Keeper Cap Hit League: Hamilton vs Carlson?

[gcefaloni]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to acquire one of the two stated defensemen: Dougie Hamilton (CGY) or John Carlson (WSH).
The league format is a bit strange when it comes to defensemen fantasy points. It works quite simply as Pts = 1 FP and +/- = (+ or -) 1FP.
As an example, if you're Karlsson and have 25 points but are -22, then you have 3 points in our pool.

It is also a keeper cap hit league so salary is important and Carlson is going to be resigning I'm guessing around the 6.5-7.5M$ range in the summer.

Which one of the two would you guys prefer and why.

Thanks!

[stevegamer]

Whichever one is cheaper, but probably neither. With that scoring, I want to be keeping 0 defensemen every year.

[Eskimo Brother]

Whichever one is cheaper, but probably neither. With that scoring, I want to be keeping 0 defensemen every year.

I agree it would be tough to keep defencemen in this pool.

Carlson will be getting 7.5M+ though, so if you want the cheeper option, it will be Hamilton.

[gcefaloni]

I guess I simply want the option that is likely to make most fantasy points over the short/medium term under my league format.

[stevegamer]

I guess I simply want the option that is likely to make most fantasy points over the short/medium term under my league format.

With +/- being so important, I think it's essentially unknowable which one that is going forward. Doubly so with Carlson possibly hitting free agency.

This year, Carlson is doing well, and is the cheap one, so him.

[jshed2]

Neither of them (or potentially any D) should be keepers for you next year, so I'd go with Carlson. Better point production and +/-, and a cheaper contract to boot for this season.

[gcefaloni]

Whichever one is cheaper, but probably neither. With that scoring, I want to be keeping 0 defensemen every year.

Neither of them (or potentially any D) should be keepers for you next year, so I'd go with Carlson. Better point production and +/-, and a cheaper contract to boot for this season.

I'm not sure I understand why you guys are saying no Ds should be part of my keepers. Historically, the winners of the league have almost always been people that have top Ds in their keepers because there are 18 teams with 5 Ds each in the league so it becomes really hard to get several decent Pts + +/- combination Ds later on if I don't keep some good ones in my keepers. I feel like there are WAY more options of forwards between 50-60 pts than there would be Ds between 30-40 pts.

You guys feel like most of my keepers should be forwards? Why? I'd like to better understand that.

[stevegamer]

I'm not sure I understand why you guys are saying no Ds should be part of my keepers. Historically, the winners of the league have almost always been people that have top Ds in their keepers because there are 18 teams with 5 Ds each in the league so it becomes really hard to get several decent Pts + +/- combination Ds later on if I don't keep some good ones in my keepers. I feel like there are WAY more options of forwards between 50-60 pts than there would be Ds between 30-40 pts.

You guys feel like most of my keepers should be forwards? Why? I'd like to better understand that.

If predicting goalies is voodoo, predicting plus-minus is a demonic invasion while you are already fighting off aliens.

You may or may not have an updated signature. The fact that you have last year's Calgary Flames goalies - and only those goalies on your roster makes me wonder.

Look at your potential keepers - with current point totals for defensemen:
7F: Mitchell Marner, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, John Tavares, Vladimir Tarasenko, Claude Giroux, Mathew Barzal
5D: John Carlson (30), Ivan Provorov (25), Kevin Shattenkirk (15), Roman Josi (24) , Tyson Barrie (23)
1G: Brian Elliott

That's 13 guys. Now go look at projections for those 13 players going into this year, and see how close they are to producing as expected. Do the same for last year (excluding Provorov/Barzal). I would expect you will find that point projections are mostly fairly reasonable, with some outliers like MacKinnon. Plus-Minus is going to be all over the place. You will want to keep the guys who produce the most value, and give some degree of certainty.

In a perfect world, I'd be keeping 2 good goalies, and 5 forwards in this league, and just spitballing defense.

Keeping D makes sense if they are values, though - and you have a great keeper in Provorov.

[gcefaloni]

If predicting goalies is voodoo, predicting plus-minus is a demonic invasion while you are already fighting off aliens.

You may or may not have an updated signature. The fact that you have last year's Calgary Flames goalies - and only those goalies on your roster makes me wonder.

Look at your potential keepers - with current point totals for defensemen:
7F: Mitchell Marner, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, John Tavares, Vladimir Tarasenko, Claude Giroux, Mathew Barzal
5D: John Carlson (30), Ivan Provorov (25), Kevin Shattenkirk (15), Roman Josi (24) , Tyson Barrie (23)
1G: Brian Elliott

That's 13 guys. Now go look at projections for those 13 players going into this year, and see how close they are to producing as expected. Do the same for last year (excluding Provorov/Barzal). I would expect you will find that point projections are mostly fairly reasonable, with some outliers like MacKinnon. Plus-Minus is going to be all over the place. You will want to keep the guys who produce the most value, and give some degree of certainty.

In a perfect world, I'd be keeping 2 good goalies, and 5 forwards in this league, and just spitballing defense.

Keeping D makes sense if they are values, though - and you have a great keeper in Provorov.

