Advanced Sports Logic

A: If you cannot find the information you need, you can submit a support ticket from within the information page. The Machine – Fantasy Football 2011 has internal diagnostics that continually check for correct operation. If an error is detected, an error box will automatically open an error box providing a description of the issue and a suggestion of how to correct it. From within the error box you can submit a support ticket. When you submit a ticket from within an information page or an error box, you are encouraged to enter information in a comment box to help us understand the issue better. Once you press the submit button, the internal data of The Machine – Fantasy Football 2011 is transferred to our server so we can determine the cause of the issue you are experiencing.

Q: What is Advanced Sports Logic's support policy?

A: When we receive a request for support, we automatically send an acknowledgment email to the address you used to register. We sort requests for support based on the error box or information box identification number shown at the top of the box from where you submit your request. We process those error or information identifications that occur most frequently first. When we have fixed an issue related to the identification number, your ticket will be closed and you will receive an email notice. You should then reload The Machine – Fantasy Football 2011 in a fresh browser window to make sure you have the latest release. Then if your request for support was due to inadequate help information please check the page again for updated information. If your request for support was due to an error, you should try the operation again to ensure the issue has been resolved. If in either case, you do not feel your issue was addressed, please submit a new request for support.

Q: How do I log out?

A: When you are done simply close the browser page. When you run The Machine – Fantasy Football 2011 again, you will just log in again as normal.

Q: What is the difference between an Introductory License and a Full License?

A: The Introductory License is provided free of charge so that you can get a sense of The Machine – Fantasy Football 2011. You can use the Introductory License for as long as you would like. The Introductory License provides the following features for up to one league:

Full calculation of your league probabilities, including Probability Probes
Draft recommendations for your team for the 1st round of the draft
Weekly starting lineup recommendations
The top waiver recommendation for your team
Analysis of one trade at a time

When you upgrade to a Full Subscription, you enabling the following additional features:

Draft recommendations for your team for all rounds of the draft
All waiver recommendations for your team, including a list of players and their relative value for each of multiple rounds of your league’s waiver system
Top trade recommendations as a result of processing millions of possible trade combinations

Q: Why do I need to buy Support for additional Teams?

A: We have to limit the leagues one way or another or someone could be able to share one license with all their friends. This year, we reduced the price of The Machine to $19.95 with support for one (1) team and charge an additional $4.95 per additional team added. The average person plays in 3 leagues and the average price is the same as last year, but scales with the number of leagues.

In CBS, The Machine is $24.95 for unlimited leagues and requires users to access The Machine from within their CBS leagues while logged in. In this use model there isn't any way to share the use of The Machine with friends and as a result no additional fees are required for additional teams.

Q: Getting SRVR-001 Error?

A: On rare occasions we have found that some customers are having an issue with access. This seems to be occurring by an incompatibility in the browser. We have found that switching browsers can solve the issue. We have tested with Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.

Other things you can try are checking that your browser is updated to the latest version. At a minimum please check that you have a recent version of the one following if/as applicable.

* Firefox: Version 3.6.2

* Internet Explorer: Version 9.0.x

* Apple: Yes, The Machine works on Apple OS, including the Lion O/S. in case you have any issues, the following are two great articles for setting up and support for Flash on your Apple that may be helpful.

- http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18750/flash-on-os-x-lion

- https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3189988?start=15&tstart=0

* Adobe Flash Player: Version 10

If you have a firewall, trying briefly disabling the setting to see if your firewall is causing the issue. Finally, you can also try running on another computer or over a different Internet connection.

If you try these suggestions and the SRVR-001 error continues to occur, please submit a support request from the error box. We ask that you please enter the detailed error message into the description area provided. This will give us more clues about what the issue might be and enable us to debug and resolve in a more expedient manner.

In-Season:

Q: What Does The Machine do?

