[UPDATE 2-21, 12:26 AM]
Hi Folks,
We have created an official updates page for the PFM and have filled requests for the raw data downloadable in CSV and TAB formats. There were also a few other minor updates that you'll see on that updates page.
Thanks!
[UPDATE 2-17, 6:43 PM]
We did some tinkering under the hood of the PFM between setting it live and right now, based on comments from you, the reader.
- Fixed the bug in inflation that kept the system from remembering dollar values and didn't let users release players back into the pool.
- Changed positions and scoring categories to a form instead of plain text after initial output.
- The Show/Hide feature set now remembers which sections you want to show and hide.
- There are now "Update" buttons in every section.
- Inflation tooltips have been added to the output section.
We've still got some things we're going to be adding–for one, we'll be adding my (meaning Marc's) rankings to the PFM as an optional column, so you can refer to the tiers I ranked players in just like you would refer to auction dollar values. Leave questions, concerns or ideas in the comments.
There seems to be some concern that the projections in the PFM are based on 2010 data–that is not the case. You can see at the top of this page, in the biographical section for Hanley Ramirez, that his 2011 projection is present. That's the same projection you will find here on the Marlins' depth chart page and in the PFM, were you to look for Mr. Ramirez.
That being said, the 2010 projections are still present on the player cards, in the PECOTA section towards the middle of the page. That data is not anywhere near the PFM though. The PFM is fed by the depth charts, so I hope your fears have been allayed.
-Marc
I'll skip the flowery stuff and just tell you what you came here for:
Enjoy.
(As a note – the PFM and Depth Charts are only available to subscribers.)
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... but when I click "submit PFM parameters" shouldn't something happen? (Are the lights dimming at BP Headquarters as the new servers strain under the load of pent up PFM demand?)
If you are having problems, try changing your "compatibility view." This should also make it so you can reply to comments in the comment-threads.
I could be wrong, but it seemed to help for me just now...
Ben's post fixes the issue of the PFM working for me and I now see the Download CSV tab after I submit parameters. However, I thought that in years past there was a button at the top of the PFM screen that allowed you to download the raw pfmdata file WITHOUT having to submit any particular parameters. In other words, you are downloading the playing time adjusted forecasts which themselves are invariant to PFM parameters. Will such a download link be added, or should I continue to submit default parameters in order to just download the CSV file for the playing time adjusted stats I want while disregarding the player values? I hope I am making sense. And I should add "Thank You" to this post.. I look foward to this release each year.
you used those numbers to calculate or just printed it
on the output.
PLAYER POS LG TEAM AGE $$$ PA IP Inflation R HR RBI SB OPS
Mccann, Brian C NL ATL 27 $123.96 551 73 19 71 4 .821
ok I'm confused. The PFM, the PECOTA spreadsheet, and Aubrey Huff's player page all have him putting up almost identical lines, but Huff's player page says they're 2010 projections. Is the problem that the player page needs to be updated to say 2011?
Otherwise very excited for another year of BP tools, thanks!
Why does PECOTA have the Pirates projected to lose 91 games in 2011?
Thanks BP.
I'll add some help info to the inflation elements for the next rollout to make things a bit more clear. Sorry about that.
thats the way it shows up on his player card too
i dont think it was adding in his expected playing time at DH properly
What's wrong with hits as a category and are the zeros across the board affecting auction values
It occurred to me as soon as I posted my query that I could sort the CSV file alphabetically, enter salaries in an adjacent Excel column, resort by dollar value, and copy the salaries into the PFM: a slightly annoying extra step, but not too terribly time-consuming.
Also perhaps a half-dozen PT% oddities, which I noted in their respective team depth chart comments.
Would be even greater to have holds and QS back, too. Thanks!
2. Also would be happy if you could add quality starts and holds.
3. Is Total Bases coming out weird? When I ran it they were really low, like 168 or something for Pujols, etc.
4. Nice to see you again, PFM.
Nishioka Tsuyoshi 234
Ichiro Suzuki 187
Martin Prado 182
Carlos Gonzalez 182
Ryan Braun 181
Michael Young 180
Hanley Ramirez 180
(Pujols: 19th at 168, two slots behind Omar Infante.)
Meanwhile, here's Jay Jaffe's take on Tsuyoshi three days ago.
"... and let's just say that the initial outlook on their new middle infieldĆ¢ā¬āJapanese import Tsuyoshi Nishioka (no PECOTA yet, though his stats and scouting reports don't compare favorably to Kaz Matsui) and Alexi Casilla (.235 TAv, -0.4 WARP)Ć¢ā¬ā may make them miss Little Nicky Punto."
Uh ... huh?
If you have the positional adjustment turned ON, then it should list enough players to fill all the starting positions you provided at salaries above the minimum salary.
If this is not happening, please email Customer Service. Thanks!
