Suggestion Box - 07/08 Pool Guide

[Highlander]

Hi again Dobber,

I\'ve posted this already in response to your updated goalie rankings (Ward? that high? you serious? you high?) and feel that while the rankings are great for some keeper pools, its not as helpful as others might be.

I see Miller is very high up, as he should be given the wins he is likely to get playing for a very good Buffalo team and given his youth and unbelievable talent. He is, however, going to let in a fair number of goals in getting those wins and may not be as valuable in many pools where GAA or SV% are the factors that go into determining a player\'s value.

The pool that I have been in for 17 years now values goalies based on a combination of GAA and minutes played. Unfortunately your rankings aren\'t as helpful for me as so much else here and in your guides.

Any chance your guide in September could have some insight into how you feel goalies will produce in terms of wins, GAA, SV%, etc? I know the Hockey News\' Pool Guide is the only publication that I have seen that predicts GAA, though a few do predict wins.

[lanky522]

Predicting GAA is easy... It\'s also not very valuable to have. Of the best 20 goalies in the league, any one of them could have a great GAA, so If you predicted 2.25 for every one of those goalies, you\'d probably never be more than .25 off. When all the goalies are that close, making GAA predictions and rankings is kind of silly.

Just use your common sense and hockey knowledge. You say yourself that miller might not have the best GAA... he doesn\'t need one. Buffalo will score 4 goals a game, so as long as he only lets in 3 they\'ll win.

Usually, goalies that play for higher scoring teams have worse GAA\'s than those that play for defensive teams. You don\'t really need dobber to rank goalies in terms of GAA for you. Just try and pick up goalies from Dallas, Vancouver, New Jersey, Minnesota, Detroit, etc... (teams that don\'t allow too many shots against each game). The teams that play good defense and only allow 20 shots a game, give their goalies more of a chance to have 0.00, 1.00, and 2.00 GAA\'s every game.

If your pool counts shutouts, these are the guys you want as they\'ll give you the greatest chance at getting shutouts too. Stopping all 20 shots is easier and more likely than stopping all 35 you know?

[Highlander]

It may be silly, but using GAA and minutes played is how our pool has calculated goalie points for a long time (17 years) so it is relevant to me.

Essentially a regulation shutout is worth 4pts in our pool letting in 4 goals in a regulation game (win or loss) is a wash, 0pts. It certainly isn\'t the only way to calculate goalie points but its how our pool has done it, as I said, for a long-time and we are kinda set in our ways.

We do an annual review of the stats and will periodically reset the baseline to try and reflect our sense of relative player value - Brodeur and Luongo being at the top of the scoring tables in our pool this past season meshes pretty much with where we think things ought to be (we might be happier if we went with 3.75pts for a shutout but we try and shy away from quarter points and when we do make adjustments its usually by a half point - back in the Gretzky/Lemieux/Roy days a shutout was worth 5pts in our pool).

Given your premise that predictions of GAAs are easy and that you would only likely be off in a prediction by .25 in GAA perhaps misses the point of my post. Being off on GAA predictions, even by as little as .25, can have a considerable effect on a player\'s pts in my pool (or indeed others where GAA is a significant component of goaltender scoring). A number one goalie playing 70 games could be off by 17.5pts with a mere .25 error in GAA. That\'s like the difference between Daniel Alfredsson and Ryan Smyth, both good players but one is far more of a fantasy pool stud. So it is a factor, and not just for me, to get the goalie predictions for more than just wins.

Post edited by: Highlander, at: 2007/04/24 15:20

[Stannic]

Highlander wrote:

It may be silly, but using GAA and minutes played is how our pool has calculated goalie points for a long time (17 years) so it is relevant to me.

Essentially a regulation shutout is worth 4pts in our pool letting in 4 goals in a regulation game (win or loss) is a wash, 0pts. It certainly isn\'t the only way to calculate goalie points but its how our pool has done it, as I said, for a long-time and we are kinda set in our ways.

We do an annual review of the stats and will periodically reset the baseline to try and reflect our sense of relative player value - Brodeur and Luongo being at the top of the scoring tables in our pool this past season meshes pretty much with where we think things ought to be (we might be happier if we went with 3.75pts for a shutout but we try and shy away from quarter points and when we do make adjustments its usually by a half point - back in the Gretzky/Lemieux/Roy days a shutout was worth 5pts in our pool).

Given your premise that predictions of GAAs are easy and that you would only likely be off in a prediction by .25 in GAA perhaps misses the point of my post. Being off on GAA predictions, even by as little as .25, can have a considerable effect on a player\'s pts in my pool (or indeed others where GAA is a significant component of goaltender scoring). A number one goalie playing 70 games could be off by 17.5pts with a mere .25 error in GAA. That\'s like the difference between Daniel Alfredsson and Ryan Smyth, both good players but one is far more of a fantasy pool stud. So it is a factor, and not just for me, to get the goalie predictions for more than just wins.<br><br>Post edited by: Highlander, at: 2007/04/24 15:20

So anyone who thought that Marc Denis would play good in Tampa this year kinda bombed eh?

[Dobber]

Highlander wrote:

It may be silly, but using GAA and minutes played is how our pool has calculated goalie points for a long time (17 years) so it is relevant to me.

