A different RB ranking

[Young_Grasshopper 0]

I've been playing around with data analysis on last years RB numbers using quartiles. Basically, you order the FF scores of each running back for the year, then look at three cutoffs commonly called Q1, Q2 (median), and Q3. Q1, for example, says that player X got AT LEAST that score in the best 75% of his games. So, Q1 gives you a reasonable floor. Q3 says that player X got AT LEAST that score in the best 25% of his games. Q3 gives you a reasonable ceiling. Without further ado, here are the results for non-PPR.

 

See revised rankings in a lower post. Matt Mueller raised a good point; I revised. 

[BufordT 377]

When you say "player X got AT LEAST that score", what does "that" represent.

[TimHauck 1,888]

interesting...but how exactly are those rankings based off of those 3 numbers (if they even are)?

[WhiteWonder 2,237]

When you say "player X got AT LEAST that score", what does "that" represent.

 

THAT score is the number you see listed next to each players name in the 3 columns.

 

for example, Arian Foster's Q1 score is 12... this means foster got AT LEAST 12 points in 75% of his games.

 

hth

[Young_Grasshopper 0]

Observations:

1. Michael Bush may be a steal as a consistent RB2 even WITH McFadden in the lineup. Bush's floor and ceiling were both terrific for the 8 games he played last year. If McFadden gets injured, Bush could go nuts. FF Calculator lists his ADP as 9.07 for a 12-Team draft.

2. Ray Rice may be overrated. 8-16 points a game is decent but worse than his nearby RB peers.

3. Brandon Jacobs is being punished too severely in his ADP. 7-16 points a game is not shabby, though he did only play 11 games.

4. Chris Johnson is inconsistent... but we already know that. His ceiling is very high; his floor is very low.

5. DeAngelo Williams had a baaad year even before he was injured. Will things really be different this year?

6. Javid Best and Shonn Greene did not make the top 40. Here are there stats:

 

                                       #
   Rank    FullName                 Games              Q1              Q2              Q3

     43    Jahvid Best                12                4               8              10
     44    Shonn Greene               13                5               6               9

 

I worry about them both; Best in particular who had a 3.2 YPC average. He blew up in game 2 last year and sucked for the rest of the season. Pass.

[Young_Grasshopper 0]

interesting...but how exactly are those rankings based off of those 3 numbers (if they even are)?

 

I did some massaging of the data to smooth out the numbers behind the scenes. For example, it seemed silly to rank a player who got 8-18 points per game higher than someone who got 7-28 points per game. It's not perfect but is something different. One more way to look at RBs going into the season.

[TimHauck 1,888]

I did some massaging of the data to smooth out the numbers behind the scenes. For example, it seemed silly to rank a player who got 8-18 points per game higher than someone who got 7-28 points per game. It's not perfect but is something different. One more way to look at RBs going into the season.

 

got ya. I just wasn't sure if the rankings were just a straight calculation off of the total of the three numbers or the average or something but couldn't figure it out.

[jgcrawfish 232]

This reminds me of a buddy of mine high school when we were juniors. It's at the latter part of your junior year when you receive your class ranking. For us, it was essentially an average of our overall grade, then a "quartile" or "quarter" we fell into with that grade. So my buddy Steve, upon receiving his, honestly asks "How many quarters are there?" to which I respond "Um, five".

 

So forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you only have three "quartiles". I understand the premise of there being three dividing points for the classification into data sets, but that still doesn't negate the fact there are only 3 sets of data. I guess we can assume that all the rest fall into Q4. It also seems to me that you could further separate it by either factoring in the number of carries, or plays, or minutes or something. Guys like Arian Foster and Mendenhall logged nearly every carry for their teams last year, by factoring in the number of touches, you get a more realistic perspective of how valuable they are. But good work none the less, when I draft I try to balance one guy I believe I can count on consistently with one boom/bust guy. This is another effective way of breaking that down. I think I still prefer the "CRank" score, but like your premise here.

[dpollaro 0]

thanks for the info

any way you can do this for ppr or .5 per reception?

[mccombsau 5]

This reminds me of a buddy of mine high school when we were juniors. It's at the latter part of your junior year when you receive your class ranking. For us, it was essentially an average of our overall grade, then a "quartile" or "quarter" we fell into with that grade. So my buddy Steve, upon receiving his, honestly asks "How many quarters are there?" to which I respond "Um, five".

