Scout's Honour
Does anyone else get the impression that Damien Cox wants Luke Schenn to fail? Isn't that kind of messed up?
Here's Cox's take from this morning:
I don't see why the Leafs are wasting a contract year on Schenn at the beginning of a rebuilding process, but I do not for a second believe that the kid is out of his depth. He isn't going to win the Calder, but he has shown so far that he belongs.
We often rip on baseball writers who ignore stats and base their opinions on what they see what they see with their own eyes and feel in their gut. Well, this is kind of awkward because I am basing my opinion on what I see, while Cox is using statistics to support his argument:
That's just the way the team is built. All the Luke Schenn hype in the world isn't going to change that, and isn't it a shame the Leafs are determined to use such a quality prospect to deliver a public relations message? The kid is minus 4 now, and how will Cliff Fletcher and Ron Wilson doubletalk this one when January rolls around and that stat is into double figures?
I'm actually comfortable taking the traditional scout-view here, because Cox makes the same mistake as many baseball writers: he is using a bad stat. I think by now everyone knows that RBI can't really give you a good gauge of a player's performance because it is so dependent on the performance of others on the team (it is technically possible for a batter to hit 80 homeruns and only record 80 RsBI). I view plus-minus in the same way: a team stat that doesn't accurately reflect the performance of individual players.
It seems like Cox has been forced to remove a "1967" to fit plus-minus into his template (though he still managed to sneak one into his lede today), judging from how he often he has mentioned it lately. When it comes to Schenn, stats such as hits and blocked shots mean nothing, while plus-minus is the be all and end all.
Out of interest, I decided to see what other NHL players are "doing there level best to hang in there at the NHL level." Or, more accurately, if plus-minus is an accurate gauge of how good an NHL player is, I want to know who is worse that Schenn.
Interesting:
Look at that list of names. Ed Jovanovski and Pavel Kubina have the same plus-minus as Luke Schenn. Mathieu Schneider is at a whopping minus-10. Calder favourite Fabian Brunnstrom is a minus-six. Aren't Chris Drury and Mike Fisher known as great two-way forwards? Why do they have the same or worse plus/minus rating as Luke Schenn? It is almost as if the stat tells you little about what these players contribute and is useless for supporting the argument that Schenn isn't ready in the NHL. Go figure.
Here's Cox's take from this morning:
Schenn, meanwhile, received another 22:56 of ice time from Wilson, and for now is doing his level best to hang in there at the NHL level. The correct call at this point, with the Leafs having committed to keep him all season, might be to give him a couple of games off to help him catch his wind and then send him out again.
But this isn't about making the correct call for the young man's future. Never has been.I don't see why the Leafs are wasting a contract year on Schenn at the beginning of a rebuilding process, but I do not for a second believe that the kid is out of his depth. He isn't going to win the Calder, but he has shown so far that he belongs.
We often rip on baseball writers who ignore stats and base their opinions on what they see what they see with their own eyes and feel in their gut. Well, this is kind of awkward because I am basing my opinion on what I see, while Cox is using statistics to support his argument:
That's just the way the team is built. All the Luke Schenn hype in the world isn't going to change that, and isn't it a shame the Leafs are determined to use such a quality prospect to deliver a public relations message? The kid is minus 4 now, and how will Cliff Fletcher and Ron Wilson doubletalk this one when January rolls around and that stat is into double figures?
I'm actually comfortable taking the traditional scout-view here, because Cox makes the same mistake as many baseball writers: he is using a bad stat. I think by now everyone knows that RBI can't really give you a good gauge of a player's performance because it is so dependent on the performance of others on the team (it is technically possible for a batter to hit 80 homeruns and only record 80 RsBI). I view plus-minus in the same way: a team stat that doesn't accurately reflect the performance of individual players.
It seems like Cox has been forced to remove a "1967" to fit plus-minus into his template (though he still managed to sneak one into his lede today), judging from how he often he has mentioned it lately. When it comes to Schenn, stats such as hits and blocked shots mean nothing, while plus-minus is the be all and end all.
Out of interest, I decided to see what other NHL players are "doing there level best to hang in there at the NHL level." Or, more accurately, if plus-minus is an accurate gauge of how good an NHL player is, I want to know who is worse that Schenn.
Interesting:
| Player | +/- |
| Mathieu Schneider | -10 |
| Brent Sopel | -7 |
| Brett Lebda | -7 |
| Denis Gauthier | -7 |
| Andrew Murray | -7 |
| Fabian Brunnstrom | -6 |
| Kris Draper | -6 |
| Tom Preissing | -6 |
| Nick Foligno | -6 |
| R.J. Umberger | -6 |
| Brendan Morrison | -5 |
| Todd Bertuzzi | -5 |
| Rod Brind'Amour | -5 |
| Trevor Daley | -5 |
| Matt Niskanen | -5 |
| Derek Armstrong | -5 |
| Mike Fisher | -5 |
| Chris Phillips | -5 |
| David Hale | -5 |
| Eric Brewer | -5 |
| Andy McDonald | -5 |
| John Mitchell | -5 |
| Erik Christensen | -5 |
| Kristian Huselius | -5 |
| Fredrik Modin | -5 |
| James Sheppard | -5 |
| Teemu Selanne | -4 |
| Adrian Aucoin | -4 |
| Dustin Boyd | -4 |
| Mike Ribeiro | -4 |
| Daniel Cleary | -4 |
| Brian Boyle | -4 |
| Peter Harrold | -4 |
| Raitis Ivanans | -4 |
| Bruno Gervais | -4 |
| Andy Hilbert | -4 |
| Jeff Tambellini | -4 |
| Chris Drury | -4 |
| Dany Heatley | -4 |
| Anton Volchenkov | -4 |
| Jesse Winchester | -4 |
| Ed Jovanovski | -4 |
| Kyle Turris | -4 |
| Max Talbot | -4 |
| Brad Boyes | -4 |
| Mikhail Grabovski | -4 |
| Pavel Kubina | -4 |
| Nikolai Kulemin | -4 |
| Jamal Mayers | -4 |
| Dan Hamhuis | -4 |
| Patric Hornqvist | -4 |
| Greg de Vries | -4 |
| Slava Kozlov | -4 |
| Stephane Veilleux | -4 |
Look at that list of names. Ed Jovanovski and Pavel Kubina have the same plus-minus as Luke Schenn. Mathieu Schneider is at a whopping minus-10. Calder favourite Fabian Brunnstrom is a minus-six. Aren't Chris Drury and Mike Fisher known as great two-way forwards? Why do they have the same or worse plus/minus rating as Luke Schenn? It is almost as if the stat tells you little about what these players contribute and is useless for supporting the argument that Schenn isn't ready in the NHL. Go figure.
