FIC 2005 Mock Draft Software: Questions and Comments

Posts: 4543 · Posted: Jan 09, 2005 1:35 am

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Questions and Comments

Guest

I know it's not out yet but will it have a lot of the same options as last year? It really helped me test out my drafts last year. Thanks for the time you put into it!!

Posts: 3903 · Posted: Jan 09, 2005 7:59 pm

Sweet... been waiting for this to come out... I am definately looking forward to it.

Posts: 429 · Posted: Jan 09, 2005 10:39 pm

it will be out in approximately two weeks. I am still upgrading the 2005 projections and adding a few features. We will make an announcement when it's ready.

vr

Xeifrank

Posts: 124 · FIC Starter Joined: 03 Nov 2004 Posts: 124

Cool.....this was a big part of my draft prep last year. If you need testing from volunteers or something I'd be glad to help out.

Posts: 1379 · Posted: Jan 11, 2005 10:40 pm

Watch out!! It's spyware!!!!

Just kidding,

Xeifrank, you're amazing coming out with this stuff year after year.

Posts: 429 · Posted: Jan 11, 2005 11:14 pm

darren3 wrote:

Cool.....this was a big part of my draft prep last year. If you need testing from volunteers or something I'd be glad to help out.

I have uploaded the preliminary 2005 version. There will be upgrades made to it, but feel free to test it out and give any feedback for any problems you find.

vr

Xeifrank

Guest

I noticed that the help file says that we should include the following for pitchers:
Lname,Fname,Tm,Pos,IP,ERA,BB,WHIP,W,S,K

but the files that accompany have two more columns. I'm guessing that it should read:
Lname,Fname,Tm,Pos,IP,ERA,BB,WHIP,W,L,S,K,H

Is that correct?

Posts: 429 · Posted: Jan 12, 2005 7:32 pm

no driver wrote:

I noticed that the help file says that we should include the following for pitchers:
Lname,Fname,Tm,Pos,IP,ERA,BB,WHIP,W,S,K

but the files that accompany have two more columns. I'm guessing that it should read:
Lname,Fname,Tm,Pos,IP,ERA,BB,WHIP,W,L,S,K,H

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. The 2004 version has two less pitching categories, that is so I can easily add more pitching categories at a later time. I will update the help file so as not to confuse anyone. FYI, there is a utility found in the Tools menu for editing the player database for both hitters and pitchers. I created this so people wouldn't have to manually edit the ascii file with the projections in it, but you can do it either way... whatever you feel most comfortable with.

vr

Xeifrank

Guest

Still more work with custom projections. I'm not using your built-in editor because it is more efficient for me to import my own text files. I'm not knocking the projections you provide with the software, I've just got my own stuff that I want to use. It's not working but I have several questions that might be playing into it so:

Our league has 9 pitchers, but it doesn't matter how many are starters and how many are relievers. In that case, I select 9 total pitchers, and because it forces me to choose numbers for SP and RP, I set them both at 0. Is this the correct way to handle this situation?

Because our league doesn't care about SP vs RP and the draft software needs a position for each pitcher, I set them all as 3 (1+2). Does the draft software treat pitchers like the batters, where you add the values for the positions together for players eligible at multiple positions? I assume so but I thought it would be safer to ask.

Our league is 4x4. Obviously I can draft 5x5 and then cut out K and R from the standings, but since the computer will be making choices based on projected values for those two categories, I decided to set them all to 0. I have my 5x5 projections, which load up fine. I opened them up in excel (which I used to create the working 5x5s in the first place) and set the columns for Runs and Ks to 0, saved these as new files. Depending on what order I try and load the 4x4 pitcher and hitter files, I either get a Run-time Error '6' or a Run-time Error '11'. I've tried setting all the runs and strikeouts to be 1 instead of 0 to be sure that wasn't causing the problem. I've also tried changing the projection files provided to set the runs and strikeouts to be a constant value and still get this problem.

Is there anything else I can do that will accomplish my goal or is it beyond the scope of the software? I'm currently running version 1.13.

thanks in advance :) It's been interesting so far to see how far ahead my team is based on projected keepers around the league at the beginning of the draft, and how far I fall by the end when the computer is selecting... even when I pick the player that will boost me most in the standings according to the advice. So far with a commanding lead throughout most of the draft, I've fallen to 4th or 5th place most of the time.

Posts: 429 · Posted: Jan 14, 2005 1:04 am

no driver wrote:

Our league has 9 pitchers, but it doesn't matter how many are starters and how many are relievers. In that case, I select 9 total pitchers, and because it forces me to choose numbers for SP and RP, I set them both at 0. Is this the correct way to handle this situation?

