Matt Read and the 2011-12 Flyers: Why I'm not holding my breath

I’m looking at this guy like Evan Turner. Sure Turner was dominant in college…but he was 22. Everyone who is any good in basketball leaves by the time they’re 20, just like hockey players. I’m not saying he won’t be a solid contributor, but this guy isn’t gonna be a savior. If he gives us 25 points I consider it a home run by Holmgren.

Who said I was talking about Read? /grin

But yeah, same idea.

The thing I didn’t mention is that it also has a big impact on where we should set his ceiling. The odds are (and there’s obviously room for lots of variance) that he’ll improve a little this year and next but isn’t all that far from his peak. Whereas a PPG 19 year old is expected to get lots and lots better.

But that year, the 23-year-old and the 20-year-old faced the same opponents and had the same results. Doesn’t that mean they were equally good that year?

Yes, I agree that there are more 23-year-olds capable of performing at a high level in college than 20-year-olds because they have had more time to mature. And I agree that they are less likely to develop much from there. But that doesn’t mean that at that time, in that year, they weren’t as good. Just that we shouldn’t expect them to improve as much in the future.

How? Nodl scored as many points as Read did, in the same league, three years younger than Read did it.

I still hold to the contention that there are two separate evaluations of player – his playing style, and his playing caste. His style tells us what sort of play he is likely to make – a pass, a shot, a hit, whatever. His playing caste, however, speaks more to the player’s mindset, so it is more of an offensive/defensive question. Zherdev and Leino are both of the alomst purely offensive cast, but Leino’s role on that line was the setup guy. Zherdev historically could do both – he just didn’t with the Flyers. So using them interchangeably … yeah, I suppose we decided that was true. Svatos, however, has no history of being a puck-possession passer at all; he’s a shooter.

I consider Hartnell a top 6 given that he played top 5 minutes up front and scored 6th on team with 49 pts. And moving Mez up to top 4 would make Carle the number 5.

Also factoring the numbers game odds are one of Gus, Marshall, and Bourdon should be able to step up to a top 5 role.

Already letting Leino and Zherdev walk means that a forward from the Phantoms is already getting a promotion. I don’t feel that there is enough depth on phantoms to replace more than 2 forward spots.

I personally would have thought that having metrics to measure and compare players was absolutely KEY to being a stat-head.

There are. But if you want something like WAR, hockey isn’t there yet. GVT tries to be WAR, but I – as a stat head – say it’s not good enough.

So if GVT is great at this … but doesn’t work for defensive players … but then you claim you don’t often compare players’ relative values … I say we’re back at using the ole Mark I eyeball and giving things a sniff test. Seriously.

So because there’s a metric that is good, but not great, at something, abandon all stats? Come on, man. There’s no better way to figure out the value of 8 players coming and going from a team. There just isn’t. So there are flaws in it, and I’m up front about that. Suddenly, it’s not worth looking at stats because the one that is best in this situation isn’t perfect?

Where the hell is Eric

Staying out of it, mostly.

If you dig into GVT, I suspect you’ll be pretty disappointed in it. You seem to have a really keen dislike for unproven assumptions, and the defensive component in particular has plenty. I’ll give an example:

The offensive component derives from goals and assists. Defensemen don’t get many goals and assists, so they don’t get many offensive value points. The GVT creators then decided arbitrarily that defensemen and forwards should contribute equal value on average, so they gave the defensemen much more credit than the forwards for shot suppression and the other defensive components. So based on that arbitrary decision that forwards and defensemen should be equally valuable overall, they ended up making a formula that gives forwards almost no credit for their defense.

I never use GVT. I don’t really like its inputs (goals, assists, shots against, and plus-minus), and I’m not crazy about the way it blends them to get an output either. I can understand why Geoff uses it as a shorthand when trying to evaluate across several different players, which is hard to do without some sort of aggregation metric.

It’s like when I run to the McDonalds inside the Walmart for lunch; it’s really close, fast, and convenient, and is sufficient to get me through what I need to do, but I feel slimy and gross for having been a part of it and wish it didn’t have to happen.

Since Backlund & Leino were European and were subject to signing ELCs; I have an even better example: Vancouver’s Aaron Volpatti

Signed to his first NHL contract as a 25 year old free agent, and that first contract is a Standard contract, not an Entry level contract. That’s just like Read’s contract.

Last year was his first year under that contract, and he didn’t have to go through waivers during the first year of that contract (which was this past season).

Like Read, he played 8 AHL games on a tryout contract the year before his SPC began, but they didn’t count because they weren’t played on an SPC.

Honestly, I don’t think I could come up with another example that would be as similar as Volpatti’s.