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Thread: Yahoo! Player Rankings

  1. #1
    Smurf54's Avatar
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    Default Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Does anyone have any thoughts on the Yahoo player ranking system? GM's in our league (format in signature), seem to rely very heavily on it when evaluating players and making trades. Although I have done no formal analysis (that would be over my head), I find the results sometimes appear flawed, and are heavily skewed by +/-, in particular. One example of this can be found below when comparing Chabot and Fox - current season stats below.

    Chabot: 2019/20 Season Rank = 202. 6 G, 29 A, -19, 38 PIM, 11 PPP, 72 HIT, 80 BLK.

    Fox: 2019/20 Season Rank = 73. 7 G, 28 A, +21, 28 PIM, 13 PPP, 31 HIT, 85 BLK.

    As you can see, Chabot and Fox have nearly identical offensive metrics, comparable blocks, and Chabot is stronger in both HIT and PIM. The only meaningful advantage Fox has so far this year, is his +/-, which is substantially better. However, I struggle to see how this alone can justify Fox being ranked 129 players higher than Chabot.

    Another GM in our league just dropped E. Karlsson, who is currently injured and ranked 278 (his IR+ is full, but he is keeping another injured player who is meaningfully weaker than Karlsson, but has a higher ranking). In a 10-team league where each team gets to keep 13 players at the end of the season, it's hard to imagine ever dropping Karlsson, despite his recent challenges. And I will certainly be placing a waiver bid for him.

    Thoughts? Do you find the Yahoo current season rankings credible/useful?
    12 Teams, 23 Players (max 3 goalies), H2H, Keep 15 (max 2 goalies)
    2C, 2RW, 2LW, 2F, 1U, 4D, 2G, 8 Bench, 2 IR+
    G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, HIT, BLK, W, SV, SV%, SHO

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  2. #2
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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    plus minus is a category which when factored into a league's scoring can alter rankings a lot. I do not know why people get hung up on it but this is my best guess in that Chabot will be of no help in that category. Plus minus means nothing, before I eliminated from my league I would win seasons where my team collective plus minus at year's end was around -110.
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    (G,A,PIM,PPP,GWG,FOW,SOG,HIT, BLK)(W,SV,SO,GAA,SV%)

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    G:Jarry,Ingram,Kotchetkov
    IR:Murphy,Rust,Guentzel

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    G(4),A(2),PIM(1),PPP(2),SHP(3.5),GWG(2),SOG(.5),FO W(.25),FOL(-.25),HIT(.75),BLK(.5) G:W(6)L(-4)GA(-2)SV(.5)SHO(4)

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    RW:​ Tippett,Boldy,Meier
    D: Josi,McAvoy,Carlson,Theodore,Faber,Montour,Sanderson
    G: Shest,Kotchetkov
    IR: Zegras,Norris,Vilardi,Kempe

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    I do not look at them at all after the draft. I really have no idea how they value different categories so I just try to consider what I need vs what players offer.

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    From what I can tell, what they do is value the player's input in each category vs the total of that stat across the league for the entire season. So goals get valued more than shots because there are fewer of them.
    As a result, I think +/- gets valued a little too highly, because it's an oddball stay that doesn't actually get far above or below zero (SHG, ENG and others cause it to actually fluctuate away from zero).
    I look at the rankings because I have come to understand what they show, but it's just a tool in helping make decisions, not a be all and end all ranking number.
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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    The rankings are stupid. So if the sheep in your league blindly follow it, you should find plenty of opportunities...

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Quote Originally Posted by als_revenge View Post
    The rankings are stupid. So if the sheep in your league blindly follow it, you should find plenty of opportunities...
    Al's a bit grumpy today (:

    However he makes a point, rankings are to be taken with a grain of salt and can serve as a starting point but you had better do your own homework or........you could be one of those sheep.
    14 Team Roto; Keep 25; 12 F, 6 D, 2 G; 10 Farm; 5 Bench; 5 IR;

    Salary Cap - 102.5 Mil

    Scoring Cats: G, A, Pts, PIM, Hits, BS, SOG, F Points, D Points; Win+Ties+SO, GAA, SV%

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    F: Aho, Larkin, DeBrincat, Vrana, Bennett, Scheifele, Kakko,Tolvanen, McBain,

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba55 View Post
    Al's a bit grumpy today (:

    However he makes a point, rankings are to be taken with a grain of salt and can serve as a starting point but you had better do your own homework or........you could be one of those sheep.
    Fox and Chabot rankings = he's doing his homework

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    They are definitely skewed to power play points. So a guy that can help across a lot of cats would have to play power play. Not really sure beyond that. I'm surprised about the fox v. chabot stats. Good job.

