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Thread: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

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    Default Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    It seems every year, one or more of my leagues discuss our scoring cats in an effort to find the balance between skaters and goalies.

    This led me to wondering....Is there such a thing as a "perfect" balance between the two?

    For example, one of my leagues uses the following scoring cats: G, A, BLK, HIT, PIM, +/-, SOG, FO%, PPP, SHP, W, SV, SHO, GAA & SV%

    All cats use a weight of 1, except for FO% which is weighted at 0.5. So, we use 10 cats for skaters and 5 for goalies.

    I'd love to hear from other leagues on what their scoring cats are, how they are weighted and their thoughts on what a good balance would be between skaters and goalies.

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    In a 10-14 team league, start 2G, there's enough positional slotting of goalies to go with a 9/4 (or 10/4) category split, I believe that's ideal. A 12-18 player skater group should carry double+ of the goalies.
    In a 20-24 team league, start 1G, I'd say the single goalie is too valuable so decreasing to a 10/3 split is smarter.

    An absolute must to upweight scoring is simply to carry G,A,P all as categories.
    People who don't think hard enough always say "This seems redundant - to have points, we already have G & A".
    Adding points simply upweights G, A to 1.5x themselves as a category (well, maybe more like Gx1.3 and Ax1.7)... but you get the picture.

    For me, SHO is too random and shouldn't be a cat for goalies, that would bring you down to 4 there, good.
    For me, FOW is better than FO%... and I'd add points.

    I also HATE, HATE, HATE "SHP".
    The best penalty killers may be on for 100 kills, give up 3 goals, kill 97... have 0 shp during that time.
    Whereas a bigger risk taker may be on for 100 kills, give up 10 goals, kill 90 and score 2shp during that time.
    But... you reward the guy that gets 2 SHP and was a worse penalty killer... nah, that's doing.it.wrong. (IMO)

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Thanks Peng.

    The league that is discussing scoring cat changes the most is a 12 team league. I like the idea of going to a 9/4 or even a 10/4 split keeping the double+ goal in mind.

    There seems to be a consensus to get rid of FO% and only go with FOW for next season so that's an improvement imo.

    One cat that is gaining traction is getting rid of PPP and SHP and going with STP - Special Team Points. That eliminates one cat and appears to reward the penalty killer with 2 shp in your example - regardless of how good of penalty killer he was.

    I also know there a some GMs in the league that HATE +/-. So, that could potentially be eliminated as well.

    So, with your suggestions in mind, it appears: G, A, P, BLK, HIT, PIM, SOG, FOW, & STP for skaters and W, SV, GAA & SV% might be the optimal way to go for a 9/4 split.

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pit Bulls View Post
    Thanks Peng.

    The league that is discussing scoring cat changes the most is a 12 team league. I like the idea of going to a 9/4 or even a 10/4 split keeping the double+ goal in mind.

    There seems to be a consensus to get rid of FO% and only go with FOW for next season so that's an improvement imo.

    One cat that is gaining traction is getting rid of PPP and SHP and going with STP - Special Team Points. That eliminates one cat and appears to reward the penalty killer with 2 shp in your example - regardless of how good of penalty killer he was.

    I also know there a some GMs in the league that HATE +/-. So, that could potentially be eliminated as well.

    So, with your suggestions in mind, it appears: G, A, P, BLK, HIT, PIM, SOG, FOW, & STP for skaters and W, SV, GAA & SV% might be the optimal way to go for a 9/4 split.
    That looks like a solid setup that I would enjoy playing in a league with.
    Associate Editor for DobberHockey (Wednesdays). Click that Ramblings button on the the menu bar!
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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pit Bulls View Post
    Thanks Peng.

    The league that is discussing scoring cat changes the most is a 12 team league. I like the idea of going to a 9/4 or even a 10/4 split keeping the double+ goal in mind.

    There seems to be a consensus to get rid of FO% and only go with FOW for next season so that's an improvement imo.

    One cat that is gaining traction is getting rid of PPP and SHP and going with STP - Special Team Points. That eliminates one cat and appears to reward the penalty killer with 2 shp in your example - regardless of how good of penalty killer he was.

    I also know there a some GMs in the league that HATE +/-. So, that could potentially be eliminated as well.

    So, with your suggestions in mind, it appears: G, A, P, BLK, HIT, PIM, SOG, FOW, & STP for skaters and W, SV, GAA & SV% might be the optimal way to go for a 9/4 split.
    This sounds interesting for the scoring set up. What would the optimal team/roster setup be for this scoring?

    I am thinking something like a 12tm salary full keeper league with:

    Skater Categories: G/A/P/BLK/HIT/PIM/SOG/FOW/STP (9 total)
    Goalie Categories: W/SV/GAA/SV%(4 total)

    3 - C
    3 - RW
    3 - LW
    6 - D
    3 - SKT(F or D)
    2G

    In my opinion, this emulates the NHL lines and defensive pairings, plus adding a second goalie each day.

    Maybe 4-6 RESERVE spots.

    A minors system of 25ish?

    Would you weight all categories as "1" ?