I must admit that I'm a +/- guy. It's an important stat to me. Not the be all and end all, but important. I don't think Schenn's -4 is anything to be alarmed about. Like you say, hockey is a team game, and Schenn pays the price on the plus/minus if one of his teammates, or goalie, fucks up.
That being said, when a player gets into Sheldon Souray territory (-28 in 2006/2007), that's when I think it's time to get concerned.
Souray sucks. So does Cox.
Schenn doesn't.
That Sheldon Souray number looks to be an outlier when you look at his career totals. Plus (and the math is making my head hurt so I may have this wrong) but I think that season actually demonstrates the flaws with plus/minus. Souray was a minus-28, but he also scored 19 power play goals that year and tacked on an assist. That minus-28 does not accurately reflect his value to the team.
I know we're continuing this discussion over at The Godfather's place (PPP), but I just want your readers to know how much I hate Sheldon Souray, the human pylon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy0pXTnx85Q
Like a good Leaf fan/ sports-media type, I'm going to miss the larger point of this great post and go right for the meaningless minutiae.
Plus minus isn't a total junk stat, it's just important to know its limitations. Like all stats, sample size matters and it's a far more meaningful when players have logged 80+ games instead of 8.
I also think it's important to be a bit more sophisticated and look at more than one statistical category to get an idea of how a player is performing. Maybe the NHL/Blogosphere needs something similar to a simplified NBA hustle stat of rebounds + steals + blocks...
You're right mf37. The stat isn't as meaningless as I claimed, but Cox provides nothing when he uses it in a vacuum.
Luke's "minus" last night happened because Lecavalier undressed Kaberle one-on-one. DC Talk may literally be allergic to context.
You know, to get to the point of Cox's scrawled bullshit you almost have to sift through an outhouse.
Okay, from the above, I get the following:
-Cox concedes Schenn is a good prospect
-Cox also implies that the Leafs should have sent him back to junior if they had his best interest in mind.
Now here comes the Coxian leap:
-Schenn is being kept up to show/justify that their pick was not wasted by the simple point that playing in the NHL as an 18 = prospect and not suspect.
-Therefore, Schenn is only here to show that hope is on the horizon much sooner than everyone expects and that the Leafs did not shit the bed at the 08 draft.
Seriously, WTF? I don't understand how you can say a player is talented - and I don't think he'd be getting over 20 minutes of ice time if he was out of his element - and also imply that he is only in the NHL because of a 'public relations campaign'.
Seriously, I wish I was more of a moron because then I would be qualified for a well paid position at the Star. Stupidity really is wasted on the dumb.
We need to figure out a VORC stat - Value Over Replacement Columnist (the number of times a columnist can drop 1967 and remove all facts from context if given the same amount of column inches).
Good idea.
We could also develop a version of OPS where we add the Offensiveness (number of times the fans are insulted per column) to the Stupidity (number of times the facts are wrong per column).
We could even calculate an OPS+ where adjust for park factors: Berger writes for Eklund's Magical World of Make Believe (the equivelant of that bandbox in Arlington), so he is held to a lower standard than David Shoalts at the Globe (Comerica Park).
You could also note that when they tried the same home-run pass to Vinny on Schenn's side, Luke recovered and knocked down the pass.
Maybe Damien is just pissed cause Filatov, a player he hinted was a better pick, has already been demoted.
Yet the other teenage defencemen picked - Doughty, Bogosian, Pietrangelo, are all still in the league. So is Philly's 18-yr-old Luca Sbisa. Are all these teams idiotic too?
And Dan2, that outhouse line was classic. We may have to quote that one.
Scathing. Relentless. Fearsome.
So you've dedicated a blog to musings about me. Big Fucking Deal. You can't stop the truth.
BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!
Not that I'm comparing Schenn to Stamkos, but both are their respective teams' last #1 draft pick - and Cox has different ideas on how to handle both. Note that he praises the use of Stamkos as "public relations" fodder, and derides the use of Schenn in the column we're talking about:
http://www.thestar.com/article/525652
Thanks for the kudos Godd. But all credit really goes to the power of Daoust.
In light of Schenn's plus three performance last night, Cox's 'public relations thesis' seems about as useful an exercise as hammering out the code of hammurabi on a large piece of shale.
Shame the Red Wings don't visit this season, as it would present Cox with yet another avenue to crap on the Leafs. Due to the fact that the Leafs genuinely suck in Cox's eyes, there is no way someone like the Motor City Methuselah would continue to put off retirement well into his 40s because if he played for the Leafs he would honestly have nothing to play for, that is, according to Cox.