Speculation: Oilers hire Tyler Dellow

[tempest2i]

If that's the case, then

a) Why didn't they listen to Dellow when he railed against Nikitin?

b) the original poster was blaming Dellow for Nikitin, Pouliot and Purcell being acquired by the Oilers. Can you illustrate why Dellow should be blamed when he wasn't even an employee until a month after these players were acquired?

a) because he's a dick to lots of people online.

b) because he's a dick to lots of people online.

 

[OiledUp]

If that's the case, then

a) Why didn't they listen to Dellow when he railed against Nikitin?

b) the original poster was blaming Dellow for Nikitin, Pouliot and Purcell being acquired by the Oilers. Can you illustrate why Dellow should be blamed when he wasn't even an employee until a month after these players were acquired?

Eakins is on record saying they had consulted Dellow prior to being officially hired so he could still have had a say. We don't know if he did have any input in these signings but his "contributions" did start before he was hired.

I think statistics has a place in sports and may help avoid the bias you always have when analyzing the game straight up. But in that case you need the kind of stats mentioned above where you break down every play by video. Not the stuff trotted out as advanced by corsists. And I don't think a blogging lawyer is the best hire to interpret those stats.

 

[Slats432]

I reiterate that I am not pro or anti advanced stats. I like information and interpret it and if useful keep it, if not, discard it.

The great thing for the anti advance crowd is all the teams public about adding stats guys is that they are continuing to struggle.

Personally a bad organization like the Oilers that has sucked at drafting and developing for over a decade may need more than 4 months of advance stats to turn it around. (Is there a corsi for spearing a guy in the nuts in the last minute?)

 

[Replacement*]

This thread is sad.

The corsi-haters vs. corsi-supporters debate is nothing new; pretty much every time it's brought up it devolves to this. No surprise here.

Clinging to the tiniest branches in order to pin failure on a guy who no one outside the organization really knows what influence he even had and literally no facts about what his contributions were - that's a bit sad. Clearly there's a prior agenda here to try to paint someone in a bad light. Sure, blame the guy for the Oilers failures, their off-season signings. Bit of a leap to say he had the power to get the team to play the "corsi game" and determine key off-season signings (despite not even being hired yet) when he clearly didn't even have any influence over signings such as Nikitin and player usage - Schultz, who he was vocally critical of being used as a top-pairing D, Yak not being used as a trigger man on the PP, etc. But I digress - who doesn't love baseless accusations?

Saddest part of all? Endlessly ragging on a guy for no other reason than your own personal grudge against him? I'm not sure you can call mocking a vine of his cat anything other than that.

Is it really? Let encounter the whole fallacy. When Dellow was hired by the Oilers it was heralded by countless posters on the board that this was the dawn awakening for the Oilers who would be transformed by the wisdom of the ages and hockey advanced stats. People waxed on about what a great game changer this was going to be for the org. People also stated that this was proof positive that advanced stats debate is over, pro side had won, and this being based on yet another team ( a really poor team bereft of any sound decision making) adopting it. All this proclaimed with zero results.

Hey if that kind of hyperbole all gets stated here at the start this whole shebang is not going to come off without some kind of contrary commentary when all has failed.

The agenda that was at work was to paint Dellow, and advanced stats, as the shining light of this org that would help it to find its way. Its helped it to be the worst team in the history of this org if anything.

Not invoking causality either but you can bet your lucky PDO that if Dellow and advanced stats had found success here we wouldn't be hearing the end of it.

Most of you know that.

so nice try

 

[Replacement*]

Eakins is on record saying they had consulted Dellow prior to being officially hired so he could still have had a say. We don't know if he did have any input in these signings but his "contributions" did start before he was hired.

I think statistics has a place in sports and may help avoid the bias you always have when analyzing the game straight up. But in that case you need the kind of stats mentioned above where you break down every play by video. Not the stuff trotted out as advanced by corsists. And I don't think a blogging lawyer is the best hire to interpret those stats.