Because our league doesn't care about SP vs RP and the draft software needs a position for each pitcher, I set them all as 3 (1+2). Does the draft software treat pitchers like the batters, where you add the values for the positions together for players eligible at multiple positions? I assume so but I thought it would be safer to ask.

The way I would do this is set number of SPs and RPs to 0 and number of 'All Pitchers' to 9. I think the way you did it would work too, but that might be more work than necessary. 'All Pitchers' = 9 should work!

Quote:

Our league is 4x4. Obviously I can draft 5x5 and then cut out K and R from the standings, but since the computer will be making choices based on projected values for those two categories, I decided to set them all to 0. I have my 5x5 projections, which load up fine. I opened them up in excel (which I used to create the working 5x5s in the first place) and set the columns for Runs and Ks to 0, saved these as new files.

Hey, that's pretty smart. I think that should work for a 4x4 league. Very creative!

Quote:

Depending on what order I try and load the 4x4 pitcher and hitter files, I either get a Run-time Error '6' or a Run-time Error '11'. I've tried setting all the runs and strikeouts to be 1 instead of 0 to be sure that wasn't causing the problem. I've also tried changing the projection files provided to set the runs and strikeouts to be a constant value and still get this problem.

My guess at your problem is that you have the WRONG number of parameters on one of your text ascii lines in the database file that you have edited. Pitcher files should have 13 parameters per line, and hitter files should have 15. If you have one single line with the wrong number of parameters you will get the error that you got. It sounds like you are able to run a mock draft with the files that come with the program, but have this error when using your modified projection file(s)... is this correct? If so, that is most likely your problem. That is why if you manually edit the text ascii files, you have to be very careful, and that is why I provided the utility to do this. Check your files.

Quote:

thanks in advance :) It's been interesting so far to see how far ahead my team is based on projected keepers around the league at the beginning of the draft, and how far I fall by the end when the computer is selecting... even when I pick the player that will boost me most in the standings according to the advice. So far with a commanding lead throughout most of the draft, I've fallen to 4th or 5th place most of the time.

It's very difficult to beat the computer in the mock draft.

Please either email me or post an answer back on if you are able to fix your problem. If not, you can email me your database files, and I can run them through my debugger and find out exactly what your problem is.

thanks for the good post. :)

vr

Xeifrank
xeifrank@yahoo.com

Guest

Quote:

Depending on what order I try and load the 4x4 pitcher and hitter files, I either get a Run-time Error '6' or a Run-time Error '11'. I've tried setting all the runs and strikeouts to be 1 instead of 0 to be sure that wasn't causing the problem. I've also tried changing the projection files provided to set the runs and strikeouts to be a constant value and still get this problem.

My guess at your problem is that you have the WRONG number of parameters on one of your text ascii lines in the database file that you have edited. Pitcher files should have 13 parameters per line, and hitter files should have 15. If you have one single line with the wrong number of parameters you will get the error that you got. It sounds like you are able to run a mock draft with the files that come with the program, but have this error when using your modified projection file(s)... is this correct? If so, that is most likely your problem. That is why if you manually edit the text ascii files, you have to be very careful, and that is why I provided the utility to do this. Check your files.

I've tried my 4x4 method with the hitters05.txt and pitchers05.txt that are included and I still get the same errors. Oddly, there is no error if I don't load both databases. Either one will load up by itself just fine. I did find that there was an empty line left at the end of both files but I took it out and still no luck. I'll mess with it some more later today. Could you attempt to set all the runs and strikeouts to have the same value and see if it works for you? I'll email you the files I'm using this evening if you need to look at them.

Posts: 5148 · Posted: Jan 14, 2005 8:07 am

Are those rankings going to be updated? I just don't get why Mussina, Mulder, Hudson, and Prior are ranked SOOOOO LOW! If I could get those guys in the last 4 rounds of my draft, I wouldn't draft any other starters until then.

Posts: 429 · Posted: Jan 14, 2005 1:37 pm

wolverine wrote:

Are those rankings going to be updated? I just don't get why Mussina, Mulder, Hudson, and Prior are ranked SOOOOO LOW! If I could get those guys in the last 4 rounds of my draft, I wouldn't draft any other starters until then.

As the disclaimer says, if you don't like the rankings/projections there is a utility under the TOOLS portion of the drop down menu, that allows you to modify the player projections. As stated earlier, I am not in the business of providing projections, just gave you guys a baseline to start with. Projections were calculated using a last three year results algorithm (for most players). It would take and endless number of hours to make projections by hand for every single player, and spring training hasn't even started so we don't know who will get what at bats in some cases.

vr

Xeifrank

Guest

Great software!!! I do have question, I would like to use a different set of projected stats, ex. from rotowire.com. I can get them into a text file but it won't load up. Any suggestions on how I could do this???