A: The Machine provides Starting Lineup Recommendations, Waiver Recommendations, Trade Analysis, and Trade Recommendations based on your choice of blended projections from four different sources. Please look at the IN-SEASON and PLAYER PROJECTION pulldowns. Waiver Recommendations and Trade Analysis and Trade Recommendations are based on comprehensive probability math that measures everything based on how it affects your probability to win.

For example, the first thing The Machine does for waiver recommendations is calculates by how much your probability to win goes down if you drop a player from your roster and don't place them from waivers. This helps to determine the players you should consider dropping for a waiver pick up. Then The Machine evaluates how various free agent pick ups impact your probability to win.

We don't know if you used The Machine for the draft, but using the same math, 2 of our six teams got the highest score in the league, 3 others came in 2nd or 3rd. Our 6th team came in fourth overall and that was after drafting Peyton Manning and Arian Foster!

We hope you will try out all the In-season features. After you experiment with them for a while, We believe you will see how powerful they are for helping you win. We found last year, that on average, 50% of the players you draft are not on your team at the end of the year. In-season management is just as important as the draft!

Q: Why is The Machine recommending I drop a good WR and recommends any of 3 average TEs?

A: Let's say you have five WRs to fill only two starting slots, but have only 1 TE to fill your TE starting slot. Based on projections, matchup schedules, playoff rules, injury rates, etc, The Machine calculates the value of backup players very accurately In this case The Machine is calculating that an average backup TE has more value than a fifth WR. It often finds players that have complimentary strong weeks. It makes all its decisions to try to give you the best roster possible, not just for the current week but for the entire season as if you will never get to make another waiver move.

Generally it is giving good recommendations. However, you can certainly take the strategy that if you need a TE in the future there are two or three half decent TEs to pick from. Generally we recommend you read about the TE's it is suggesting and about your two lowest ranked WRs and then decide if you want to make a waiver move. This situation is not likely a make or break decision, so no hurry to do anything.

Q: The Machine will only let me analyze a 1 for 1 trade, will it be able to analyze 1 for 3 anytime soon?

A: The issue in general is that fantasy leagues have a roster size limit. If the trade has an unbalanced number of players, then the team receiving more players must drop players from their roster and the team receiving less players picks up additional players from waivers.

To evaluate the full effect of the trade, the subsequent player drops and waiver pick-ups must also be evaluated. By forcing even trades and then running pseudo-waivers, The Machine is including the effect. So in a 1 for 3 trade, the player that is giving up the 1 and also taking the 3, must figure out the two players they will drop. To analyze this trade correctly, just add the two least valuable players from the drop analysis to the trade evaluation and this will generate a correct valuation of the trade.

Q: How Do I Get Waiver Recommendations To Give Me Only Swaps for the Same Position?

A: To see waiver recommendations for swapping only players of the same position, select lock for all positions and set in Blind Bidding mode with maximum rounds. Each round will show recommendations for only one position.

Q: Waiver Recommendations Keeps Telling Me To Pick Up Another Defense - Is The Machine Broken?

A: The Machine tries to build a roster that is ideal for the remainder of the year. Your strategy is to pick and chose Defense and Kicker each week. The way you get The Machine to not add another Defense or Kicker to your team is with the limit option. If you click limit, The Machine will recommend swapping defensive teams and it will not adding an additional defensive team in place of another player. The figure below shows a fairly standard set of options for running the waivers recommendations. You can read more information about the Waiver Recommendation options by clicking the Information button at the top right of the page within The Machine.

Q: Your Recommendations For Picking Up Free Agents Seems Off?

A: You should always check player health before making any transaction and factor that into your decision. The Machine is making recommendations based on the player projections it receives from AccuScore, CBS and Fantasy Sharks. The Machine is not making waiver recommendations solely on attempting to win the next game, but rather winning the entire season. If a player is a bit banged up, but has good matchups in later weeks, especially playoff weeks, it might be great to pick that player up now while they are easily obtainable. On the other hand, sometimes injuries linger much longer than expected and the player never reaches their potential. Generally, when The Machine makes these types of recommendations you may want to wait a little while, but at the risk of losing the pickup on that player once he is healthy.