Thanks and exactly. This is not even supposition when Eakins and MacT had been stating they were looking at his work and consulting it BEFORE the hire. Not sure how that's hard to understand.

 

[dyzfunctioned]

Is it really? Let encounter the whole fallacy. When Dellow was hired by the Oilers it was heralded by countless posters on the board that this was the dawn awakening for the Oilers who would be transformed by the wisdom of the ages and hockey advanced stats. People waxed on about what a great changer this was going to be for the org.

Hey if that kind of hyperbole gets stated at the start this whole shebang is not going to come off without some kind of contrary commentary.

The agenda that was at work was to paint Dellow, and advanced stats, as the shining light of this org that would help it to find its way. Its helped it to be the worst team in the history of this org if anything.

Not saying with the latter that theres any causality either but you can bet your lucky pdo that if Dellow and advanced stats had found success here we wouldn't be hearing the end of it.

Most of you know that.

so nice try

So your answer to hyperbole is further hyperbole?

I don't know if "most of you know that" was intended to lump me into some group that claimed Dellow was going to be the saviour of this organization. I'm on the record of being in support of the hiring - I thought it was a positive step for the organization and could be beneficial - but I don't recall make any of the grand claims you speak of.

Regardless, if Dellow did somehow right the ship so to speak, I wouldn't be so quick to laud his accomplishments without having some kind of factual basis that he played a role in it. If the team made playoffs while we ran a top pairing of Nikitin-Schultz, there's some historical basis to show that Dellow probably wasn't the one to orchestrate that and therefore probably didn't have much influence. Yet we use Schultz as our #1D, don't utilize Yak on the PP, sign guys like Nikitin - all things Dellow was very vocal against - and everything is his fault?

Shouldn't the argument here be about what the extent of his influence was in the organization rather than "I have no clue what his role is or was, but he clearly told the players how to play, told Eakins how to coach, told MacT how to build the team, it's all his fault"?

I think various advanced stats hold value, but I'm not here to debate the merits of it. That argument comes up 20 times a day and I'm not exactly a frequent poster. If you really wanted to debunk the advanced stats community, wouldn't a better approach to this be some concrete arguments for why Dellow was a failure rather than an onslaught of hyperbole and grasping straws?

 

[Jumptheshark]

This thread hurtscmy heaf

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Laughing at people who think Nikita Nikitin was a "good" Corsi player.

Tyler Dellow got very mad with that signing and had no affiliation. Tweeted criticism of the signing for like half the day it happened. He had not been hired by the team yet.

Zap is correct.

I recall hearing that he took a lot of shots/60, that's all that I recall hearing about him albeit I don't keep up with blogs.

 

[Replacement*]

So your answer to hyperbole is further hyperbole?

I don't know if "most of you know that" was intended to lump me into some group that claimed Dellow was going to be the saviour of this organization. I'm on the record of being in support of the hiring - I thought it was a positive step for the organization and could be beneficial - but I don't recall make any of the grand claims you speak of.

Regardless, if Dellow did somehow right the ship so to speak, I wouldn't be so quick to laud his accomplishments without having some kind of factual basis that he played a role in it. If the team made playoffs while we ran a top pairing of Nikitin-Schultz, there's some historical basis to show that Dellow probably wasn't the one to orchestrate that and therefore probably didn't have much influence. Yet we use Schultz as our #1D, don't utilize Yak on the PP, sign guys like Nikitin - all things Dellow was very vocal against - and everything is his fault?

Shouldn't the argument here be about what the extent of his influence was in the organization rather than "I have no clue what his role is or was, but he clearly told the players how to play, told Eakins how to coach, told MacT how to build the team, it's all his fault"?

I think various advanced stats hold value, but I'm not here to debate the merits of it. That argument comes up 20 times a day and I'm not exactly a frequent poster. If you really wanted to debunk the advanced stats community, wouldn't a better approach to this be some concrete arguments for why Dellow was a failure rather than an onslaught of hyperbole and grasping straws?

