The Shanaplan - Building the Leafs Toward Stanley Cup Contention

[TBLeafer]

This is a wonderfully constructed article that basically falls perfectly in line with everything I've been saying since signing up on this forum:

BUILDING A CHAMPION PART 4: HOW FAR ARE THE LEAFS FROM CONTENDING

http://theleafsnation.com/2016/6/22/building-a-champion-part-4-how-far-are-the-leafs-from-contending

 

[Kin]

Sidebar: Let?s keep in mind that the margin of error in projecting one year into the future is enormous, let alone five and that this is merely a general guideline of what we can probably expect for the Leafs future and not a hard and fast rule of what will happen.

 

[TBLeafer]

Sidebar: Let?s keep in mind that the margin of error in projecting one year into the future is enormous, let alone five and that this is merely a general guideline of what we can probably expect for the Leafs future and not a hard and fast rule of what will happen.

Yes he added his own disclaimer to potentially discredit himself.  You don't need to Parrot it.

Funny that that's the first thing you decided to take from it and felt the need post here.

 

[Kin]

Yes he added his own disclaimer to potentially discredit himself.  You don't need to Parrot it.

In doing so he no way discredits himself. In fact, it's the opposite. By presenting the information in the proper context, by keeping in mind that there are many potential outcomes and nobody should claim that they can predict the future with any sort of accuracy especially not when it comes to the play of multiple players, he does a great credit to his reasonableness and the point he's making.

 

[TBLeafer]

Yes he added his own disclaimer to potentially discredit himself.  You don't need to Parrot it.

In doing so he no way discredits himself. In fact, it's the opposite. By presenting the information in the proper context, by keeping in mind that there are many potential outcomes and nobody should claim that they can predict the future with any sort of accuracy especially not when it comes to the play of multiple players, he does a great credit to his reasonableness and the point he's making.

Yes and he even called his model slightly optimistic, which you seem to have an intrinsic problem with.  Which I understand completely, you are a Leafs fan after all.

How close to being accurate do you personally think his timelines are?

I think they have a very solid potential of panning out in a very similar fashion.

 

[Kin]

How close to being accurate do you personally think his timelines are?

I don't have the foggiest idea. I've never really looked into WAR(at least, not the hockey version) but I'm pretty suspicious of it as being a particularly good single-value stat given that it's not more widespread.

That said my immediate take-away from the article is that once you look at the charts you didn post, the ones that factor in the defense corps, you get a very different idea of what he's saying and one that goes more to the general unease some people have put forth about being full steam ahead:

Now let?s add all seven pieces together and see how they stack up. I omitted Rielly from this because his projection was negative, and if that is the case over the next five years, he?s not the number one guy anyways. For now, it?s a blank space, and any difference between the total core value and the average Cup contender?s core value (about 15 WAR) is roughly how good Rielly or whoever else becomes the number one d-man has to be.

So by using this method the Leafs Core WAR, forwards and defense(with Stamkos), still doesn't get them to average contender levels by 2021. So I don't know that I see it as all that rosy a projection.

 

[TBLeafer]

How close to being accurate do you personally think his timelines are?

I don't have the foggiest idea. I've never really looked into WAR(at least, not the hockey version) but I'm pretty suspicious of it as being a particularly good single-value stat given that it's not more widespread.

That said my immediate take-away from the article is that once you look at the charts you didn post, the ones that factor in the defense corps, you get a very different idea of what he's saying and one that goes more to the general unease some people have put forth about being full steam ahead:

Now let?s add all seven pieces together and see how they stack up. I omitted Rielly from this because his projection was negative, and if that is the case over the next five years, he?s not the number one guy anyways. For now, it?s a blank space, and any difference between the total core value and the average Cup contender?s core value (about 15 WAR) is roughly how good Rielly or whoever else becomes the number one d-man has to be.

So by using this method the Leafs Core WAR, forwards and defense(with Stamkos), still doesn't get them to average contender levels by 2021. So I don't know that I see it as all that rosy a projection.