Q: I want to drop a quarterback and add a running back. How do I set up The Machine?

A: This is a good question. We did not design the interface to tell The Machine the exact positions you want to switch. Secondly, The Machine might calculate that your least valuable QB is more valuable than the most valuable RB on waivers, so it might never directly make the recommendation you are looking for.

However, what you can try is to click the retain button on all players except your QBs. Then select lock on all positions except for RB. Now, you might get a lot of QB for QB recommendations, or you might get what you are looking for.

If this just gives you QB for QB recommendations, then the next thing we would try is to run it fully open in blind bidding mode and do a drop of the QB it says is least valuable for the RB it says is most valuable.

Q: How do I cause Waiver Recommendations to give me a recommendation for adding a WR?

A: Here are the options to use when you want to receive a recommendation for adding a specific position:

- Use blind bidding to maximize the number of recommendations
- Limit the positions you are not interested in to reduce the times it tries to add them
- Retain the last couple players of the position you are trying to add

Below is a screen shot to maximize the opportunity for The Machine to recommend adding a WR. In this case it found some WRs. However, if there were no WR available that would help your team, no switches or options can force The Machine to recommend adding a WR.

League Setup:

Q: How do I add support for additional teams?

A: You must have a Full Subscription in order to add additional teams.

1) For Customers who buy The Machine from CBS you have unlimited leagues included in your initial purchase price.

2) For Customers who buy The Machine for MyFantasyLeague or for RealTime Fantasy Sports the initial price includes one (1) league and you need to purchase additional leagues via the Upgrade Now button on the Advanced Sports Logic website or from the My Account page from within The Machine for $4.95/league.

3) For Customers who want to use The Machine for CBS and for MyFantasyLeague, it is recommended that you purchase The Machine from CBS and then add additional leagues for MyFantasyLeague by purchasing additional leagues at $4.95/league, as indicated above.

You will find a link for adding addition teams on the Account page from within The Machine.

Q: How Do I Scroll To See All The Projections?

A: Use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the table to scroll all the way to the right. Then you will see a vertical scroll bar. Once you click on the vertical scroll bar, your mouse wheel (if you have one) will work even if you scroll back to the left.

Draft Setup:

Q: Why Don't My Keepers Show Up in CBS Leagues?

A: Setting keepers is a common issue in CBS leagues. Please ask your commissioner to follow the instructions as per the screen shots below to correct the issue. Once your league is set as a keeper league, The Machine will pick up your keepers. Keepers will then show up on the rosters and will be accounted for as part of the Draft Pick Recommendations page. In CBS leagues, the Simulated Draft page provides a good sense of where players should go without consideration for keepers.

Setting Keepers for CBS leagues

As a backup plan, if you cannot resolve in time for your draft, then you can run the Draft Pick Recommendations page in Manual Mode and in Team mode. You can drag-and-drop your league's keepers into their slots before your draft begins and maintain your draft manually. Just drag-and-drop picks from the free-agent tables at the bottom to the draft board of the last team that made a pick and click the Made Recommendation Now button whenever your team is on the clock.

Q: The draft Order is Wrong for my CBS league, How Do I Fix It?

A: In CBS leagues, The Machine does not get complete draft order information from the CBS API. Therefore, the Simulated Draft uses a default order. When your draft is live, the CBS API provides the order of roughly 20 picks from the team on the clock. This order will be reflected on The Draft Pick Recommendations page at the time of your draft.

Q: Auto Draft Synchronization Does Not Seem to Be Working?

A: On rare occasions we have found that the auto draft synchronization does not work for some users. This seems to be occurring by a block in the browser. We have found that switching browsers usually solves the issue. We have tested with Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. So if draft synchronization is not working for you in one of these browsers, please try a different one. Other things you can try are checking that your browser is updated to the latest version. If you have a firewall, trying briefly disabling the setting to see if your firewall is causing the issue. Finally, you can also try running on another computer or over a different Internet connection.