    What would be a good salary cap?
    20tm multicat salary keeper
    19 Active/6 Reserve/ 33 Minors
    3C/3LW/3RW/3SKT/6D/1G
    Skaters: G/A/PlusMinus/PIM/SOG/PPP/SHP/Hit/Blk/FOW/FO%
    Goalies: W/GAA/SV/SV%/SHO

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pengwin7 View Post
    In a 10-14 team league, start 2G, there's enough positional slotting of goalies to go with a 9/4 (or 10/4) category split, I believe that's ideal. A 12-18 player skater group should carry double+ of the goalies.
    In a 20-24 team league, start 1G, I'd say the single goalie is too valuable so decreasing to a 10/3 split is smarter.

    An absolute must to upweight scoring is simply to carry G,A,P all as categories.
    People who don't think hard enough always say "This seems redundant - to have points, we already have G & A".
    Adding points simply upweights G, A to 1.5x themselves as a category (well, maybe more like Gx1.3 and Ax1.7)... but you get the picture.

    For me, SHO is too random and shouldn't be a cat for goalies, that would bring you down to 4 there, good.
    For me, FOW is better than FO%... and I'd add points.

    I also HATE, HATE, HATE "SHP".
    The best penalty killers may be on for 100 kills, give up 3 goals, kill 97... have 0 shp during that time.
    Whereas a bigger risk taker may be on for 100 kills, give up 10 goals, kill 90 and score 2shp during that time.
    But... you reward the guy that gets 2 SHP and was a worse penalty killer... nah, that's doing.it.wrong. (IMO)
    Agreed with all of this, especially on the points front. Having all of G, A, and P is great for two reasons, one, as Pengwin pointed out it is purposefully redundant Scoring and assisting on goals is still how you win in hockey so I want it to be an automatic 2 category score for either (It's actually 3 as you get either a +/- or STP).

    Also agreed that SHP are too infrequent and the wrong way to reward great penalty killers. STP seems fine as it's an "upgrade" to PPP, in my perfect world their would be a category scored (pppx1)+ (shp x 2) but I have yet to see that. STP is pretty great.

    The only area I disagree is that I prefer FO% to FOW. I prefer FO%. FOW is too easy to game by collecting multiple centres who have wing eligibility and loading up. Further, I don't see a guy who simply wins and loses a lot of FOs as someone who should be rewarded. A guy who goes 8W-10L is not (IMO) more valuable than a guy who goes 6W-2L in a game. FO% to me is like a +/- you have to consider the losses as well and a net winning number does not properly do that, IMO.
    12 team H-2-H 1 year league, daily roster changes, 3 goalie start minimum/week
    2xC, 2xRW, 2xLW, 4xD, 3xUtil, 2xG, 5 Bench
    G, A, P, PIM, PPP, SHP, GWG, SOG, Hits, W, SV%, GAA, SVs
    C: C. Keller, C. Mittelstadt, B. Nelson, R. Strome,
    LW: K. Connor, B. Tkachuk, J. Gaudreau, J. Marchessault, E. Rodrigues, A. Lafreniere
    RW: K. Fiala, J. Bratt, T. Jeannot V. Arvidsson
    D: R. Josi, J. Trouba, E. Gustafsson,
    G: L. Thompson, F. Gustavsson, V. Vanecek
    NO IR

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Quote Originally Posted by LawMan View Post
    Agreed with all of this, especially on the points front. Having all of G, A, and P is great for two reasons, one, as Pengwin pointed out it is purposefully redundant Scoring and assisting on goals is still how you win in hockey so I want it to be an automatic 2 category score for either (It's actually 3 as you get either a +/- or STP).

    Also agreed that SHP are too infrequent and the wrong way to reward great penalty killers. STP seems fine as it's an "upgrade" to PPP, in my perfect world their would be a category scored (pppx1)+ (shp x 2) but I have yet to see that. STP is pretty great.

    The only area I disagree is that I prefer FO% to FOW. I prefer FO%. FOW is too easy to game by collecting multiple centres who have wing eligibility and loading up. Further, I don't see a guy who simply wins and loses a lot of FOs as someone who should be rewarded. A guy who goes 8W-10L is not (IMO) more valuable than a guy who goes 6W-2L in a game. FO% to me is like a +/- you have to consider the losses as well and a net winning number does not properly do that, IMO.
    Thx Lawman! Interesting perspective.

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    Default Re: Scoring Cats - Is there such a thing as a perfect balance?

    Issue with FO% is it presents a (massive) strategic loophole.
    Every year Yahoo/Fantrax/ESPN misplace some guys at C, that aren't C, and don't take draws.

    A team could technically roster one high FO% center... and then make all their other "C" players guys that simply don't take Face-Offs.
    In the NHL, when team A plays team B, there may be 60 faceoffs, and both teams have to supply somebody for all 60 faceoffs.
    Teams can't just say "Yeah - we only want count the faceoffs when our best guy is out there."
    That's essentially what FO% does... asks to just count the FO% of the guy(s) we want to throw out there.

    It's still impressive to win 46% or 48% draws at an NHL-level.
    (In the same regard that guys on bad teams may have a negative +/-... and we can/should overlook that because they are simply the highest TOI players on a team with bad defense/goaltending...)
    But going with FO% suggests that 46% or 48% FO% guys are simply "not good enough" at that level, just because they aren't north of 50/50.

    Essentially - come end of draft, with FO% format, a GM should (statistically) prefer:
    a) 40pt forward, taking 200 draws and being 48%
    over
    b) 45pt forward, taking 1000 draws and being 48%

    ^There's something wrong with the category choice when this is the case.

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