[Analyze This] 2010-11 Sleeper Picks Recap

[mapletreemarty]

As I was taking a look at the 2011-12 fantasy guide that was released earlier this week I was curious about the sleeper section under each teams’ projected output for the upcoming season. In previous years anytime I saw a player I owned on one of my keeper teams on the list it was almost a reassurance that this player might be having a bit of a breakout this season, even if the odds were only 10%. It was still nice to know that perhaps someone else was at the Kool-Aid bowl with me having a drink.

To indulge my curiosity I decided to have a look back at last year’s guide and see how many of the suggested sleepers actually hit their targets. 144 sleepers were identified in the 2010-11 fantasy guide, however since some of these sleeper predictions were based on younger players cracking the opening day lineup, and others staying healthy for a majority of the season I made a minimum games played (GP) quota of 40 games to try and eliminate some of these outliers.

Our grand list was down to 101 players, of which only 5 players reached the outlined sleeper targets (Player – Projected Points – Sleeper Points / % Chance Sleeper Points Attained – Actual Points):

C. Giroux - 58 - 70/30% - 76
J. Skinner - 38 - 55/15% - 63
M. Lucic - 43 - 60/25% - 62
M. Grabner - 42 - 50/10% - 52
J. Wisniewski - 39 - 50/10% - 51

Honourable mention goes out to Ryan Callahan who would have also cracked the list had he managed to stay healthy as his 48 points in 60 GP had him on pace for a 65 point season (60 points with a 20% likelihood).

Now, 6% doesn’t sound like a great success rate, but a few things need to be taken into consideration. First, the average point increase from a players projected point total to their sleeper point total was 17.4, which is anywhere from 29% (for a 60 pt. player) to 43.5% (for a 40 pt. player) increase in production on the season. Second, another eight players were within 10% of reaching the sleeper point total, those eight players increased their point production by 34%, which is well within the range stated above. This bumps the total from 6 to 14 percent.

As pool junkies we all know sometimes it comes down to just a few points between finishing first place and finishing as the first loser. As I dug a little deeper it turned out that 30 of the 101 players improved their projected point totals by five or more points. Let us have a look at how these players pan out based on their likelihood to succeed as sleepers:

35% - 0 out of 3 players
30% - 3 out of 13 players – mean production increase of 42%
25% - 6 out of 15 players – mean production increase of 17%
20% - 4 out of 19 players – mean production increase of 24%
15% - 8 out of 26 players – mean production increase of 33%
10% - 7 out of 19 players – mean production increase of 32%
< 5% - 2 out of 6 players – mean production increase could not be calculated (Tambellini went from 4 pts. to 17, and Omark from 0 pts. to 27)

A general trend of the lower the likelihood (or greater risk) the larger the production increase (greater reward). The 30% group is an anomaly due to the talent that broke out in the past season in Claude Giroux, Jamie Benn, and Logan Couture. The 25% group had the highest success rate of 40% of the players increasing their point totals by at least 5 points.

A couple of these guys in your pool could make all the difference between winning and losing. Perhaps a sleeper pick may not reach their sleeper point total, however if you look at those players and expect more of a 10% increase in production you will be more satisfied with some of your choices and a little less disappointed. In the end all the projections need to be taken with a grain of salt.

On a final note a discouraging trend that has been happening in the NHL. As poolies we like to toss around our point projections for the upcoming season or label certain players as xx pt. player’s year in and year out, with a potential of xx pts. Since the lockout the number of players to reach 70 points in a season has been decreasing. At the end of last season the number was half that of the 2005-06 season:

2005-06: 49 players
2006-07: 44 players
2007-08: 39 players
2008-09: 40 players
2009-10: 30 players
2010-11: 24 players

The drop of 40 % from 40 to 24 players over the course of the last 3 season is very worrisome. Just to put the fantasy guide into perspective, the key term being guide and not bible, for the 2010-11 season 46 players were projected to surpass 70 points, with another 35 players added as sleepers. From the 24 players to reach 70 points last year 18 came from the initial list of 46, 2 came from the 35 sleepers (Giroux and Vanek (was a sleeper for 80 points)), and 4 were projected less than 70 points (Selanne 50, Eriksson 69, Ribeiro 67, and Sharp 63). Going with the decreasing trends only 40 players are projected to hit 70 points for the upcoming season from the 2011-12 guide, with the sleeper list dropping down to only 10 players. Jamie Benn is projected for 70 points next season with a sleeper for 80 points, and is the only player that appears on both lists.

Good luck in picking out who’s going to bust out and exceed projections for next season, it may not be as easy as it appears.

[Killer67]

Thanks for the analysis Marty! I think the decrease in 70+ point players makes drafting for fantasy more fun.

[ross10019]

Good stuff mapletreemarty, it's always interesting to see who Dobber picks to break out. It's also easy to overlook how good a 70-point NHL player is, there are so few of them - many GMs think a guy needs to be consistently 80+ points to be valuable, those guys are so rare.

[angus]

Exactly (re: above). Tanguay had 69 points last year and seems criminally underrated. Great piece Marty.

[Dean Youngblood]

Thanks for putting in the work MTM. The number of projected 70+ point getters (46) in the guide was definitely interesting considering the NHL only had 24. Interesting....

[angus]

Not really. Projections are inherently going to be over for two reasons.

1) Injuries
2) Each player, in a way, is projected in a vacuum. A lot of other stuff goes into production that hard/impossible to account for.

[mapletreemarty]

Thanks everyone.