All I'm saying is its natural bookends of hyperbole with both extremes represented and one not being better than the other and that one naturally begats the other. Nothing stirs such hyperbole more than focal points of strife. The Oilers are the source of such strife which breeds overzealous thought process and countless reactions. I'm a reasonable person generally speaking. But when I speak about the Oilers I become less reasonable due to how the chaos of the org impacts me, and all of us. If that makes any sense, and if it doesn't consider that theres more mods required on this team board than anywhere.. haha

cheers

 

[guymez]

So your answer to hyperbole is further hyperbole?

I don't know if "most of you know that" was intended to lump me into some group that claimed Dellow was going to be the saviour of this organization. I'm on the record of being in support of the hiring - I thought it was a positive step for the organization and could be beneficial - but I don't recall make any of the grand claims you speak of.

Regardless, if Dellow did somehow right the ship so to speak, I wouldn't be so quick to laud his accomplishments without having some kind of factual basis that he played a role in it. If the team made playoffs while we ran a top pairing of Nikitin-Schultz, there's some historical basis to show that Dellow probably wasn't the one to orchestrate that and therefore probably didn't have much influence. Yet we use Schultz as our #1D, don't utilize Yak on the PP, sign guys like Nikitin - all things Dellow was very vocal against - and everything is his fault?

Shouldn't the argument here be about what the extent of his influence was in the organization rather than "I have no clue what his role is or was, but he clearly told the players how to play, told Eakins how to coach, told MacT how to build the team, it's all his fault"?

I think various advanced stats hold value, but I'm not here to debate the merits of it. That argument comes up 20 times a day and I'm not exactly a frequent poster. If you really wanted to debunk the advanced stats community, wouldn't a better approach to this be some concrete arguments for why Dellow was a failure rather than an onslaught of hyperbole and grasping straws?

Very good post.

I suspect that much of the antipathy directed at Dellow has less to do with the numbers and more to do with the person.

The argument against the numbers (more information = bad or useless) is fallacious. The only argument to be had IMO is about application. That said Dellow the person does have his detractors and his on line personality hasnt aided him in any way. Separating his work form his personality makes it easier to appreciate that there is value in what he does.

 

[Slats432]

Very good post.

I suspect that much of the antipathy directed at Dellow has less to do with the numbers and more to do with the person.

The argument against the numbers (more information = bad or useless) is fallacious. The only argument to be had IMO is about application. That said Dellow the person does have his detractors and his on line personality hasnt aided him in any way. Separating his work form his personality makes it easier to appreciate that there is value in what he does.

I am certain there is more Schadenfreude than empathy for sure.

 

[Red Deer Rebel]

... The argument against the numbers (more information = bad or useless) is fallacious. The only argument to be had IMO is about application. ...

With respect, I think your argument is fallacious. The Oilers haven't rejected "information", they have apparently kicked Dellow to the curb, while continuing to retain the services of Dan Haight of Darkhorse Analytics.



How does this equate to an "argument against the numbers". After 40 games of Dellow's analysis, perhaps the Oilers came to the conclusion that he didn't know what he was talking about.

I am certain there is more Schadenfreude than empathy for sure.

So, the Pearson's correlation coefficient between hiring a blogger and getting fired = 1.0.

My sense of it is there's a bit of a "poseur problem" in the "analytics community". People who are good at self-promotion don't necessarily have much substance to them, and in a technical field like analytics it is difficult to continue passing yourself off as something you're not.

Hell, there are people practicing medicine who have never been to university, but they all get exposed eventually.

Isn't that just the way of things?

 

[Seedling]

MacT had mentioned last when he was hired that they already had a stats guru. Dellow was an Eakins hire it seems. Eakins is gone, so is Dellow. I think it's that simple.

 

[Replacement*]

With respect, I think your argument is fallacious. The Oilers haven't rejected "information", they have apparently kicked Dellow to the curb, while continuing to retain the services of Dan Haight of Darkhorse Analytics.



