CH
Registered User
Ogopogo said:The peer groups were the same.
This assumption of yours is wrong. This is why you keep getting nonsensical results.
Ogopogo said:The peer groups were the same.
Crosbyfan said:1957-58 at age 30 and again in 1958-59 at age 31 Gordie finishes 4th in scoring.
1967-68 at age 40 and again in 1968-9 at age 41Gordie finishes 3rd in scoring.
Did Gordie improve or did the peer group dis-evolve over those 10 years?
CH said:This assumption of yours is wrong. This is why you keep getting nonsensical results.
reckoning said:A weaker group of players? If you`re arguing that the top 20 players in the 90s were better than the top 20 in the 50s then you may have an argument. But normalized points is measured against the scoring rate of the entire league, not just the scoring rate of the top players. So if you argue that the top 10% of Lemieuxs era was better than the top 10% of Howe`s, then you`re not looking at the whole picture. What about the bottom 10%? There were 6 teams in the 50s, 21 teams in the 80s. Was the 21st best goalie of Lemieuxs era(Alain Chevrier? Peter Sidorkiwiecz?) equal to the 6th best goalie of Howes? Normalized points is a good start, but doesn`t tell the whole story.
By your method, Seybold was more dominant. This is only because of a false normalization, the peer group of home run hitters in 1902 was clearly far worse than it was in 1998. I dont think anyone would argue that Sammy Sosa didn't have a more dominant season in terms of home runs in 1998 then Seybold did in 1902 EVEN THOUGH, Sosa did not even lead the league and Seybold led by over 30%. Alex Rodriguez hit 42 home runs in 1998. That was good enough for 12th overall. And he had a more dominant home run hitting season than Seybold did.
DrMoses said:This is exactly what's wrong with your method.
You completely disreagrd the fact that people were smaller, not as strong, using inferior equipment etc. back then.
CH said:I have not even directly addressed the issue of players being smaller, weaker, using inferior equipment at all. So this statement is clearly incorrect.
Do you also think Seybold had a better season in terms of home run hitting in 1902 then McGwire did in 1998?
DrMoses said:You completely disreagrd the fact that people were smaller, not as strong, using inferior equipment etc. back then.
CH said:I have not even directly addressed the issue of players being smaller, weaker, using inferior equipment at all. So this statement is clearly incorrect.
DrMoses said:EXACTLY! That's the problem. You havn't addressed that issue and it's a huge one. If you are going to normalize everyone's stats, you still can't account for those things which automatically puts an older player like Howe at a disadvantage....
CH said:Are you seriously making the claim that Howe was at a disadvantage because he played against smaller, weaker players with inferior equipment?
Or are you claiming that Howe was a better player then others who came after him because he was smaller and weaker thedn them?
Neither of those make sense.
I am saying that over time, the NHL talent pool has increased. The number of players in Canada who play hockey today is larger today than ever before. This increases the number of players available in their talent pool. There are also several other countries producing NHL players. This further increases the talent pool and thus improves the peer group of today's NHL players. The minor system and scouting system has become bigger and better established in this time to better funnel the best players into the NHL. Since more players are produced today, it is reasonable to think that more good players are produced today then ever before. It is reasonable to have a top players list include more modern day players then older ones. The fact you cannot handle this fact is hard for me to understand.
That does not mean that necessarily all of the best players of all time will be more modern players. That statement is equally ridiculous as the inability to believe that there are more modern players on a top players list.
I would rate Gordie Howe as the 4th best player of all time. He is clearly behind Gretzky and Orr and I would also rate him behind Lemieux because Mario had better seasons in his prime then Howe did (despite Howe's better longevity) and he did it against a better quality of average player in the NHL.
Now you and ogopogo cannot place your statistics in an adequate context. You are willing to call a 16 home run hitter from 1902 a better single season home run hitter than a 70 home run hitter in 1998. Clearly this is not true, there were many more good home run hitters in 1998 than anybody in 1902. Your failure to see this shows a deep misunderstanding of how sports work. Your failed method does not allow for the possibility that some eras have better players and hence a better peer group then others. Your method overrates players from peer groups with less talent because it is easier for them to lead their peer group by a larger margin that more dominant players in eras with higher overall talent levels (and better peer groups).
Ogopogo said:EVOLUTION is why players are better today than they were 50 years ago. EVERYBODY is bigger, stronger, faster, smarter and better than people 50 years ago. That is how the world works.
Ogopogo said:When players are on a level field, how they dominate is their mark of greatness. The ONLY way to truly compare players is to look at how they did against their own peers during the season in question. Saying that McGwire's 70 is better than Seybold's 16 is completely flawed. McGwire had all the advantages of evolution, including steroids, comparing home run numbers, without adjustments is ridiculous.
Seybold being 30% ahead of #2 in terms of home runs is far more impressive than McGwire being 6% ahead of #2. HOW YOU DOMINATE YOUR PEERS, DURING YOUR SEASON IS YOUR MARK OF GREATNESS. Everyone had exactly the same variables during the 1902 season and Seybold blew them away by 30%. That is a great season.
God Bless Canada said:Auto racing has had one great driver in the last 10 years: Schumacher. Everyone else who has won - Hakinnen, Hill, Villeneuve - has been the beneficiary of his equipment.
chooch said:btw G1 of the Challenge Cup was not an all star game and #10 threw hard checks and dominated both ends.
You shoudl watch the game, tough guy to get an idea of what domination is.
CH said:I am not saying this. Please stop telling me this is what I am saying and actually read my argument.
I fully understand your method and have told you repeatedxly why it is a poor one. It assumes all peer groups are the same. It does not account for the possibility that some eras might have had more good players then others.
The baseball example is a really clear one. In 1902, most teams didn't even attempt to use the home run as a weapon. It was discouraged in part because failures to hit home runs were useless flyouts. Babe Ruth came along years later and proved this theory wrong.
I contend that Alex Rodriguez hit 42 home runs in 1998 and finished 12th in MLB and was a better single seasons home run hitter then Socks Seybold who led the majors in home runs in 1902.
There we many better home run hitters in 1998 than any in 1902. This is not only because players were bigger and stronger and possibly on steroids, this is because the baseball talent pool produced more home3 run hitters. The skill was more valued, more people worldwide played baseball and the scouting and minor systems were far better developed to funnel the best players into major league baseball.
It is a mathematical fact that Gordie Howe led the NHL in points by a larger percentage then Mario Lemieux ever did, but the interpretation that this meant he was more dominant in his prime then Lemieux is false. He may have been a better player relative to his peers, but on average his peers were not as good as Lemieux's peers. When you normalize his totals, there is no way to deny that Lemieux was not more dominant in his best seasons when compared to Howe. I don't know why you find this fact so hard to accept.
CH said:Are you seriously making the claim that Howe was at a disadvantage because he played against smaller, weaker players with inferior equipment?
Or are you claiming that Howe was a better player then others who came after him because he was smaller and weaker thedn them?
Neither of those make sense.
I am saying that over time, the NHL talent pool has increased. The number of players in Canada who play hockey today is larger today than ever before. This increases the number of players available in their talent pool. There are also several other countries producing NHL players. This further increases the talent pool and thus improves the peer group of today's NHL players. The minor system and scouting system has become bigger and better established in this time to better funnel the best players into the NHL. Since more players are produced today, it is reasonable to think that more good players are produced today then ever before. It is reasonable to have a top players list include more modern day players then older ones. The fact you cannot handle this fact is hard for me to understand.
That does not mean that necessarily all of the best players of all time will be more modern players. That statement is equally ridiculous as the inability to believe that there are more modern players on a top players list.
I would rate Gordie Howe as the 4th best player of all time. He is clearly behind Gretzky and Orr and I would also rate him behind Lemieux because Mario had better seasons in his prime then Howe did (despite Howe's better longevity) and he did it against a better quality of average player in the NHL.
Now you and ogopogo cannot place your statistics in an adequate context. You are willing to call a 16 home run hitter from 1902 a better single season home run hitter than a 70 home run hitter in 1998. Clearly this is not true, there were many more good home run hitters in 1998 than anybody in 1902. Your failure to see this shows a deep misunderstanding of how sports work. Your failed method does not allow for the possibility that some eras have better players and hence a better peer group then others. Your method overrates players from peer groups with less talent because it is easier for them to lead their peer group by a larger margin that more dominant players in eras with higher overall talent levels (and better peer groups).
CH said:You guys still don't get it. I will try this. Its a direct quote from Bill James. He makes a similar point quite eloquantly.
Earlier players dominated their gamecto a greater extent than more recent players - indeed, the extent to which the best players dominated their competitions has probably decreased in every generation. The reason for this is simple: as the game gets better, it gets harder to dominate. My view of the quality of play over time was essentially summed up by Casey Stengal in his 1962 biography, Casey at the Bat:
<I>
But even with the better equipment and the better grounds, you have to have more ability to be an infielder or and outfielder today ... in some ways baseball is better now. But, as far as the players are concerned-if a man was a good hitter with the dead ball, why couldn't he hit with the lively ball? And if he was a good fielder with the little glove, why couldn't he be a good fielder with a trap glove? And pitchers who were good then- why couldn't they adjust to the livelier ball and the harder hitting of today?</I>
It is my belief that if Honus Wagner were playing today, he would be a great player today-perhaps the best player in baseball. He wouldn't dominate the game today the way he dominated the game then, because there are more good players now, and in some ways the game is harder now. The extent to which the best players dominate the game has steadily decreased because the quality of the average player has moved upward.
If you dont make any time-line adjustment, then, using the win shares method or almost any other method, you will wind up with a top 100 list which is dominated by players who played before 1950. Even making a time line adjustment, 52 of my top 100 players played in the major leagues or in the Negro leagues (played at least one game) prior to 1950. Another 14 came up in the 1950's. Only 34 have come to the majors since 1960-that is in the last 40 years. If I didn't introduce a small time-line adjustment, I'd have 75 or 85 players from the first half of the century in the top 100. I just don't believe thats right or logical.
Now a couple of my comments. Major league baseball has existed since 1875. The NHL since 1917. So the timeline of hockey is pushed to a shorter period of time. The same problems exist when looking at hockey and its greatest players.
This is what I have been arguing. I think this is why Gordie Howe may have led the NHL by a higher percentage of points and yet Mario Lemieux was more dominant in his prime
Ogopogo said:The thing is, I disagree with Bill James.
Ogopogo said:Wayne Gretzky dominated the NHL like no other player ever has and he played in the last two decades of the century. That makes Bill James' comments incorrect, in regards to hockey when he says that it is much more difficult to dominate now than in the past.
Ogopogo said:In my ratings, I find that a generous amount of modern day players make my top 100 list. Perhaps my way of ranking hockey players is more effective than Bill James method of ranking baseball players? I don't know but, a lot of James' findings are not my findings in my hockey ratings.
CH said:So you think that as many as 85 of the top 100 players in baseball having played before 1950 is a correct conclusion? Why would you think that? Isn't is a ridiculous conclusion?
Wayne Gretzky is one player. Only one. Any good statistician would tell you that you cannot do statistics with a sample size of one. In fact you do not have a sample size of one, you have a sample size of thousands of players, but you chose to ignore the thousands of players for the one point that fits you. Thats an awful method.
So you claim to have a top 100 list of players all time in hockey? Why don't you post it and lets discuss it. Lets break it down by decade and see if your claim that a generous number of modern players make your list.
Ogopogo said:I am still awaiting some additional data from the NHL so, my ratings are not complete. I will not post until they are because the debate that ensues is usually intense and I don't want to be in a position defending incomplete numbers.
At first glance, with incomplete data, I have about 37 or 38 players on my top 100 that spent the bulk of their careers after 1970. When you consider that the NHL is 87 years old, the period since 1970 makes up 40% of the league's history. Having 38 of 100 players from that period (Remember some may still be added based on how they perform over the next few years) is about right, wouldn't you say?
CH said:If you want to discuss your list and its merits you will have to post it.
Until then I can only guess.
I will assume when you say that 38 % of the list comes from the most recent 40% of the NHL's history, you are being a bit disingenous. If you sort players by the season that was their career best, this number would significantly go down. Likely, you have inflated that number by including guys who were hangers on in the early 70s who were not longer in their primes. For example you probably consider Henri Richard, Gordie Howe, Andy Bathgate, Terry Sawchuk and Jacques Plante among those players who were active in the 70s when all were well past their primes in the 70's. Most of that list played their best hockey in the 50's
Ogopogo said:Please don't assume that I am lying or trying to deceive. Howe, Bathgate, Sawchuk and Plante are not players that I consider "modern" era for this purpose.
Players like Gretzky, Kurri, Lemieux, Forsberg, Sakic, Lafleur, Stevens, Jagr, Esposito, Orr, Trottier, Bossy, Bourque, Yzerman, Coffey, Potvin, Robinson, Chelios, Lidstrom etc. make up the modern era players.
If you think I am trying to BS you, what is the point even having this discussion?