How many times can you repeat the same thing in order to make it seem like you have more of a point than you do? Interest, enthusiasm, ability to adapt, strive to learn, ambition.
Since you put it that way, let me first flush your entire argument down the toilet and then I'll address this further…
Those things might be important but they show up in results and results matter far more than any of those characteristics. I'm sure there are a lot of players that just lack the physical ability and talent to be good players but have the two mental qualities you listed as 5 6 different ones. You still don't want those players. Ultimately, a player gets it done in ways that show up on the stats sheet or doesn't.
Results are outcomes but outcomes don't necessarily reflect the process and process can't be separated from evaluation. Corsi accounts for the outcome in total but it doesn't separate relevant process from irrelevant. It also omits relevant aspects that play a role. Nor is it a rarity for instance, for a team to be dominated and still coming out on top. Hell, I'll be very interested to see game-by-game corsi numbers of last years Tampa-Detroit series as I can be pretty certain that corsi numbers won't align with most of those games results…
I can for instance conclude, if given information that Glendening isn't going to be relied upon to protect the lead anymore, won't be scoring as many goals as last season due to empty-netters being out of his reach. I can also conclude that he might score even more if he'll be used in an offensive role. All of that is still opinion based however and this is where your concept breaks down. (I'll address this further a little further down.) It's true in every other aspect of life and you're trying to suspend it here. Particularly, you're trying to argue results in a context of projection, which is even more flawed. Nevermind that I disagree with your assessment of results; in other words, I don't think corsi can be interpreted as results on an individual players ability. Team play is much different, but team ability becomes arbitrary as we all seem to agree that teams have sort of 'gears.' On an individual level you still haven't addressed a matter of five guys getting a minus when only one guy makes a bad play or vice verse or just one guy making a great play all by himself and all five getting the credit. You want to bring examples like Dekeyser makes an outlet pass and gets a plus. That's fair only when that's the actual case though. What if it's not Dekeyser at all? How exactly do you evaluate the particular player in the absence of data. He has a plus but he personally had nothing to do with it other than being on the ice. The data that's not absent is also kept by human eye. Given your arguments on that regard, you're arguing straight out of a twilight zone and keep passing it as science... Your mixing opinion with science and your entire answer somehow ends up science?
Now you have provided an argument that you can root it out, sort of, by juggling the lines and you'll find your problem in that way, correct? Okay, last year before Datsyuk returned to the line up, myself and most everyone here were happy with the way lines were working. Everyone seemed to be clicking and I'll go as far and say all the numbers would back up everyone's opinion here. When Datsyuk arrived back and was in the line up, everyone recognized that he played great yet pissed that everyone around him suddenly became 'passengers,' as in team played worse while Datsyuk played great. So if the numbers were to reflect general consensus, (I'll take a good bet here that they do) that would mean, following your 'unbiased' principle here, Datsyuk was dragging the team down? Mind explaining how you get around that? This was more of psychological factor more so than anything else. What context do you suppose accounts for that?
Human behavior is incredibly robotic. We are meat robots. That's it. We are brains and bodies built out of atoms that behave in predictable and determined ways with other atoms. You confuse lacking absolute predictability with agency. We can't predict it with 100% accuracy. Yet. But we're getting pretty good at it and we're getting better all the time. As we start to track possession more directly with some of the proposals that have already been made about puck/player tracking, we're going to see stronger and stronger predictive power.
First of all, speak for yourself. Second, Einstein himself has already lost this argument a long time ago and yet you persist. On second thought, keep at it, you might actually make a serious breakthrough in quantum physics here and I'll end up 'contributing.' As far as our understanding of atoms goes, they DO NOT behave in 'predictable and determined ways.' Look up quantum theory, its very well explained that at best, we can figure out the odds. So if you're waiting on the 100% at some point, unless there is a serious breakthrough that would once again revolutionize the entire concept of quantum physic, you're bound to be wasting your time. While we do make strides in assessments and predictability, were sure as hell damn farther than you seem to think.
It should be noted that human behavior studies are done in a controlled environment to eliminate variables. So yes, when we come to logical conclusions, they overall, tend to stay the same upon the exact same information we receive. However, in real life, thats a more or less an impossible task, especially when it comes to a single person. On top of that, you have factors like experience and the fact that we don't all interpret the information the same way. (This very disagreement is proof enough, I think) We might look for different cues and have different approaches. If someone points a gun at you, some people might try to run, some might freeze, some might try to negotiate, some might even try to be heroes, even though all will feel scared. Even more important, if you happen to be in that exact situation twice, your second approach might not be the same as the first…
1. This isn't about certainty this is about backing up your argument with something more concrete than "my eyes tell me so." Human biases are so strong and alter what we see so much that in cultures without specific words for certain colors they literally cannot see them and tell the difference between blue and green. I will always favor an argument *with* numbers than one without and I will favor it greatly.
Somewhere not too far back in this thread, you quickly dismissed Kindl being our top defensemen based on corsi and you summoned what? Quality of competition? Zone time starts? 'Sheltered minutes' was certainly mentioned.
How exactly do you figure to assess quality of competition? You base that on what? First, second, third lines? How exactly that placement gets determined? I'm pretty sure no controlled environment experiment was done on every single player in the league to determine who fits where, correct? Do we account for all players corsi and determine the averages of who played against whom and with whom and adjust those averages accordingly? And that still won't account for things like bad ice and general fortune or lack thereof, etc. (Unless perhaps we create a Matrix like world to do it.)