How does this equate to an "argument against the numbers". After 40 games of Dellow's analysis, perhaps the Oilers came to the conclusion that he didn't know what he was talking about.






So, the Pearson's correlation coefficient between hiring a blogger and getting fired = 1.0.

My sense of it is there's a bit of a "poseur problem" in the "analytics community". People who are good at self-promotion don't necessarily have much substance to them, and in a technical field like analytics it is difficult to continue passing yourself off as something you're not.

Hell, there are people practicing medicine who have never been to university, but they all get exposed eventually.

Isn't that just the way of things?

Welldone Please post more often.

Seriously this nature of post approaches the best back up research seen here. Very convincing argument. Very interesting twitters.

oilslick mentioned earlier that He'd like to see advanced stats become less the domain of unqualified weekend warriors and more the work of people that have more of the requisite comprehensive statistical background to do this work. Dan Haight would be a move more in that direction imo.

 

[Replacement*]

MacT had mentioned last when he was hired that they already had a stats guru. Dellow was an Eakins hire it seems. Eakins is gone, so is Dellow. I think it's that simple.

Yet people were effusively arguing this simple assertion I made earlier in the thread that Dellow was likely Eakins baby. Being that this affectton with Dellow happened around the time MacT got a ***** for Eakins.

 

[guymez]

With respect, I think your argument is fallacious. The Oilers haven't rejected "information", they have apparently kicked Dellow to the curb, while continuing to retain the services of Dan Haight of Darkhorse Analytics.



How does this equate to an "argument against the numbers". After 40 games of Dellow's analysis, perhaps the Oilers came to the conclusion that he didn't know what he was talking about.






So, the Pearson's correlation coefficient between hiring a blogger and getting fired = 1.0.

My sense of it is there's a bit of a "poseur problem" in the "analytics community". People who are good at self-promotion don't necessarily have much substance to them, and in a technical field like analytics it is difficult to continue passing yourself off as something you're not.

Hell, there are people practicing medicine who have never been to university, but they all get exposed eventually.

Isn't that just the way of things?

I made a general statement on Tyler Dellow and analytics and how it relates to some of the posts on this board. Dellow has done some interesting work IMO and the opinion of many others.

I dont know or care how the Oilers applied these numbers or even if they did....I strongly suspect you dont know if or how the Oilers applied these numbers either.

It wouldn't surprise me at all IF the team ****** up applying the analytics that Dellow made available being that their track record for screwing up is so exceptional.

Maybe this is just a situation (as seedling pointed out) that Dellow was Eakins man and that MacT and Nelson wanted to go in a different direction. Happens all the time in sports.

The other situations would need to be looked at individually like anything else.

I suspect that the agenda building by many on this board will cut off that process.

Such is life on HF.

 

[guymez]

MacT had mentioned last when he was hired that they already had a stats guru. Dellow was an Eakins hire it seems. Eakins is gone, so is Dellow. I think it's that simple.

This makes sense.

Although the analytics deniers likely wont buy that perspective.

 

[guymez]

I am certain there is more Schadenfreude than empathy for sure.

What...that never happens here.

 

[StoveTopStauffer]

Is it really? Let encounter the whole fallacy. When Dellow was hired by the Oilers it was heralded by countless posters on the board that this was the dawn awakening for the Oilers who would be transformed by the wisdom of the ages and hockey advanced stats. People waxed on about what a great game changer this was going to be for the org. People also stated that this was proof positive that advanced stats debate is over, pro side had won, and this being based on yet another team ( a really poor team bereft of any sound decision making) adopting it. All this proclaimed with zero results.

Hey if that kind of hyperbole all gets stated here at the start this whole shebang is not going to come off without some kind of contrary commentary when all has failed.

The agenda that was at work was to paint Dellow, and advanced stats, as the shining light of this org that would help it to find its way. Its helped it to be the worst team in the history of this org if anything.

Not invoking causality either but you can bet your lucky PDO that if Dellow and advanced stats had found success here we wouldn't be hearing the end of it.