Q: My Draft is Offline and the Draft Order Changed. Does The Machine Support This?

A: There is a Team View mode on the Draft Pick Recommendation page. You can select the draft board of any team at any time and drag-and-drop free agents from the tables at the bottom of the page into it. You can also back out picks in case you make a mistake

Q: Why Don't The Scoring Rules Match My Leagues Scoring Rules?

A: We use player projections from AccuScore as our base set of projections. We translate your scoring rules as closely as possible to match the projection categories that we utilize from AccuScore. The translation and subsequent fantasy point calculations should be reasonably accurate. For example, your league might award a large bonus that we don't support but it has a low probability of occurring so it would translate to a small average number of fantasy points. Furthermore this bias would scale proportionately across most of your players anyway. For example, if your WR's score ten points for a 40+ yard reception that does not end in a touchdown, but the likelihood of a achieving this bonus is 1%, it only has a 0.1 fantasy point impact.

If you see any serious scoring rule issues please let us know by filing a submitting an support request or contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Q: My Draft is Offline and the Draft Order Changed. Does The Machine Support This?

A: Yes, Put the Draft Recommendation page in Manual Mode and Team View mode. You can select the draft board of any team at any time and drag-and-drop free agents from the tables at the bottom of the page into it. You can also back out picks in case you need to make a change. If you are in a keeper league and keepers have not been accounted for already, spend a couple minutes before your draft moving keepers into the appropriate team draft boards. You cannot do this ahead of time because The Machine does not save this data. However, we recommend you spend a little time a day or two before your draft getting used to the controls. It is easy to do once you are used to it.

Draft Day:

Q: Why Does the Draft Pick Recommendations Page Only Show 10 Teams?

A: The draft board on the Draft Pick Recommendations page is a small window into the league's total draft board. It only shows the 10 picks closest to the team on the clock. If you put the Draft Pick Recommendations page in Manual Mode and drag-and-drop players into the draft board, it will start to scroll when it is half full and you will see the other teams appear. This small window was a compromise in trying to fit everything into the space we have for this page. Due to complications with Team Mode, Sequential Mode and the drag-and-drop functionality this functionality, we plan to put a scroll bar on the draft board table next year.

Q: We Had Our CBS Draft, My Commissioner Entered Our Picks, but My Players Don't Show Up. What Should I Do?

A: There is an attribute that we receive from the CBS API that gives us the
state of your draft: <draft_results last_pick="0" state="awaitingstart" ....

The CBS API is indicating that your draft has not occurred yet, so The Machine interprets your rosters as being from last year as potential keepers.

Your draft must have been offline. Please ask your league commissioner to go into the draft setup and update the status. This should fix the issue. If not, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your CBS user ID and league name.

Q: The simulated draft results are very different than any "ideal" draft you may have seen, seriously?

A: In some cases, the simulated draft generates very different results than might be expected for some drafts. The math in The Machine is the real deal and is truly showing the value of players in the correct point of the draft. However, The Machine does not take into account average draft position (ADP) because it supports so many different types of league configurations it is impossible to find value ADP information for all drafts. If you feel the simulated draft results are far off the mark, the first thing to check is that your scoring rules are set correctly. If your scoring rules are set correctly, then are they typical of most leagues compared with the ADP you are familiar with? For example, if RBs and WRs are coming later in the draft than the typical ADP, are RBs and WRs only scoring 0.05 points per yard instead of the normal 0.1 points per yard? Another question to ask, is it a keeper league where the best WRs and RBs are already taken? This has a tendencies to cause other positions to get taken sooner than ADP information of non-keeper leagues. Finally, if you figure all these things in and you still are not comfortable with the simulated draft results, the draft pick recommendations page will show you the relative need for each position as the draft progresses. Using the relative need by position values combined with your gut sense of your league's ADP you should achieve very satisfying draft results.

Email:
Subject:
Message: