2016 Lead up to the Trade Deadline thread

[Frank E]

Could they have gotten pretty close to the same result by icing a cap-floor team?

Considering the salary commitments they had that was never an option so I don't see the relevance.

They could have easily gotten to the cap floor this past summer.

Easily.

They did what they did in the name of building up assets.

 

[Kin]

So, to wit:

Roman Polak and Nick Spaling(who's nothing to us but does seem like he'll be a depth forward for San Jose) returned a 2nd in 2017, a 2nd in 2018, Raffi Torres' contract

Someone Patrick described as "one of the worst defensemen in the league" without a depth forward returned a conditional 1st/likely 2nd in 2016, A prospect taken #45 overall two years ago and a young bottom pairing defenseman with not terrible possession numbers.

We could talk about whether or not the date of the picks Toronto got makes them marginally less valuable(I think it does) or whether or not Pollock is still worth essentially a 2nd rounder(no idea) but I don't know if I can buy that Polak deal looks like some inexplicable outlier.

 

[Kin]

They could have easily gotten to the cap floor this past summer. 

Sure. They could have traded Kadri and JVR for magic beans and shaved 8 million off the books.

They were too tied up in bad contracts to make it happen without dealing good ones though.

 

[Highlander]

Again, outside of the Polak deal(and I think people are exaggerating how well they did there) I don't think any of the deals they made represented great value. Just choices. You want 50 dollars worth of something or 50 dollars?

I appreciate you have a differing opinion, but look at the returns league wide today.

The Polak deal is by a country mile the biggest fleecing of the past month.

What do you mean Patrick, the got Spaling the scoring machine as well?

 

[Highlander]

Hey Nik, have a look at this:  The Edmonton Oilers have acquired Patrick Maroon from the Anaheim Ducks for a prospect and mid-round pick.

What were you saying in you expert opinion??

I said that typically teams that are rebuilding don't trade for other team's 4th liners because it's counter productive to what both organizations are doing.

So you can look at this one of two ways. One, the reality is that the Oilers, despite being bad, aren't really rebuilding because they have a core of Hall and RNH an Draisaitl and McDavid in Nurse in place and they want to be good soon. Adding depth can make sense in that situation. Likewise, the moves the Ducks made today probably bumped Maroon off the 4th line because he's having such a nothing year. Shedding press box filler can make sense for a playoff team.

Alternately, I guess you could stick with "You said it was a stupid move, but how can it be a stupid move if the braintrust running the Edmonton Oilers did it?"

Your choice I suppose.

Yes good to clarify that Nik, a team that will end up in last place (more than likely), is not rebuilding (according to you) and has not been selling players like the Leafs (or trying to), in the last few days. We could argue that Reilly, Kadri, Gardiner, JVR are not core players you can build a franchise around?  You could argue that we have our Hall or RHN in Nylander or Kapanen already. I guess time will tell starting tonight.

 

[Kin]

Yes good to clarify that Nik, a team that will end up in last place (more than likely), is not rebuilding (according to you) and has not been selling players like the Leafs (or trying to), in the last few days. We could argue that Reilly, Kadri, Gardiner, JVR are not core players you can build a franchise around?  You could argue that we have our Hall or RHN in Nylander or Kapanen already. I guess time will tell starting tonight.

So you're going with the unimpeachable wisdom of the worst run franchise in professional sports then?

 

[Highlander]

Toronto and Edmonton have both been working this way for a long time (until now we hope). You pointed out that a playoff bound team has nothing to gain by a trade of this nature and then you come back and assassinate Maroon and his off year this year. Gotta admit Nik that I havent followed Maroon at all this year. But when the Ducks played the Yotes last year the kid was the best player on the ice for either team. Liked what I saw.
Very much so.
Perhaps it was his season in the sun. Waiting for the last word.

 

[Kin]

Sure.

 

[McGarnagle]

Yeah, I think that although they're beside each other in the standings, the oilers and leafs are miles apart in the rebuilding process. The oilers have the assets already with the team, and they can play with the mix. The leafs are only now acquiring and developing in their rebuild.

Maroon looked good playing with Getzlaf and Perry for awhile, but we're talking a third line player here. If the ducks thought he was a big part of their turnaround, he wouldn't have been moved, since they're in win now mode.

 

[Bender]

Man, Lou sounds so much more thoughtful in what he's doing for the team than Nonis ever did.

And Nonis did better at last year's deadline than Lou did here.

But press conferences, whew, Nonis was sure no match there.

I meant in totality. Its a far cry from the "I don't care about year 1" mentality.

 

[Frank E]

They could have easily gotten to the cap floor this past summer. 

Sure. They could have traded Kadri and JVR for magic beans and shaved 8 million off the books.

They were too tied up in bad contracts to make it happen without dealing good ones though.

When you resort to ridiculing opinions, I know your argument is getting skinny.

They had plenty of options available to them to get to a $60 or so mil payroll, and it would have involved moving some contracts, and I can't see how it wouldn't have been an equal or better result yesterday.  I'd start with not re-signing Bernier, not doing the Grabner trade, and not signing Matthias.  And yes, I think they could have gotten there without trading Kadri and JVR, but that's not really the point here.

This is real money Shanahan is playing with here, not some fantasy hockey game.  The people watching the money aren't going to be too happy with the way things have gone here, given the investment.  They invested far more cash into this lineup in order to get returns of draft picks and prospects...and the returns were pretty underwhelming.

When your bottom line runs around $75m, an extra $15m of wasted payroll is a pretty big deal.  I'm not sure if some of you guys work for companies that consistently measure ROI and performance, but I'm going to tell you that Rogers and Bell certainly do.  A plan may be in place and "green lit", but the plan also included getting some significant returns out of this $80m payroll this year.  I think we're all in agreement that the returns this year are pretty underwhelming.  There's going to be some 'splainin to do I'm sure.

What I'm reading here is that "well, the market was obviously soft, so what are you going to do?  It is what it is, Lou can't force trades."  That sort of excuse from a pretty severe miscalculation has resulted in pretty big miss in terms of an extra $15m or so of payroll.  I promise you that the board isn't going to just say "ya, shit happens, good luck next year.  Let's do exactly the same thing again and hope for a better result.  No problem."   

 

[rdowdall]

What I'm reading here is that "well, the market was obviously soft, so what are you going to do?  It is what it is, Lou can't force trades."  That sort of excuse from a pretty severe miscalculation has resulted in pretty big miss in terms of an extra $15m or so of payroll.  I promise you that the board isn't going to just say "ya, shit happens, good luck next year.  Let's do exactly the same thing again and hope for a better result.  No problem." 

And nobody is saying that the board is going to say that.  If everyone is smart and works through the performance review process, they'll have a meeting, discuss what their goals were and why they think they didn't meet them.  At that point the management team of the Leafs will explain where they think they made their misjudgments to the owners, and what their plan is to address those issues next year. 

They failed yesterday in their plan to turn short term, one year investments in to draft picks.  That is one part of an overall plan to build a cup contender that fell through.  If Rogers comes in, and yanks the carpet out from under them because one deadline day didn't go as swimmingly as they had hoped, well then Leaf fans, buckle because we've seen this movie before.  What you are saying is akin to Tim Cook walking in to the iPhone development department and saying "The wireless drops occasionally.  Unacceptable, you are all fired, lets can the iPhone project."

 

[Frank E]

What I'm reading here is that "well, the market was obviously soft, so what are you going to do?  It is what it is, Lou can't force trades."  That sort of excuse from a pretty severe miscalculation has resulted in pretty big miss in terms of an extra $15m or so of payroll.  I promise you that the board isn't going to just say "ya, shit happens, good luck next year.  Let's do exactly the same thing again and hope for a better result.  No problem." 

And nobody is saying that the board is going to say that.  If everyone is smart and works through the performance review process, they'll have a meeting, discuss what their goals were and why they think they didn't meet them.  At that point the management team of the Leafs will explain where they think they made their misjudgments to the owners, and what their plan is to address those issues next year. 

They failed yesterday in their plan to turn short term, one year investments in to draft picks.  That is one part of an overall plan to build a cup contender that fell through.  If Rogers comes in, and yanks the carpet out from under them because one deadline day didn't go as swimmingly as they had hoped, well then Leaf fans, buckle because we've seen this movie before.  What you are saying is akin to Tim Cook walking in to the iPhone development department and saying "The wireless drops occasionally.  Unacceptable, you are all fired, lets can the iPhone project."

I don't really disagree with you.  My argument was about the current payroll spend strategy and the resulting return.  I'm not talking about throwing away the entire rebuilding process.

I think maybe the beancounters would agree.

 

[Bender]

What I'm reading here is that "well, the market was obviously soft, so what are you going to do?  It is what it is, Lou can't force trades."  That sort of excuse from a pretty severe miscalculation has resulted in pretty big miss in terms of an extra $15m or so of payroll.  I promise you that the board isn't going to just say "ya, shit happens, good luck next year.  Let's do exactly the same thing again and hope for a better result.  No problem." 

And nobody is saying that the board is going to say that.  If everyone is smart and works through the performance review process, they'll have a meeting, discuss what their goals were and why they think they didn't meet them.  At that point the management team of the Leafs will explain where they think they made their misjudgments to the owners, and what their plan is to address those issues next year. 