Most of you know that.

so nice try

Can't recall any of that, or certainly not in the quantity you make it sound like it occurred.

There is also no debate about advance stats as it is a tool and sometimes a useful one. It has to be used appropriately and I'm almost certain most GOOD coaches/teams use it as such. If anyone thinks it is the end all be all, that is just obviously flawed. Just as flawed as the nonsensical trope about how they're useless.

Dellow probably got fired because he wasn't that great, or it could be hundreds of other reasons.

 

[guymez]

Can't recall any of that, or certainly not in the quantity you make it sound like it occurred.

There is also no debate about advance stats as it is a tool and sometimes a useful one. It has to be used appropriately and I'm almost certain most GOOD coaches/teams use it as such. If anyone thinks it is the end all be all, that is just obviously flawed. Just as flawed as the nonsensical trope about how they're useless.

Dellow probably got fired because he wasn't that great, or it could be hundreds of other reasons.

Indeed.
This so called 'heralding by countless posters' is hyperbole used only to support a strawman argument.

 

[Replacement*]

Can't recall any of that.

There is also no debate about advance stats as it is a tool and sometimes a useful one. It has to be used appropriately and I'm almost certain most GOOD coaches/teams use it as such. If anyone thinks it is the end all be all, that is just obviously flawed. Just as flawed as the nonsensical trope about how they're useless.

I read this board a lot obviously. Too much for my own good. I should really ALWAYS be doing something better with my summers but I like to get out of the sun once in awhile in Julys and Augusts..

Theres no disagreement on what you stated. The trouble is the combination of Eakins, Dellows, MacT, and this org possibly resulted in too much buy in.

Its speculation, sure, but with a lot of background of supporting statements I've observed management making ever since the hires.

Also, when any struggling org is stating that it is delving into more of a subset of advisors that are advising to go more in a particular direction it is usually a desperate attempt by the org to find answers. Really this is not much different than what occurs in any struggling org be it Blackberry or the Oilers. Or the 3 other NHL teams RDR mentioned earlier. Desperate orgs are much more susceptible to involving in fullscale and radical change attempts. The Oilers are indicating doing this in all kinds of ways. Except the most obvious ways..

 

[oilerbear]

a) because he's a dick to lots of people online.

b) because he's a dick to lots of people online.

You reep what you sow!

You get what you give!

ETC.

 

[Arpeggio]

I reiterate that I am not pro or anti advanced stats. I like information and interpret it and if useful keep it, if not, discard it.

The great thing for the anti advance crowd is all the teams public about adding stats guys is that they are continuing to struggle.

Personally a bad organization like the Oilers that has sucked at drafting and developing for over a decade may need more than 4 months of advance stats to turn it around. (Is there a corsi for spearing a guy in the nuts in the last minute?)

The bad teams announced that they added a stats guy, because all the good teams had already been using them for years.

 

[Seedling]

Yet people were effusively arguing this simple assertion I made earlier in the thread that Dellow was likely Eakins baby. Being that this affectton with Dellow happened around the time MacT got a ***** for Eakins.

What can I say?

This makes sense.

Although the analytics deniers likely wont buy that perspective.

There seems to be lots of shouting from both sides going on. I think it's just likely a situation where it didn't work and both parties move on. It happens.

 

[Master Lok]

Eakins is on record saying they had consulted Dellow prior to being officially hired so he could still have had a say. We don't know if he did have any input in these signings but his "contributions" did start before he was hired.

So because of that Dellow can be blamed for any of the Oilers transactions even before he was hired?

When the Oilers signed Nikitin, Dellow at the time, was not employed by the organization and heavily criticized the signing and Nikitin.

Because Eakins claims to have consulted with Dellow before the actual hiring date... and the Oilers signed Nikitin despite going against Dellow's publicized opinion - Dellow is still responsible and should be blamed for the Nikitin signing?

HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU COME TO THAT CONCLUSION?

This is beyond ridiculous.