When it comes to zone starts, you run into the same problem in regards to quality of competition and then it also matters how many face offs were won in your presence. I'd argue that's equally as important as who's zone the face off took place in.
So you basically take elements of human opinion (you certainly didn't make an extensive evaluation) and build an argument against your argument here. It's either we can use corsi reliably or we can't. Even with context, I think Kindl was one of the top scorers in ppg among defensemen on our team?… I mean, we certainly can't use quality of competition since it's mostly, if not entirely opinion-based. Complex web of opinions but opinions nontheless.
So basically, you already agree with my argument but you want to have it both ways here. In one instance you want to take one players corsi example and contextualize it with opinion-based backing in order to dismiss the numbers and in the other, you want to dismiss opinion… Pick your poison, either Kindl was one of the bette defensemen on this team in which would be consistent with the principle you argue… Or, you concede that the whole concept is very unreliable, even in context because some of the context itself is unreliable and for most part, very, very incomplete…
2. What do gems have to do with anything? Players change. Players get overlooked for all sorts of reasons which have nothing to do with their ability to play.
Well, we were talking projection, so that would have a lot to do with everything here it seems to me… Yes, being overlooked might not have anything to do with ability and it also might… You're trying to tilt the argument of information here, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the information just plain doesn't exist because talent has yet to develop. That what gems have to do with this. [/QUOTE]
I mean... literally every stat needs contextualization. Primary assists are generally more valuable than secondary, but not always. Not all goals are of equal value. Some are literally bounced in off of you by pure luck, others are you taking it coast to coast. I've never see the kind of pushback against goals and assists that I see for Corsi. It's ridiculous.
When it comes points, etc… That argument isn't for me. I don't think of this game in that manner. Not that I don't recognize it's importance but I also approach it as sort of a chess match and I find it important of how the game is played when goals aren't being scored either way. (Given that during most of the game, they aren't) Kind of like when I argued Abby's contribution to the team. Goals and assists certainly isn't why I favor to have him on…. Unless he finds him self with similar or better production (points-wise) at the end of next year, something tells me it will be a bloody summer for me. Even then, in general, points argument is very well recognized as being debatable but used liberally to assert preference/bias. I actually have plenty of issues on that ground my self as I'm of belief that too many aspects get way overlooked because of simple goals and assists.
As far as corsi overall goes… It looks (and this is where you and I fundamentally disagree) more like an evaluation of 'what happened' as oppose to a measure of action/reaction in particular. (meaning skills and ability) 'I tripped and fell' doesn't necessarily mean I don't know how to walk or I'm bad at it. Hence the reason why I concluded that it's useless as an evaluation of a single player. A good chunk of this game is luck. Bad bounce, rolling puck and hundreds if not thousands of aspects that affect the game and will actually show up under corsi numbers because you simply can't isolate them… There is a correlation between corsi and a winning team. However, it's not much farther than correlation of having scored more goals in a series and winning the series… It doesn't predict **** and just tells you what happened…. Good teams will generally get that plus but you're grabbing the stick from the wrong end because blind luck will also get you that plus. In an application to players, it's pretty much the same argument as a plus-minus one… Can you seriously, based on +/- reliably predict which player will be successful? Or even assess who was good and who was not? You can try I guess… Even with all the context in the world, it's a very volatile measure that goes way beyond players control. I suspect corsi numbers jump up and down just the same for individual players all over the league on a year by year basis… I would imagine coaching also plays a big role…. Corsi numbers certainly means a team system or lack of it contributes to it…. So, tell me what's the difference between Corsi and the logic of 'Chicago won the cup> Toews is the captain of Chicago> Toews is the best player in the world, without context. Then adding something very arbitrary like Toews has the best plus-minus on the team as context and therefore decided the statement is true. You did the same thing with Kindl above except you subtracted from his credit as oppose to adding to it. Whereas I added to it to demonstrate the two-way street here. Same concept, different approach.
Furthermore, as I already pointed out, emotional states, background, etc can play a factor as well, specifically in development. You can ignore it and dismiss it but its a real concept that goes way beyond hockey. I hope there's no debate that hockey players are humans first? Most importantly, its very volatile and pretty much impossible to predict on an individual basis. You throw corsi in, as a 'back up to your argument' which you assert as science and yet, I still don't see the science. A) It lumps up a load of crap that doesn't belong to player assessment with the information that does. B) It leaves out a huge factors that do belong in player assessment. 3) The context thats available doesn't weed most, if any of it out.
You can make an appeal to future once again if you want but until or IF we actually get there, you don't get to borrow credibility from something that's not available to actually use.
Bias you say??? You just simply took numbers of team results and added selective and opinion-based context to argue a players effect…. What am I missing because, I don't see the high-horse that you think you're riding?
Unlike you, I never pretended to use science as a measure of Dekeyser. It simply doesn't come down to that as I already explained. However, I do see that he has an existing ability to see, negotiate and execute a pass. Sometimes from bad angles and under pressure too. You can disagree with me on that aspect and that would be one thing. However, if you do see what I see, I'm having a hard time understanding the logic that he won't be able to expand on an existing ability. That was my argument…