I guess because it boils down to whether you feel Rielly will continue to project negatively or not.  I'm inclined to lean towards not with another summer of development and what Babcock is having him key in on.

Even with that assumption, I like his final theory:

Everything depends on what happens over the next couple weeks, this summer, and next summer. But if everything goes according to plan, the wait for a Stanley Cup parade in Toronto might finally be over sooner than you might think.

 

[Bill_Berg]

He makes this comment:

That means whatever d-man they find has to be worth almost 2.5 wins to make them contenders.  (In year 3)

Is there a WAR ranking by player? I mean who now is worth 2.5 wins?

 

[TBLeafer]

He makes this comment:

That means whatever d-man they find has to be worth almost 2.5 wins to make them contenders.  (In year 3)

Is there a WAR ranking by player? I mean who now is worth 2.5 wins?

Hard to project three years.  Former contenders deciding to rebuild happens often enough that a guy like a Weber, Doughty or Keith might even be made available as a final D piece for a win now team.

 

[Kin]

I guess because it boils down to whether you feel Rielly will continue to project negatively or not.  I'm inclined to lean towards not with another summer of development and what Babcock is having him key in on.

Well, no. This doesn't just boil down to what you feel. If you're making a statistical argument you can't just toss it aside when it says something you disagree with. If this projection system is open to subjective interpretation on Rielly then it is with everyone else and we're back to not really knowing anything.

You keep trying to paint me as having a problem with optimism but all I have a problem with is false certainty. I'm especially skeptical of it if you're not even going to be consistent with what is or isn't valuable evidence within the same post.

 

[Misty]

Another interesting take-away from his charts is comparing his projections with and without Stamkos and the value he gives to Kadri in the non-Stamkos version. Roughly, it boils down to something in the range of 2WAR net difference between Kadri and Stamkos. If we assume contract in the ballpark of 10.5M to have any chance of landing him, that makes for a $6M payroll difference.

If the last number of years have shown anything, it's that the margin between cup-winner (or even conference finalists) and also-ran is frequently more the product of that supporting cast. The core is the engine that drives the bus, but without significant contributions from the other dozen or more "auxiliary" players you're just as likely to get knocked out in the first round. You need 3rd and even 4th lines that are safe enough to have on the ice in all situations and can contribute some offense on their own.

Those are the players you have to somehow assemble with whatever money the core isn't costing you, so that $6M difference in cap between Stamkos and Kadri gives you a lot more freedom to spend a little extra here and there to assemble a better supporting cast. More than anything else that's what frightens me about adding Stamkos, particularly at the end of the "cheap" ELC window when suddenly Matthews and Marner will both be due extremely hefty raises.

 

[Bill_Berg]

He makes this comment:

That means whatever d-man they find has to be worth almost 2.5 wins to make them contenders.  (In year 3)

Is there a WAR ranking by player? I mean who now is worth 2.5 wins?

Hard to project three years.  Former contenders deciding to rebuild happens often enough that a guy like a Weber, Doughty or Keith might even be made available as a final D piece for a win now team.

This is from Oct 2015, but the only guys the Hockey News has as above 2.5 are Karlsson and Vlasic.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/new-war-stat-for-hockey-aims-to-provide-greater-insight-into-player-value/

I haven't found any recent WAR stats on NHL players.

 

[bustaheims]

I haven't found any recent WAR stats on NHL players.

That's largely because it's a fairly undeveloped stat for the NHL. It hasn't reached a level of prominence like it has in baseball.

 

[TBLeafer]

I guess because it boils down to whether you feel Rielly will continue to project negatively or not.  I'm inclined to lean towards not with another summer of development and what Babcock is having him key in on.

Well, no. This doesn't just boil down to what you feel. If you're making a statistical argument you can't just toss it aside when it says something you disagree with. If this projection system is open to subjective interpretation on Rielly then it is with everyone else and we're back to not really knowing anything.

You keep trying to paint me as having a problem with optimism but all I have a problem with is false certainty. I'm especially skeptical of it if you're not even going to be consistent with what is or isn't valuable evidence within the same post.