They failed yesterday in their plan to turn short term, one year investments in to draft picks.  That is one part of an overall plan to build a cup contender that fell through.  If Rogers comes in, and yanks the carpet out from under them because one deadline day didn't go as swimmingly as they had hoped, well then Leaf fans, buckle because we've seen this movie before.  What you are saying is akin to Tim Cook walking in to the iPhone development department and saying "The wireless drops occasionally.  Unacceptable, you are all fired, lets can the iPhone project."

I really don't think the lack of movement yesterday is really a miscalculation on their part when it's the first deadline in ten years the Leafs didn't make a move and the market was abnormally soft.

You do your best with the best information available. If things change in six months and you're already locked in then what are you supposed to do? The bets didn't really pay off but they also didn't cost much. Short term gambles for the future shouldn't be shunned because there was lack of movement in one year or the guys they picked for one years didn't have great years.

 

[herman]

Kind of hard to say the Leafs didn't do anything at the deadline; on the day of the deadline, sure, but on the whole? A lot of pieces moved in the right direction. We didn't do as much as most of us would've liked (PAP, Boyes), but it's not like the Leafs sat on their hands.

The ability to spend outside the cap is a weapon and the Leafs leveraged it for future gains. I think the ownership group was made well aware of that possibility when Shanahan laid out the plan to them last season. Year 1 returns are not something the Board should get emotional over.

 

[Frank E]

The ability to spend outside the cap is a weapon and the Leafs leveraged it for future gains.

How so?

 

[bustaheims]

I don't really disagree with you.  My argument was about the current payroll spend strategy and the resulting return.  I'm not talking about throwing away the entire rebuilding process.

I think maybe the beancounters would agree.

Only if you look at a really narrow window for your review - you're either looking at the returns for a small portion of the roster/payroll, or you're looking at their failure to get trades done on a single day of the year. I mean, if we're talking about the 1 year UFA signings, that's $3.3M of the payroll - for a team like the Leafs, that's nowhere near enough money for anyone to get concerned about. If you include Grabner, the number becomes a little more significant at $8.3M real dollar ($6.3M cap dollars). For that amount, the most severe criticism that's going to be levied at the management team is " do better next year."

 

[herman]

The ability to spend outside the cap is a weapon and the Leafs leveraged it for future gains.

How so?

Maybe I should clarify:
What I meant by spending outside the cap, aside from getting the best biosciences, coaching, scouting, etc. that they're aware of, is MLSE's ability to payout higher raw salaries (even where cap hits are lowered due to averages). Budget teams have to be conscientious of the actual dollars spent. We don't.

 

[Zee]

It's sort of funny that Spaling is on a goal streak now.

 

[rdowdall]

What I'm reading here is that "well, the market was obviously soft, so what are you going to do?  It is what it is, Lou can't force trades."  That sort of excuse from a pretty severe miscalculation has resulted in pretty big miss in terms of an extra $15m or so of payroll.  I promise you that the board isn't going to just say "ya, shit happens, good luck next year.  Let's do exactly the same thing again and hope for a better result.  No problem." 

And nobody is saying that the board is going to say that.  If everyone is smart and works through the performance review process, they'll have a meeting, discuss what their goals were and why they think they didn't meet them.  At that point the management team of the Leafs will explain where they think they made their misjudgments to the owners, and what their plan is to address those issues next year. 

They failed yesterday in their plan to turn short term, one year investments in to draft picks.  That is one part of an overall plan to build a cup contender that fell through.  If Rogers comes in, and yanks the carpet out from under them because one deadline day didn't go as swimmingly as they had hoped, well then Leaf fans, buckle because we've seen this movie before.  What you are saying is akin to Tim Cook walking in to the iPhone development department and saying "The wireless drops occasionally.  Unacceptable, you are all fired, lets can the iPhone project."

I really don't think the lack of movement yesterday is really a miscalculation on their part when it's the first deadline in ten years the Leafs didn't make a move and the market was abnormally soft.

You do your best with the best information available. If things change in six months and you're already locked in then what are you supposed to do? The bets didn't really pay off but they also didn't cost much. Short term gambles for the future shouldn't be shunned because there was lack of movement in one year or the guys they picked for one years didn't have great years.

Miscalculation is probably the wrong word.  At the end of the day, they didn't accomplish what they had hoped too yesterday, which was to turn their UFA's in to draft picks.  They need to look at why that happened and adjust their thinking if need be.

One of the things that I like about this group is that they seem to embrace trends, which is something older management teams wouldn't do.  The have brought in analytics departments.  They have capologist on the payroll.  To a certain degree I wonder how much Leaf management started the trend of taking picks for future drafts for their UFA's?  There seemed to be ( I can go check past transactions but don't have the time, so this is a guess on my part) a lot of deals this year that involved picks for future drafts.  Maybe that is a new trend that is forming, or maybe it's just a byproduct of how this year was.