 

So forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you only have three "quartiles". I understand the premise of there being three dividing points for the classification into data sets, but that still doesn't negate the fact there are only 3 sets of data. I guess we can assume that all the rest fall into Q4. It also seems to me that you could further separate it by either factoring in the number of carries, or plays, or minutes or something. Guys like Arian Foster and Mendenhall logged nearly every carry for their teams last year, by factoring in the number of touches, you get a more realistic perspective of how valuable they are. But good work none the less, when I draft I try to balance one guy I believe I can count on consistently with one boom/bust guy. This is another effective way of breaking that down. I think I still prefer the "CRank" score, but like your premise here.

 

Grasshopper, good research

Crawfish, not only do I love your pic but I enjoy your input...all good analysis, you never disappoint

[steelers2101 7]

This reminds me of a buddy of mine high school when we were juniors. It's at the latter part of your junior year when you receive your class ranking. For us, it was essentially an average of our overall grade, then a "quartile" or "quarter" we fell into with that grade. So my buddy Steve, upon receiving his, honestly asks "How many quarters are there?" to which I respond "Um, five".

 

So forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you only have three "quartiles". I understand the premise of there being three dividing points for the classification into data sets, but that still doesn't negate the fact there are only 3 sets of data. I guess we can assume that all the rest fall into Q4. It also seems to me that you could further separate it by either factoring in the number of carries, or plays, or minutes or something. Guys like Arian Foster and Mendenhall logged nearly every carry for their teams last year, by factoring in the number of touches, you get a more realistic perspective of how valuable they are. But good work none the less, when I draft I try to balance one guy I believe I can count on consistently with one boom/bust guy. This is another effective way of breaking that down. I think I still prefer the "CRank" score, but like your premise here.

 

The 4th quartile would be what they scored in 100% of their games, so it would just be their low score on the season, so I imagine that's why he didn't think it was necessary to include it.

[Young_Grasshopper 0]

The 4th quartile would be what they scored in 100% of their games, so it would just be their low score on the season, so I imagine that's why he didn't think it was necessary to include it.

 

You got it. Example: let's say a running back played 9 games and scored the following:

 

6, 16, 7, 11, 20, 12, 15, 3, 11

 

To calculated the quartiles, you put these scores in order:

 

3, 6, 7, 11, 11, 12, 15, 16, 20

 

11 is the median (Q2). You can accurately say he scored AT LEAST 11 points in 50% of his games. Q1 would be 7: he scored AT LEAST 7 points in 75% of his games. Q3 would be 15: he scored AT LEAST 15 points in 25% of his games. The other endpoints would the min: 3, and the max: 20. I guess you could call those Q0 and Q4.

 

I like the concept of the CRank scores, but I don't like the implementation. They place a lot of emphasis on that ceiling score, the Q3. I think the floor, the Q1, is much more interesting since it tells you, barring an off week, how many points you can really count on each week. When I was prepping for last year's draft, Roddy White had a really high Q1 from 2009. The man was very consistent. I drafted him high and sure enough he really carried my team by providing a consistent 10+ points every week. That's much more valuable than a guy who will get you 18+ points 25% of the time but averages 5 points the rest of the season (do you hear me Santana Moss?). When people throw around 1000 yards / 8 TD, it matters A LOT whether he has one game with 3 TD and 200 yards because how do you predict which magical game will be the one with 3 TD? You need guys who have a high ceiling and can win a game for you outright, but the floor is where you build a consistent win patterns week in and week out.

[Busted by the Feds 9]

I'm still not drafting Michael Bush with the No. 3 pick .

[Matt Mueller 146]

ESPN has Bush playing 14 games. Why did you only compute 8?

 

Good overall stats and idea!

[jgcrawfish 232]

I'm still not drafting Michael Bush with the No. 3 pick .

 

That was my premise for breaking it down by touches or plays or something. When you see guys popping into the top 30 or 40 and they only have 5, 6 or 8 games...um, that hurts the overall picture.

[Matt Mueller 146]

Observations:

1. Michael Bush may be a steal as a consistent RB2 even WITH McFadden in the lineup. Bush's floor and ceiling were both terrific for the 8 games he played last year. If McFadden gets injured, Bush could go nuts. FF Calculator lists his ADP as 9.07 for a 12-Team draft.