I guess because it seems you have a problem with all gut feelings in general.

We don't even know his negative impact currently because he's been removed from the equation.  So that obviously becomes and 'unknown' factor  that you can speculate on based on your gut feeling or find the surce material data.

But all stats are resultant of past events and you can only rely on them so much to project.  GM's can't base everything on data without the use of their gut.

I don't think or debate like a robot, nor should anyone.  These are all just tools.

People are free to select the tools they want and leave alone the ones they don't want if they feel they don't want them or decide that a different tool performs the job better.

Such as this article did in omitting Rielly in the first place.

 

[TBLeafer]

He makes this comment:

That means whatever d-man they find has to be worth almost 2.5 wins to make them contenders.  (In year 3)

Is there a WAR ranking by player? I mean who now is worth 2.5 wins?

Hard to project three years.  Former contenders deciding to rebuild happens often enough that a guy like a Weber, Doughty or Keith might even be made available as a final D piece for a win now team.

This is from Oct 2015, but the only guys the Hockey News has as above 2.5 are Karlsson and Vlasic.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/new-war-stat-for-hockey-aims-to-provide-greater-insight-into-player-value/

I haven't found any recent WAR stats on NHL players.

Cool, thanks for that. 

 

[Kin]

I guess because it seems you have a problem with all gut feelings in general.

I have a problem with them if they are presented under the guise of being informed arguments.

We don't even know his negative impact currently because he's been removed from the equation.  So that obviously becomes and 'unknown' factor  that you can speculate on based on your gut feeling or find the surce material data.

That's A) not true and B) total nonsense. Rielly's projection is in part 3 of the series he wrote and just by not including him on a chart(which he did not because his projection is less accurate but rather because if Rielly's number is negative he won't be the team's #1 defenseman) doesn't mean he's any more or less susceptible to this projection being accurate.

But all stats are resultant of past events and you can only rely on them so much to project.  GM's can't base everything on data without the use of their gut.

We're not GMs. If we're making an argument based on statistics it's not about decision making. GM's have to make decisions about an uncertain future, we can rationally interpret arguments and statistics.

"This statistic is a valuable tool when it says something I like but not when it says something I don't like" is pretty easy to parse.

People are free to select the tools they want and leave alone the ones they don't want if they feel they don't want them or decide that a different tool performs the job better.

Yes, but the use of those tools has to be consistent and applied equally and not simply in the purpose of reinforcing the decision you've already come to. Internal consistency is not robotic, it's just basic sense.

 

[TBLeafer]

Sigh.

Everything depends on what happens over the next couple weeks, this summer, and next summer. But if everything goes according to plan, the wait for a Stanley Cup parade in Toronto might finally be over sooner than you might think.

I'm sure this cautiously optimistic summation is then also total nonsense and doesn't make any basic sense based on the data provided.

 

[TBLeafer]

Okay, for an up to date perspective, I am linking all previous parts of that series.  But I also think with the acquisition of Andersen, they are now out-dated:

http://theleafsnation.com/2016/6/15/building-a-champion-part-3-evaluating-core-roster-players

http://theleafsnation.com/2016/6/8/building-a-champion-part-2-evaluating-the-big-three

http://theleafsnation.com/2016/6/1/building-a-champion-part-1-establishing-a-core

 

[LuncheonMeat]

Sigh.

Everything depends on what happens over the next couple weeks, this summer, and next summer. But if everything goes according to plan, the wait for a Stanley Cup parade in Toronto might finally be over sooner than you might think.

I'm sure this cautiously optimistic summation is then also total nonsense and doesn't make any basic sense based on the data provided.

While you might be incredibly frustrated by Nik's argument, which I think contains an appropriate dose of reality, you really set yourself up for it with an opening statement like this:

This is a wonderfully constructed article that basically falls perfectly in line with everything I've been saying since signing up on this forum

 

[Highlander]

Watch out for Nik's  bear trap like mind, he will rip you to shreads and we will deserve it.  :'(