I think with Tanguay he put up 77 pts as a sophomore and everyone was expecting the next step to 85 or 90 pts. When that didn't happen everyone seemed to sour on him even though he has had seasons of 67, 69, 77, 78, 79, and 81 pts in his 11 year career. In 03-04 was his best chance to hit that lofty potential, unfortunately he missed 13 games stopping at 79 points.

The year before last in Tampa was on off year and you knew he would bounce back as his shooting percentage was down around 10% compared to an 18.8% career average. At an older age he may have a longer transition period to get used to his new team which would help with his slower seasons in MTL and TB more recently.

In terms of the projected point getters it is nice to see that the people who write the guide adapt to the ongoing trends around the league which result in fewer projections at 70+ pts for the upcoming year.

[horrorfan]

Nice writeup.

Referring to the number of projected 70 point producers last year, there were 46 projected and 24 reached that mark. Of those 22 that did not hit 70, how many of them were projected in the low to mid 70s? Furthermore, how many of those who didn't hit 70 ended up in the mid to high 60s? The main question is for those who missed the mark, how many were not far off? Just curious, thanks.

[Shoeless]

On a final note a discouraging trend that has been happening in the NHL. As poolies we like to toss around our point projections for the upcoming season or label certain players as xx pt. player’s year in and year out, with a potential of xx pts. Since the lockout the number of players to reach 70 points in a season has been decreasing. At the end of last season the number was half that of the 2005-06 season:

2005-06: 49 players
2006-07: 44 players
2007-08: 39 players
2008-09: 40 players
2009-10: 30 players
2010-11: 24 players

The drop of 40 % from 40 to 24 players over the course of the last 3 season is very worrisome.

Thanks for the read Marty - fun piece of analysis to take in.

This part on the drop in 70 point players got me thinking about injuries. In the past several seasons, some of the most gifted offensive players in the league have had huge decreases in their ice time - Savard, Crosby, Malkin, Parise, Markov, Stastny, Gaborik, Hemsky, Roy, and I am sure there are more. I don't remember a period of time where that kind of high end offense as been missing in such large measures. These guys not only put up points that others can't but frequently carry others with them. Furthermore, while a missing player creates opportunities for others to step up, it also diminishes the depth scoring on teams because opponents can focus their shutdown capabilities on these guys.

I will be really interested to see if in a year when all these guys are healthy, if you would see a rebound in 70 point scorers - my guess is yes.

[Yanos]

Nice post and replies. Very informative.

[mapletreemarty]

Nice writeup.

Referring to the number of projected 70 point producers last year, there were 46 projected and 24 reached that mark. Of those 22 that did not hit 70, how many of them were projected in the low to mid 70s? Furthermore, how many of those who didn't hit 70 ended up in the mid to high 60s? The main question is for those who missed the mark, how many were not far off? Just curious, thanks.

27 of the 46 projected for 70 pts. didn't make it. As I stated earlier 5 players who weren't projected at 70 made it last season.

Of those 27, 10 finished with 60-69 pts:

Tavares 67
Richards, M. 66
Nash 66
Carter 66
Crosby 66
Backstrom 65
Heatley 64
Koivu, M. 62
Krejci 62
Kovalchuk 60

13 players were projected in the 70-75 range, 2 of those finished over 70 pts. (Ryan 71, Toews 76), 3 finished in the 60-69 range (Tavares, Koivu, and Krejci).

[mapletreemarty]

Thanks for the read Marty - fun piece of analysis to take in.

This part on the drop in 70 point players got me thinking about injuries. In the past several seasons, some of the most gifted offensive players in the league have had huge decreases in their ice time - Savard, Crosby, Malkin, Parise, Markov, Stastny, Gaborik, Hemsky, Roy, and I am sure there are more. I don't remember a period of time where that kind of high end offense as been missing in such large measures. These guys not only put up points that others can't but frequently carry others with them. Furthermore, while a missing player creates opportunities for others to step up, it also diminishes the depth scoring on teams because opponents can focus their shutdown capabilities on these guys.

I will be really interested to see if in a year when all these guys are healthy, if you would see a rebound in 70 point scorers - my guess is yes.

Certainly agree with you Shoeless, it seems like more and more of the bigger names are going down with injuries and spending longer amounts of time on the shelf too.

We would see a rebound, but it may not be as great as we may expect. I dunno about Markov being a threat for 70 pts, but there will also be some people that fall off the list that were there this past season, like Selanne if he retires, Eriksson (absence of B.Richards may slow him down a little in terms of PP production), Vanek (been known to be inconsistent over the years). Despite the stars that we'll get back for a full healthy season perhaps 3 or 4 may go down to injury this year, like Getzlaf (missed 31 games the last 2 years) or Zetterberg etc.
It certainly bears watching

[Rad64]

Like Shoeless mentioned, injuries have been a big factor. I don't believe that is the only factor, though.

Teams are spreading out their offense and minutes. The top two lines are interchangeable on many teams and the same can be said for the 2nd and 3rd lines. The days of shifting your top line every second shift are long gone. This has reduced the even strength points for your elite (1st line) players.

It has made drafting more difficult as there are quite a few guys in that 50-60 range and very few over 60 (45 players!!!).

A quick look that should temper expectations...
Range Avg Pts #Players GP Avg GP
>100 104 1 82 82
90-99 95.5 4 328 82
80-89 82.75 4 314 78.5
70-79 73.5 15 1171 78
60-69 64.12 25 1926 77
50-59 54 49 3682 75
40-49 44.24 78 5965 76.5

[wendelclark17]

great thread and discussion so far gents..... I wholeheartedly agree that we poolies need a reality check to bring our expectations and predictions back down to earth sometimes. Makes those 50-59 players look a lot more valuable than they are often given credit for.

[kevinsrangers]

good read, thanks.