This strikes me as odd: If saves are a category, it should be enough to list 9 "pitchers" and the value of the highest rated RP should be more than a couple of dollars....
Wasn't like this in previous years.
(PFM user since 2004)
The reason it changes when you set a specific RP position is that now the RP's are first compared against each other, whereas with just P positions, all pitchers are compared against all pitchers regardless of position. Since RP's are relatively lesser contributors than SP's, in general, their values will get a boost if you give them their own roster spot and start comparing the elite RP's to the lesser RP's (instead of to the SP's as well).
Hope that helps, and thanks for using PFM.
Under these parameters, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee had auction values in the middle of the pack, just below Josh Beckett, Wandy Rodriguez and Phil Hughes. Their projections were better across the board in all scoring categories, which suggests there is something wrong with the auction value algorithm.
Incidentally, Kila looks to be this year's Colby Lewis (can he really be as good as the projections?) It'll be interesting to see what the magazines and other projection systems say. And here I am at work without my Bill James BIS projection thingamawhoozie. I think I feel a cold coming on . . .
TAv shows up as EQA on the download csv file.
When using SO as a hitter's category, PFM also credits the hitters with the same number of K's but as a pitcher's K category.
It seems like the new WARP has a much higher Replacement Level than traditional WAR. I calculate 723.5 WARP over all players in the database with playing time expected. A replacement level team is about 57 wins. I seem to think this is about 10 more wins than WAR at Fangraphs. Was that the intent?
No IP WARP
P 447 43534 328.9
Pos 403 179637 394.6
723.5
WARP/Team 24.1
Replace W 56.9
Replace W% 0.351
With 724 wins, BPro is coming in at .350. Past articles by Matt and others made me think that BPro was set at .250.
Then I try again, click off 5-10 more guys, then hit update. This time, it just goes back to the beginning with no players removed and they're all on the list.
You guys have major bugs EVERY year when you launch it. It's getting pretty frustrating. I guess I'll come back in a couple weeks and maybe it will work then,
We are always working to improve the PFM and implement user suggestions. If you have input on features that you'd like to see added, please email Customer Service. Thanks for using PFM!
The latest fun glitch is that in the section that shows my players, after hitting update once or twice, it changes all my players salaries to $1. Nice.
Giving up on this for today.
With zero keepers selected for my own and other teams, when switching from "0 - user centric inflation" to "1 user centric inflation" the values of players shift.
But if there are no keepers selected, shouldn't the values stay the same?
(Auction / NL only / 4 x 4 / SGP on / use infation "yes")
If you see it again please email Customer Service with information about how we can repeat the process you went through to get there, and save the output so we can look it up. Thanks!
2011 projections? The numbers you provide on the output
seem to be 2010 projections
That being said, the 2010 projections are still present on the player cards, in the PECOTA section towards the middle of the page. That data is not anywhere near the PFM. The PFM is fed by the depth charts, which have 2011 projections.
If not, can you let us know the correct way to set the parameters so that we can be assured of getting all players downloaded?
Thanks for your help.
His OPS (among other things) seems quite lower than it should as well.
Starting point: Auction / use inflation - yes / user-centric inflation 1
After taken players are entered for both other teams & my team, if I change "user-centric inflation" to "0 - none", my taken (keeper) players disappear. They are neither in the list of other team's keepers nor are they in the available player listing.
These issues arose from version changes of PFM, I am not suggesting there was any user error here. But doing this provides an easy workaround for now (for all of these sorts of issues we've found so far).
However, I understand how you would want to be able to do the tracking without having it impact the calculations, and be able to adjust it to either impact the calculations at a level zero (no impact) up to a level 9 (significant impact). So I will add this separation as a feature request to our list for a subsequent release.
If you have further questions or concerns about the valuation for user centric inflation, feel free to contact Customer Service. Thanks for using PFM!
Why is every announcement relegated to BP Blogs (beta)? Announcements are not blog content, and for that matter, how is a blog in "beta?"
Additionally, I am also pleased to announce that PFM now includes the option to display Marc Normandin's tier rankings for players who have been ranked so far. We will be adding other positions as they are published as well.
We've also gotten positive feedback about the interface updates for points leagues, so we are happy to hear that folks like those changes as well.
If you have other questions, comments or concerns, feel free to contact Customer Service, and thanks for using PFM!
Buried within the comments within a blog post is not the proper location for such information.
1 -- Despite Ben's assertion, I find it very hard to believe that the top closers are worth no more than $2-$3 in leagues with saves. Yes, despite limited impact in other categories. Doesn't align with any other valuation system (including the PFM from 2004-2009)
2 -- Can we please get the ability to adjust league position requirements just like we can with other categories (e.g. salary allocation) after a team is uploaded? I really don't want to have to input 200 players every time I want to see how valuations differ when I use 2 RPs vs 3, etc.