My signature isn't updated indeed. I have to keep 7 players in this and the salary cap is 75M like the NHL with real nhl cap hit, only the better one of the 2 goalies count. This is my current team:

Sidney Crosby
Tyler Seguin
Taylor Hall
Mark Scheifele
Travis Konecny
Jordan Weal
Anthony Duclair
Mats Zuccarello
Zach Parise
Erik Karlsson
Shea Theodore
Kevin Shattenkirk
Marc-Edouard Vlasic
Damon Severson
Devan Dubnyk
Aaron Dell

I was thinking of keeping Crosby, Seguin, Hall, Scheifele, Theodore, Karlsson, Shattenkirk.

I thought the best way of going for keepers was to go with a point projection for Ds and just assume that +/- year over year are going to be neutral in terms of value added. Some years will be positive, some years negative. So that if I keep 2-3 Ds that I project will make 40 points on average and ignore the +/- variable. I'll be better off than keeping 0-1 D and stacking forwards averaging 70 pts because I'd end up with Ds that make much less points. I thought the decay between top 100 forwards and the rest of FWs was much lower than the decay between top 60 Ds and the rest of Ds. Perhaps that is not an optimal way of thinking and drafting in our league?

[stevegamer]

I was thinking of keeping Crosby, Seguin, Hall, Scheifele, Theodore, Karlsson, Shattenkirk.

I thought the best way of going for keepers was to go with a point projection for Ds and just assume that +/- year over year are going to be neutral in terms of value added. Some years will be positive, some years negative. So that if I keep 2-3 Ds that I project will make 40 points on average and ignore the +/- variable. I'll be better off than keeping 0-1 D and stacking forwards averaging 70 pts because I'd end up with Ds that make much less points. I thought the decay between top 100 forwards and the rest of FWs was much lower than the decay between top 60 Ds and the rest of Ds. Perhaps that is not an optimal way of thinking and drafting in our league?

There are 2 main issues with that method.

1. Generally guys who score more get paid more, but that's fairly projectable. The plus-minus part isn't, and it's why you simply cannot trust expensive defensemen who don't have an elite track record of good +/- production. I'm not even sure I'd trust them, but at least it's reasonable. Here are the guys in the last 3 full years who have had 30 points and been +5 or better every year: Suter, Niskanen, McDonagh, Keith, Carlson - that's 5 guys. Knowing that you can't project plus-minus means you need to avoid risks there, and the best way to avoid risks is to basically not spend much of you precious cap there.

Karlsson scores so much, he's like a forward, and if the plus-minus is not terrible, he's fine.

It looks like you kept Shattenkirk from a prior year, which is unfortunate, because he's expensive, and has 15 points so far in your league, same as Theodore who is about 1/8th the cost.

2. You need to project these things at dollars per point. The more money you spend on guys who suck, the less you have to spend elsewhere. And you want to spend on forwards, because that cap room, you can project.

Also, your goalie category is odd, which means you need to be aware of who are the likely difference makers there, and you cheaper guys who might help by getting a job.

I'd lean toward aiming for cheap d-men you trust to give some points, and not be on a terrible team. If you get 1-2 you can keep, that's great.

I'd keep Dubnyk over Shattenkirk.

[gcefaloni]

There are 2 main issues with that method.

1. Generally guys who score more get paid more, but that's fairly projectable. The plus-minus part isn't, and it's why you simply cannot trust expensive defensemen who don't have an elite track record of good +/- production. I'm not even sure I'd trust them, but at least it's reasonable. Here are the guys in the last 3 full years who have had 30 points and been +5 or better every year: Suter, Niskanen, McDonagh, Keith, Carlson - that's 5 guys. Knowing that you can't project plus-minus means you need to avoid risks there, and the best way to avoid risks is to basically not spend much of you precious cap there.

Karlsson scores so much, he's like a forward, and if the plus-minus is not terrible, he's fine.

It looks like you kept Shattenkirk from a prior year, which is unfortunate, because he's expensive, and has 15 points so far in your league, same as Theodore who is about 1/8th the cost.

2. You need to project these things at dollars per point. The more money you spend on guys who suck, the less you have to spend elsewhere. And you want to spend on forwards, because that cap room, you can project.

Also, your goalie category is odd, which means you need to be aware of who are the likely difference makers there, and you cheaper guys who might help by getting a job.

I'd lean toward aiming for cheap d-men you trust to give some points, and not be on a terrible team. If you get 1-2 you can keep, that's great.

I'd keep Dubnyk over Shattenkirk.

So if I understand well, you'd try to trade Shattenkirk and/or Dubnyk for a good value forward that is more predictable? (What would be the point threshold where you would swap a goaltender or good expensive D for a forward?)
The other thing is my league counts only one goalie and the points are calculated as TOI/GAA*0.05 so there is a huge tilt towards a simple presence in the net. More minutes is the biggest variable for points but that creates a smaller gap between elite goalies and middle of the pack goalies. So perhaps not worth keeping a goalie in my keep 7?

Would you keep Zuccarello over Shattenkirk or since Zucc is only a 60ish points forward, you'd keep Shattenkirk or try to get a better forward? (Comes back to my question about point threshold for FW keeper vs D keeper).

Thanks!

[Eskimo Brother]

Winning cap leagues is about bargains. I feel like with your setup, it would be much easier to find D bargains than forward ones. The keeper level defence are all highly paid, while the lower ones that can get 20 points and go plus 15, will be relatively cheap. So I would lean towards keeping more forwards. That being said, it really depends on your players.

I would keep Crosby, Seguin, Scheifele, Hall, Theodore, Karlsson, Dubnyk. Or trade for another keeper in place of dubnyk and draft a replacement starter. I would not be keeping Shattenkirk - at all.