ATD 2012 - Draft Thread VIII

[MadArcand]

Can't everyone see that?

No, we commoners can't.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Sturm, that's a fair analysis of peak value - peak for peak, Bowie was about 30% better than those guys offensively, but shouldn't he get at least some credit for his massive longevity advantage over them? Frank McGee's career lasted 3 seasons and Tommy Phillips' peak was what? About 5 seasons? Bowie won scoring titles 9 years apart.

So Bowie has a 30% peak advantage over his peers, but as stated he has more than doubled his closest peer in career goals -

From 1899 to 1908, Bowie scored 239 goals in 80 games (2.99 GPG). Blair Russell, the next closest scorer, had 109 goals in 67 games (1.62)

Bowie scored 219% as many goals as his closest competitor - his advantage drops to "only" 184% on a per-game basis. (Compare to Wayne Gretzky who scored 187% as many points as 2nd place Mark Messier from 1979-80 to 1993-94).

Now I think Peak is more important than career too - Bowie is definitely closer to 30% better than any of his peers than he is to 117% better! But he has to be given some credit for longevity and assuming he'll only be 30% better offensively than Tommy Phillips is understating Bowie's massive longevity advantage.

As for comparisons, I honestly like the Starshinov one - I think both North Amercian and Soviet hockey were at similar stages. I think Bowie is a little better offensively than Starsh (he dominated his peers to a greater extent). Starsh brings a lot of grit in front of the net (Bowie is much more useful as a puck carrier and is likely a better playmaker).

I just can't believe that hockey developed so much between Bowie and Cyclone Taylor (whose careers overlapped even if their peaks probably didn't) that Taylor is a first round pick, while Bowie isn't even a dominant second liner.

I realize Ultimate Hockey has largely been discredited, but they gave a still-defenseman Taylor the "Retro Norris" for 1908, the one year he shared the same league with Bowie - Bowie won the scoring title that year. So while Taylor wasn't yet competing for scoring titles, he did have some star power by that point.

 

[seventieslord]

I have 7 sets of votes. Keep them coming.

 

[BenchBrawl]

You can count on me to vote before Friday , I don't want to do this in a hurry so I'm doing one division at a time.

 

[Sturminator]

Sturm, that's a fair analysis of peak value - peak for peak, Bowie was about 30% better than those guys offensively, but shouldn't he get at least some credit for his massive longevity advantage over them? Frank McGee's career lasted 3 seasons and Tommy Phillips' peak was what? About 5 seasons? Bowie won scoring titles 9 years apart.

McGee is a short peak player even for his era because he was killed in the first world war. Phillips...was his peak really just five seasons long? That seems short even for the era, as well, but then again I don't have a clear handle on how long players' careers were in that era. Nine seasons seems like a pretty long peak for that era no matter how you slice it, so Bowie probably does get some longevity bonus, but I don't know how much to value that and it sounds like he had some up and down seasons in that stretch because I know he didn't have nine consecutive dominant seasons.

If Bowie was only great for seven out of the nine seasons and Phillips was great for five, I guess that moves the needle a bit, sure.

I just can't believe that hockey developed so much between Bowie and Cyclone Taylor (whose careers overlapped even if their peaks probably didn't) that Taylor is a first round pick, while Bowie isn't even a dominant second liner.

The lack of a player who clearly spans both generations is the sticking point, and I'm not interested in UH's retro awards in the slightest. If there was just one guy who we could use as a baseline for comparison, I would be on board with spinning off some kind of quantifiable statistical equivalency for that league based on how that guy scored respective to the two generations...but there just isn't. In the end, there's still so much guesswork involved, and Bowie's generation was truly still the infancy of the sport. They played outdoors and weren't professionals.

I would like very much to find some kind of rosetta stone that would allow us a clear way of putting the talent level of those leagues in perspective because there are other guys like Lesueur and Pulford who are really compelling figures and I feel like they deserve credit for what they did, but the problem is I'm just not sure how much to assign.

 

[Dr Pepper]

I have 7 sets of votes. Keep them coming.

Damn, had I known you were basically calling on all GM's to place their team 1st, I wouldn't have placed mine 5th.

That's what I get for being a realist, I guess, lol

 

[Sturminator]

Damn, had I known you were basically calling on all GM's to place their team 1st, I wouldn't have placed mine 5th.

That's what I get for being a realist, I guess, lol

Don't worry. Every GM who votes gets an automatic 1st place vote for his team. I just adjusted your vote in my spreadsheet. We've done it that way forever. Your honesty is much appreciated, and I'm not going to punish you for it.

 

[Velociraptor]

Don't worry. Every GM who votes gets an automatic 1st place vote for his team. I just adjusted your vote in my spreadsheet. We've done it that way forever. Your honesty is much appreciated, and I'm not going to punish you for it.

It's not the first time Modo hasn't ranked his team first, two points for being honest

I don't sincerely think that I'm the top team in my division, but I will admit that I voted myself as the division champion.

 

[BenchBrawl]

It's not the first time Modo hasn't ranked his team first, two points for being honest

I don't sincerely think that I'm the top team in my division, but I will admit that I voted myself as the division champion.

Yeah , we have the unfortunate badluck of being in a division with a flawless team.

 

[tony d]

I plan on voting either tonight or tomorrow, so Friday's still the deadline correct?

 

[arrbez]

I should have my votes in the next two days.

 

[BenchBrawl]

complete votes sent to seventieslord and sturminator

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

McGee is a short peak player even for his era because he was killed in the first world war. Phillips...was his peak really just five seasons long? That seems short even for the era, as well, but then again I don't have a clear handle on how long players' careers were in that era. Nine seasons seems like a pretty long peak for that era no matter how you slice it, so Bowie probably does get some longevity bonus, but I don't know how much to value that and it sounds like he had some up and down seasons in that stretch because I know he didn't have nine consecutive dominant seasons.

If Bowie was only great for seven out of the nine seasons and Phillips was great for five, I guess that moves the needle a bit, sure.



The lack of a player who clearly spans both generations is the sticking point, and I'm not interested in UH's retro awards in the slightest. If there was just one guy who we could use as a baseline for comparison, I would be on board with spinning off some kind of quantifiable statistical equivalency for that league based on how that guy scored respective to the two generations...but there just isn't. In the end, there's still so much guesswork involved, and Bowie's generation was truly still the infancy of the sport. They played outdoors and weren't professionals.

I would like very much to find some kind of rosetta stone that would allow us a clear way of putting the talent level of those leagues in perspective because there are other guys like Lesueur and Pulford who are really compelling figures and I feel like they deserve credit for what they did, but the problem is I'm just not sure how much to assign.

Bowie's "down seasons" were still very good:

1899: 3rd in goals. Trihey was 1st by a large margin.
1900: 2nd in goals. Trihey was 1st by a large margin.
1901: 1st in goals with more than double second place
1902: 2nd in goals
1903: 1st in goals by a wide margin
1904: 1st in goals
1905: 1st in goals
1906: 2nd in goals, reconstructed assists for all players would make him 1st in points
1907: 2nd in goals, reconstructed assists for all players would make him 1st in points
1908: 1st in goals and points

Bowie (with 5 goal titles) was the only repeat winner between 1901 and 1908.

After 1908, the ECHA became fully professional, so Bowie left. Before then, he had 9 straight seasons as a top 2 goal scorer and 10 straight as a top 3 goal scorer in the league.

Devil is essentially claiming that Bowie is a Denis Savard/Dale Hawerchuk type of offensive player (among the best second line scorers in the draft), and while I think that is possible, I think that value represents the upper boundary of where Bowie may have fallen in terms of skill. I think it is extremely unlikely that he was better than this because I can perceive no scenario in which Savard/Hawerchuk would not have also dominated those leagues to at least the extent that Bowie did.

Just thought about this some more. I think the absolute "upper bound" for Bowie is equal to Cyclone Taylor or Howie Morenz, since he actually dominated his peers more than they did. I think that's unlikely, though.

I don't think we should consider him that good here obviously, but I honestly think there is a good case that he should be considered better offensively than his ATD linemates St. Louis.

You also asked about longevity - I see it as Tommy Phillips and Hod Stuart had normal length careers - Frank McGee a very short one - and Harvey Pulford and Russell Bowie both long ones for the era.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Others specifically I would have no problem with voting if they wanted: jarek, BM67, overpass, Hockey Outsider. There are a couple others that I have seen have been around at the top of the page in the "Currently Active Users" section, but I specifically don't want to mention any of them by name because I'm honestly not sure how private that is.

Appreciate it, but I've only been lurking occasionally during this ATD so I'm not familiar with all the teams/arguments.

 

[Sturminator]

Just thought about this some more. I think the absolute "upper bound" for Bowie is equal to Cyclone Taylor or Howie Morenz, since he actually dominated his peers more than they did. I think that's unlikely, though.

It's more than simply "unlikely". If you want to get out to the very ends of the curve of possibilities, Bowie may have also been no better than Joe Pavelski. Speculation...speculation. With as many unknowns as there are vis-a-vis Bowie's generation, I was trying to keep the conversation to a range of reasonable values, but if you want to expand the picture to all possible skill levels for players of this era, then we have to focus more on the potential downsides, as well. You say that you can't believe there was such a huge difference between the Bowie and Taylor generations, but the differences are many and obvious.

Bowie's generation came from a pool of players which was microscopic by modern standards, and many of them were at least as interested in other sports (like rowing and lacrosse) as they were in hockey. They played with seven men to a side, and spent their entire careers without ever hearing of a "power play", a "blueline", or a "forward pass". They were the guys who helped popularize the sport for later generations of kids, but the fruit was not yet ripe.

edit: you are mistaken about Taylor's relative dominance, by the way. Here is a short breakdown on career PPG among the PCHA points leaders:

PCHA points/game:

Taylor: 263/135 = 1.95
Dunderdale: 253/242 = .96
Harris: 245/253 = .97
MacKay: 240/193 = 1.24
Morris: 231/164 = 1.41
Foyston: 228/202 = 1.13

Taylor was more dominant relative to his peers than Bowie was, not less. Morenz is simply comparing apples to watermelons. Hockey was a fully developed professional sport by the time Howie Morenz started winning scoring titles. We may as well compare Bowie to Gretzky.

edit edit: there's some material relevant to Bowie's generation which probably belongs in the Dirt thread. I will post it there.

 

[Dwight]

Will vote this afternoon.

 

[Velociraptor]

Yeah , we have the unfortunate badluck of being in a division with a flawless team.

Haha that's right, I can't really justify voting myself first in this dilemma

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Here are Bowie and Taylor's best seasons, sorted by V2 numbers. When I list 2 numbers for Bowie, the one in (parenthesis) is with reconstructed assists for all players added. All of Taylor's numbers are straight up points.

V2 | name | season | league
240 | Bowie | 1901 | CAHL
157(147) | Bowie | 1903 | CAHL
134 | Taylor | 1918 | PCHA
126 | Taylor | 1914 | PCHA
123| Bowie | 1905 | CAHL
120 | Taylor | 1919 | PCHA
119(120) | Bowie | 1908 | ECAHA
117(120) | Bowie | 1904 | CAHL
109 | Taylor | 1916 | PCHA
102 | Taylor | 1915 | PCHA
100(103) | Bowie | 1906 | ECAHA
100(102) | Bowie | 1907 | ECAHA
100 | Bowie | 1900 | CAHL
100 | Bowie | 1902 | CAHL
92 | Bowie | 1899 | CAHL
90 | Taylor | 1913 | PCHA
60 | Taylor | 1911 | NHA
54 | Taylor | 1917 | PCHA

Bowie has the top 2 seasons and 3 of the top 5 by this measure. Iain Fyffe's formula says that Bowie has three seasons more dominant than anything Taylor did - I assume his formula is taking into account strength of teammates.

Taylor won 5 scoring titles. Bowie won 5 goal titles and 7 scoring titles if you include reconstructed assists.

There is good reason to think Bowie is not in Taylor's class - As we've discussed, hockey developed a lot in the time between their statistical peaks (1899-1908 for Bowie; 1913-1919 for Taylor). But Bowie did dominate his (weaker) peers to a greater degree than Taylor dominated his.

 

[BenchBrawl]

So is there a set date the voting stop and the ranking will be presented?

 

[tony d]

Just voted.

 

[Sturminator]

Taylor won 5 scoring titles. Bowie won 5 goal titles and 7 scoring titles if you include reconstructed assists.

Let's leave Ian's formulas out of this for a minute, and not talk about reconstructed assists. Those are both extremely questionable sources of information. Looking over Bowie's career season-by-season, it's not that hard to see where the value is:

1899: third in goalscoring behind Harry Trihey and Clare McKerrow. Not interesting.

1900: second in goalscoring behind Harry Trihey. The third place guy is three goals behind Bowie, and is named Billy Christmas. Also not interesting.

1901: pwns the league. Scores 24 goals when the next guy has 10. Of course, the next guy is Lorne Campbell. Third is Arthur Farrell and fourth is Harold Henry. Who? I don't know either.

1902: second in goalscoring four goals behind Art Hooper. Two goals ahead of Jack Marshall and Rat Westwick. Not very impressive given the competition.

1903: pwns the league again. Scores 22 goals with Frank McGee (a rookie) in second place at 14.

1904: pwns the league. Scores 27 goals with the second place guy at 19. The second place guy is Herb Jordan. No idea who he is.

1905: pwns the league a final time. Again scores 27 goals, and this time the second guy in the league is Blair Russel with 19 goals.

...moving onto the ECAHA

1906: second in league goalscoring to Harry Smith. Two goals ahead of a now peaking Frank McGee in third place. Good season, but nothing spectacular. I just don't see Denis Savard getting outscored by Harry Smith.

1907: second in league goalscoring four goals behind Ernie Russell. Blair Russel is 13 goals behind in third place. Good season, but he got outscored by Ernie Russell (there are too many goddamned "Russel(l)s in these leagues, by the way).

1908: leads the league in goals with 31. Marty Walsh is in second with 28 and Tom Phillips in third with 26.

---------------------------------------

What to make of this? Well, one thing we can say pretty clearly is that the ECAHA was a much stronger league than the CAHL was. Bowie roflstomped the CAHL four times, but he wasn't ever clearly the dominant guy in the ECAHA, which suggests that the difference here is a matter of league quality. If you add up his four years of pwnage in the CAHL and his three good years in the ECAHA, you've got seven strong offensive seasons, but how strong?

The ECAHA years look more like his baseline of performance than do the earlier seasons. He was consistently one of the best scorers in a league where the other stars were guys like Ernie Russell, Marty Walsh and Harry Smith, but he wasn't head and shoulders better than those guys. The CAHL flat-out looks like a league full of stiffs. Billy Christmas?! Lorne Campbell?! Herb Jordan?! It's hard to read too much into the numbers when these are the names directly after Bowie's on the list.

I hadn't realized just how weak Bowie's competition was during the better part of his career until I took a look at the scoring tables. I had assumed that he was competing against a peak Frank McGee and Tommy Phillips most seasons when he put up those dominant numbers, but he was not. Instead, he spent the first part of his career roflstomping guys whose names I'll forget by the time I get done typing this post. When he got to the ECAHA, he started to look like a player who was the best scorer in a group that included Russell, Walsh, Smith and briefly Phillips, but wasn't unusually dominant against that level of competition. Is being a bit better offensively than a bunch of guys who aren't considered ATD scoringliners, at all, grounds for calling Bowie one of the best second line scorers in the draft?

The more I look into his career, the more I think I was being overgenerous earlier. That business about Bowie being 30% better offensively than his peers is very questionable.

 

[seventieslord]

Sturm, Lorne Campbell and Herb Jordan both stand to be two of the top centers in the MLD, particularly Jordan. I'm surprised that you haven't heard of him. This isn't the first time you've mentioned not knowing anything about an MLD staple. Have you considered joining that draft for a change? This year would be as good a time as any, being that you have no ATD burnout.

Also, the CAHL and the ECAHA were the same league under different names, like the NHA and NHL that followed. The Vics, AAA, Shamrocks and Quebec club all remained in the reformed league, Montreal Westmount disbanded and was replaced by the Wanderers, and Ottawa came back after a one year defection to the FAHL.

Yes, it appears that the league got better as time went on, which makes sense given the era, but the statement "the ECAHA was a much stronger league than the CAHL" is less accurate than "it was a stronger league by the time it started going by the name ECAHA".

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Herb Jordan has become somewhat canonized as a star MLD guy over the last couple of drafts. Surprised you haven't heard of him.

Edit: beaten by 5 minutes

 

[Sturminator]

The MLD has never interested me. I shared control of an abandoned MLD#10 team with pappyline, but my heart wasn't in it. I just don't find MLD players all that intriguing when there is still so much left to learn about the best players of all-time.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Isn't Art Hooper the guy who was awesome, but had a serious injury after like two seasons?