Essentially a regulation shutout is worth 4pts in our pool letting in 4 goals in a regulation game (win or loss) is a wash, 0pts. It certainly isn\'t the only way to calculate goalie points but its how our pool has done it, as I said, for a long-time and we are kinda set in our ways.

We do an annual review of the stats and will periodically reset the baseline to try and reflect our sense of relative player value - Brodeur and Luongo being at the top of the scoring tables in our pool this past season meshes pretty much with where we think things ought to be (we might be happier if we went with 3.75pts for a shutout but we try and shy away from quarter points and when we do make adjustments its usually by a half point - back in the Gretzky/Lemieux/Roy days a shutout was worth 5pts in our pool).

Given your premise that predictions of GAAs are easy and that you would only likely be off in a prediction by .25 in GAA perhaps misses the point of my post. Being off on GAA predictions, even by as little as .25, can have a considerable effect on a player\'s pts in my pool (or indeed others where GAA is a significant component of goaltender scoring). A number one goalie playing 70 games could be off by 17.5pts with a mere .25 error in GAA. That\'s like the difference between Daniel Alfredsson and Ryan Smyth, both good players but one is far more of a fantasy pool stud. So it is a factor, and not just for me, to get the goalie predictions for more than just wins.<br><br>Post edited by: Highlander, at: 2007/04/24 15:20

Ouch. That\'s a lot of pressure. Precisely the reason why my pool (18 years - beat you by one!) rewards saves and punishes goals allowed...but has nothing to do with the GAA or SV%.
In roto pools these stats have a place, but I don\'t like them in non-roto style pools. And the good thing about roto pools is you don\'t need a prediction - you just make changes as you go to compensate for the way that the stat is trending...
I don\'t know if I want to chance sullying my reputation by take a stab at GAA\'s now! Being off by 0.25 is terrible in a stat that is almost impossible to predict any closer than that...whoa

[Highlander]

Oh, now that the pressure is on, my boy Dobber gets cold feet. Had to take that Karma nugget back

Seriously, goalie stats are one of the most contentious things parts of our pool but this is the format we hit upon years ago and are sort of wedded to it (though, as I\'ll get to in a sec, we are always reviewing the rules during the off-season - much to the chagrin of some of our GMs who would like a modicum of stability). As I said, the Hockey News has taken a stab at it in their Ultimate Pool Guide and, with a bit of common sense as noted in a previous post, I can usually get a good read on goalies but always willing to pick someone else\'s brain.

Our pool, which has keeper elements (2 players are yours for \"life\", a handfull of players are yours for up to 4 years - with the chance to promote them to \"lifers\" while you retain their rights, players that you have a right to match someone else\'s \"bid\" upon during the draft) and elements of a one-year only pool. Its a mix that has seemed to work for us.

We draft by position (Hockey News is our Bible). And the GAA formula we use gives us goalie stats that seem to value goalies in a manner that seems comprable for skaters - which is what we want. A 100 pt goalie and a 100 pt skater are both elite, a 75 pt goalie and a 75 pt skater are solid, a 50 pt goalie and a 50 pt skater are probably worthy of an improvment.

Open to alternatives that would still produce the same result.

[lanky522]

Yeah in my head to head league, we use wins, losses, saves, goals against, and shutouts. We don\'t touch GAA or save percentage, BUT they are somewhat incorporated in the saves and goals against stats...

Obviously, the more saves your goalies make, the better his fantasy points... this relates to a higher save %. The more goals you allow, the worse his fantasy points... this relates to a higher (worse) GAA.

[Zorro]

Man that\'s tough. Who are your tenders Highlander?

I love the fish though Captain H...

[Highlander]

Zorro, you sure you want to get into this

Me, I\'m happy to go on about my championship season but you may not have the patience. I\'ll try and be brief.

Quick answer is that my go-to guy down the stretch was Hasek (108pts had I played him all season). Throughout this post I refer to the points the player would have gotten had he been on my active line-up (ie, not benched) for the whole season. We do weekly line-ups so you only get points for the weeks they actually \"play\" on your team. Hasek ended up as the 6th highest pointing goalie and was really only a few pts back of being the 3rd highest - behind Luongo\'s 128pts and Brodeur\'s 142pts.

I had, and still have, the rights to Rick DiPeitro (86pts) and used him for a few weeks near the end when Hasek was out nursing an injury. I just wasn\'t convinced he was as good as he turned out to be until much later in the season (recall that in the first week he was lit up by Phoenix so I was unwilling to turn the reins over to him as my main guy while the hope remained that I could get someone better).

I started the season with Cam Ward (61pts) backed up by Vesa Toskala (59pts), but was able to upgrade to Ryan Miller (78pts). Miller, who has continuing rights in our pool until his prospect contract expires, was flipped for Hasek and was part of helping me keep pace and ultimately win my pool.

Hope that didn\'t bore you to tears. :S

[WildHendy]

Victory is always sweet--not boring.By listening how others have suceeded I may uncover the seeds of my future championships.{I AM A 4 TIME STATS-CUP CHAMP MYSELF}

Post edited by: WildHendy, at: 2007/04/25 21:29