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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Anytime you see default rankings like that for rotisserie style scoring, they are almost always going to be using some flavor of the tried and true method of accounting for stat production by category, as others have said.

    What makes hockey very, very funky, is that there are likely lots of ways to try and parse +/- into that, and every single one of them is going to be flawed in some way.

    The default methodology is simple: Amount of X produced/divided by total amount of X in expected player pool (sometimes just using league if league is deep enough). Most of the time you get a reasonable result, as in Ovechkin scores 50 goals out of however many the league total is, and he scores some % of the goals.

    The problems with +/- is are:

    1. That denominator for the whole league is not a positive number. Last year it was -106, this year it's -57 so far. This is based on hockey-reference's stat totals. (I pulled out the totals rows, but this still seems high in terms of absolute value, I was expecting something closer to zero.)
    2. The numerator is also often not positive, and can range widely.
    3. The stat is often pretty dang random.

    So what one has to do to get a sensible result is to massage the numbers in some way to deal with that, and there are numerous ways to do it, but all have inherent biases. In your case, I'd go with your gut, and use what you know about the league to take advantage. I'd grab Karlsson.

    I'd expect their rankings in non +/- leagues to work out much better.
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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Fantasy Hockey Geek I find is a great way to input stats but remove something like +/-. Gives you a clearer picture
    Keep 3 League, 14 team H2H, Roster: 6F, 4D, 4BN, 2G
    Cats: G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, PIM, HITS, BLKS, W, GAA, SA, SV%
    F: Matthews, Pastrnak, Hughes, Pettersson, Guentzel, Meier, Hyman, Streamer
    D: Dahlin, Carlson, Trouba, Gudas, Larsson
    G: Oettinger, Talbot, Swayman

    One Year League, 10 Team H2H, Roster: 2C, 2LW, 2RW, W, F, 4D, UTIL, 5BN, 2G
    Cats: G, A, PPP, SHP, SOG, SH%, PIM, HITS, BLKS W, GAA, SV, SV%, SHO
    C: McDavid, Thomas, Rossi
    LW: Guentzel, McTavish, Byfield, Huberdeau
    RW: Miller, Barzal, Zuccarello, Schmaltz, Tarasenko
    D: Josi, Seider, Trouba, Gudas, L. Hughes
    G: Oettinger, Demko
    IR: Hamilton

  11. #11
    Stanley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    I always assumed the "current" rank was just a ranking of every player rotisserie style, where every stat counts the same as every other stat, just as they do in most roto or H2H style multi-cat leagues. I was never clear on whether the stats being counted were customized for each league or based on a standard set of stats that may not reflect a player's value in MY league.

    In this case +/- wouldn't overly affect a player's ranking, despite it being a dubious stat to begin with. In leagues that count 'rare' stats like SHP, GWG, SO, etc, I always keep an eye out for how those might be affecting the score, since they aren't as dependably repeatable going forward.

    It never occurred to me they would weight any stats a particular way? Does anyone know for a fact how it's computed?

    The pre-season ranks are always wacked, I ignore those. And yeah, FHG FTW (although they really need to work on site performance, it's often not usable in my experience...)

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Yahoo! Player Rankings

    Playing in different leagues, the rankings also vary by the categories of your individual league:

    Chabot, rank 116, 6G, 33A, 11PPP, 186SOG, 79HIT, 85BLK.
    Fox, rank 170, 8G, 34A, 13PPP, 125 SOG, 35HIT, 92BLK.

    So evaluate what will help each league stats.
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