2. Ray Rice may be overrated. 8-16 points a game is decent but worse than his nearby RB peers.

3. Brandon Jacobs is being punished too severely in his ADP. 7-16 points a game is not shabby, though he did only play 11 games.

4. Chris Johnson is inconsistent... but we already know that. His ceiling is very high; his floor is very low.

5. DeAngelo Williams had a baaad year even before he was injured. Will things really be different this year?

6. Javid Best and Shonn Greene did not make the top 40. Here are there stats:

 

                                       #
   Rank    FullName                 Games              Q1              Q2              Q3

     43    Jahvid Best                12                4               8              10
     44    Shonn Greene               13                5               6               9

 

I worry about them both; Best in particular who had a 3.2 YPC average. He blew up in game 2 last year and sucked for the rest of the season. Pass.

 

Yeah. As high as I am on Calvin/Stafford/Burelson I'm not sure I share the optimism for Best. Talent and opportunity are there but having owned him last year he really couldn't be counted on for more than say 70-80 yds and no scores after week 2.

 

His overall stats look good but week to week he wasn't a factor.

[Young_Grasshopper 0]

ESPN has Bush playing 14 games. Why did you only compute 8?

 

Good overall stats and idea!

 

Good point - Bush did play 14 games according to his stats. I put a filter in the data to only include games where the RB had at least 6 carries... that's probably doing more harm than good. Now that I reran it, Bush plummeted off the list to #51. Scanning some of his games, he tended to share carries with McFadden but usually at a 2:1 ratio when both were healthy. In games where Oakland couldn't run often, this killed his value. Revised list:

 

                                       #
                                      #
   Rank    FullName                 Games              Q1              Q2              Q3

      1    Arian Foster               16               12              22              28
      2    Jamaal Charles             16               11              15              20
      3    Darren McFadden            13               10              15              18
      4    Peyton Hillis              15                9              13              20
      5    Maurice Jones-Drew         14                9              14              19
      6    Adrian Peterson            15                9              13              25
      7    Steven Jackson             16                9              12              15
      8    LeSean McCoy               15                9              14              20
      9    Frank Gore                 11                8              15              19
     10    Ray Rice                   16                8              12              16
     11    BenJarvus Green-Ellis      16                8              12              16
     12    Ahmad Bradshaw             16                8              13              17
     13    Rashard Mendenhall         16                7              15              19
     14    Danny Woodhead             13                7              10              12
     15    Ryan Torain                10                7              12              16
     16    Pierre Thomas               6                7              10              15
     17    Mike Tolbert               14                6              10              16
     18    LaDainian Tomlinson        15                6              10              11
     19    Chris Johnson              16                6              15              22
     20    Michael Turner             16                6              13              19
     21    Matt Forte                 16                6              12              16
     22    Ladell Betts                5                6               7               9
     23    DeAngelo Williams           6                6               6               7
     24    Joseph Addai                8                6              10              15
     25    LeGarrette Blount          13                6               8              16
     26    Clinton Portis              5                6               6               8
     27    Ryan Mathews               12                5               7              13
     28    Ronnie Brown               16                5               7               9
     29    Cedric Benson              16                5               8              17
     30    Felix Jones                16                5               8              12
     31    Knowshon Moreno            13                4              17              18
     32    Fred Jackson               16                4               8              11
     33    Marshawn Lynch             12                4               6              12
     34    Maurice Morris             10                4               6              11
     35    Jahvid Best                15                4               7              10
     36    Brandon Jackson            16                4               7              10
     37    Cadillac Williams          15                4               6              10
     38    Shonn Greene               15                4               6               9
     39    Chris Ivory                12                4               5              16
     40    Brandon Jacobs             16                3               8              13

[c9h13no3 0]

Past performance does not imply future results. You're too heavily weighting the past. For example, Best is very unlikely to have turf toe again this year.

[Bpow0407 0]

Past performance does not imply future results. You're too heavily weighting the past. For example, Best is very unlikely to have turf toe again this year.

 

I don't think its meant to be a predictive scoring method, but rather a look at consistency and what you could expect from a RB last year in most (75%) of their games verses half of their games vs. 1/4 of their games.