it a lot, and I do still believe that week-to-week consistency is so difficult to predict that you're probably better off not trying to predict it. But I still haven't figured out a clear way to demonstrate that.

We can predict to a degree of certainty that players like Tomlinson, Brady, Manning and Gonzalez will be huge scorers year in a year out. I would also imagine (I have no proof) that they have very high CRANK scores. But couldn't we use CRANK to determine how soft a players point total is year in and year out? There has to be a list of guys who's numbers are bloated year in and year out by a % of big games/plays. Guys like Rob Moore, Devery Henderson, Santana Moss strike me as candidates. I think it would also be helpful in discovering trends from 1st to 2nd year, 2nd to 3rd year players and etcetera. If you wanted to get more geeky I'm sure you could possibly discover trends inside of certain types of offenses and maybe some tied to specific offensive coordinators or philosophies. I only wish I was smarter and less A.D.D. to do a thorough search.

 

[Wildman]

As the guy who wrote the "waste of space" article for Fantasy Pro Forecast (no biggie BigSteelThrill, your right to feel that way. I hope you found it worthwhile to build paper airplanes or line a birdcage)...I think the underlying point of writing something along these lines is to continue to push the envelope and experiment with ways of looking at things from another perspective.

While I'm sure some people have the memory to view a table of 50 players and calculate in their head which player was more consistent than another, I'm not one of those guys and the Crank score was really a shorthand to incorporate a variety of data into one number. The season to season consistency thing is very tricky, because there are so many variables to consider, but neither the other methods I've seen don't do any better. Some organize the data well, but you still have to pick the right player for the correct slot and there's tons of variables out there.

Is it interesting to view. From the hundreds of e-mails I get about it every year, I'd say that many tend to think so--and that's the point.

 

[GregR_2]

As the guy who wrote the "waste of space" article for Fantasy Pro Forecast (no biggie BigSteelThrill, your right to feel that way. I hope you found it worthwhile to build paper airplanes or line a birdcage)...I think the underlying point of writing something along these lines is to continue to push the envelope and experiment with ways of looking at things from another perspective. While I'm sure some people have the memory to view a table of 50 players and calculate in their head which player was more consistent than another, I'm not one of those guys and the Crank score was really a shorthand to incorporate a variety of data into one number. The season to season consistency thing is very tricky, because there are so many variables to consider, but neither the other methods I've seen don't do any better. Some organize the data well, but you still have to pick the right player for the correct slot and there's tons of variables out there. Is it interesting to view. From the hundreds of e-mails I get about it every year, I'd say that many tend to think so--and that's the point.

I haven't read through all the articles yet since first seeing this last night.Can you summarize or give the link that shows what you've done to show that consistency is a valid predictor of what you're trying to predict, that such a system would be something we can expect would improve projections?

 

[Wildman]

See post #5 Greg R...I use it as something to talk about what's happened historically and then share my attempts to incorporate it into a predictive system. Again, I've had success, but much like BigSteelThrill alludes to, much of that probably comes from my experience evaluating players. I continue to experiment with it and I'm sure if I come up with something that has a plug and play quality to the process, I'll make it known

 

[FantasyTrader]

Evolution?

Its a minor thing at most.

Astutue owners know the far ends of the spectrum already.

Maybe for the new players who dont know much about the NFL.

I disagree. Even "so called" or self-appointed astute owners need to be hit over the head sometimes to break away from their preconceived biases, and especially to act against those biases. This analysis identifying what players are actually helping fantasy players win the most games vs. players who aren't helping as much as you otherwise think is solid.

Is it though? One thing I'd like to see is a study looking back on CRANK scores to evaluate their effectiveness in actually determining who will be the more consistent scorer THIS year. Maybe that study has already been done and if it shows that; "when player A is more consistent than player B last year, then he is more likely to be more consistent than player B this year as well" - then I'm ready to hop on board with you.

Until then, CRANK is just giving me cute historical tidbits to chew on.

So ultimately you want something to project future performance. What do you use now to project future performance for football? The author himself is not peddling Crank Scores as a be all to end all predictive tool, so I think some of the criticism here and outright dismissal by BigSteelThrill in particular is unfounded.Lets take it back to basics. To me, the Crank Score data helps show me who some better (and worse) players for fantasy are then the end of year stats do. We want to know who the better players are so we can draft them, right? So a review of Crank Scores is a worthwhile exercise. Identifying the "better players" is essentially saying the same thing as the sentence of mine you bolded.

I'm not saying its the only thing to look at or consider, but it has value.

Another point of this thread I think that is a bit off track is the interpretation of consistency. Consistency is a double edged sword. Being extremely consistent is not the goal, unless you can be extremely consistent-good, which is difficult to do. To win at fantasy football, some inconsistency can be a good thing and maybe a great thing.

Take your total team fantasy points for the year over 13 games and divide by 13 to get the average weekly score. If we assume you scored that exact amount every single week, then how did your team do? Probably not great, not terrible. Something in the middle like a 7-6 record. Add some inconsistency (on the good side) where you have 1-2 different players "blow up" for an Elite or #1 score each week across your fantasy schedule, and then all of a sudden your team starts piling on the wins.

The Crank Score is developed in such a way to try to reward good consistency, and penalize bad consistency. I appreciate the thought process behind that.

No no. I don't "want" Crank score to do anything for me. I'm not the one arguing pro-crank for future draft benefits. It's YOUR job to prove it's usefulness (since you're arguing it's useful). Here's my point:First, a quote by you, Mike.

To me, the Crank Score data helps show me who some better (and worse) players for fantasy are then the end of year stats do. We want to know who the better players are so we can draft them, right?

No. I think there's been enough analysis on this to conclude that crank offers little to no predictive value. Given that, Big Steel Thrill and I are on the same page. We keep coming back to the same question that you are struggling to answer. How is crank helping you to "know who the better players are so you can draft them"? The reason you're struggling to give an answer is because it contradicts your false belief.

But I'm probably wrong.