Thanks.
Can you elaborate on what kind of league setting gets you a top closer at $3?
Also, where exactly did Ben assert this, as clearly, it's got to have a very specific condition attached to it.
First, how does the PFM handle straight draft leagues? I'm a little suspicious, because I'm still required to enter a budget even if I select the "Straight draft" option. If I'm in a straight draft league, can I just think of the PFM-generated dollar values as the relative values (with dollars as an arbitrary unit) of the players in the draft? And if so, it seems strange to me that when I scale down my total budget, hitters' budget, pitchers' budget, and minimum bid by the same constant factor, the ranking of players by dollar value changes. Am I misunderstanding something? Any clarification would be awesome.
Also, I feel like I'm missing/overlooking some features. I'm reading others' comments about being able to check off keepers and other selected players, but I don't appear to have that option. Anyone have any idea what the issue is?
You can turn on user centric inflation, which will adjust the relative valuation of scoring categories (but not pay attention to roster spots) for players on your roster compared to the other teams' rosters. For more information, please read the Help/FAQ documentation. If you still have questions, please email Customer Service.
Thanks!
Initially, when I plugged in saves as one of the five standard pitching categories but didn't specfy that I wanted relievers on my roster (instead opting for the standard nine pitchers w/o specifying relievers) the most valuable relievers came out as $2-3. I found this unrealistc, yet Ben said that he didn't think this was a bug. Regardless, it now has the top relievers n the $17-$20 range -- whether I specify 7 SPs and 2 RPs or 9 SPs, so this seems to be fixed.
Also, kudos to Ben and the team for enabling the adjusting of the positions requirements after initial output -- much appreciated.
Overall, despite rough first week of launch, PFM looks better than ever. Now about those player cards.....
I addressed the RP/closer situation before--the most valuable relievers should be in the middle of the pack under typical settings, I believe.
Now, if the league dictated that each team select at most 2 relievers, then I don't see how you will get the top relievers at 17-20$. Maybe if you have 12 teams in an AL-only league? I'd have to work it out.
The fantasy product is blocked at the office (am I the only one? maybe something other than "fantasy" can be in the URL?), so maybe you can try this for me. Re-run forcing 1 RP, 2 RP, 3 RP, 4 RP, and then report back how much the top 6 relievers get under each setting. Just guessing, but I'm thinking the numbers should be something like 7$, 10$, 13$, 16$ respectively. Something like that. It certainly cannot be fixed.
Or, if you want to make it even clearer, do it with 1 SP, 2 SP, 3 SP, 4 SP. You should see a similar situation, where the numbers might be 10$, 14$, 18$, 22$ or something.
Still checking to see if we will be able to download the entire database easily. This would be helpful for those who do not play in leagues that have these parameters (probably most of all Scoresheet leagues).
Thanks for your help.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/pfm/updates.php
BP is obviously making a tremendous effort to listen to what the customer is saying this spring. Your efforts are recognized and appreciated.
That would make the PFM a lot easier for me to use alongside the full PECOTA spreadsheet.
Just a general question - will you post on the update site when depth charts are adjusted? Is there a set schedule that will be followed or just adjusted as things change?
I'd also like to see the SS/Sim values.
Thank you.
When opting to display players with negative value, everyone shows up in the order expected (from highest to lowest $$$ value) when the PFM first loads.
If I manually click to sort by the $$$ column, however, the sort ignores the '-' sign completely, ordering players by absolute value.
E.g., with my current settings, I'm seeing Marcus Thames valued at $-23.31 but ranked directly between Aaron Hill at $23.39 and Justin Morneau at $23.28.
Google yields this potentially-related bug report:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1833234&group_id=162528&atid=824138
my league has a $26 budget with a $0.10 minimum bid instead of $260/$1. whenver i try using $26 money, $0.10 bids, $18 for hitting, $8 for pitching the prices come out very skewed compared to the $260 budget (ie not 1/10th of the price when set to $260/$1/$180/$80). it is not a big deal for me since i can just divide the $260/$1/$180/$80 prices by 10, but may cause problems for leagues with strange budget settings.
It is only half fixed for me. The appropriate values come up for hitters, but pitcher values seem to have a $1.03 ceiling. That is, the most valuable 175 players are hitters despite my allocating $8 of $26 to pitching.
Without exception, the Colorado pitcher rate stats in PFM seem high relative other forecasts.
Here are ERA/WHIP projections from PFM. I won't list other systems (i.e. marcel, oliver, etc) comparable projections, but from my quick review they are uniformly lower than these:
Ubaldo: 3.94 / 1.38
Hammel: 5.06 / 1.48
de la Rosa: 5.01 / 1.50
Btw, you guys guys have done a great job addressing customers' idiosyncratic requests since the launch. And since the working out the obvious kinks you've have really exceeding my expectations. Thank you.