Player Discussion Shea Weber Part II *Mod Warning posts 142, 200, 386 & 526*

[VladTheLimpWhaler]

Lolol they are like a cult, like Scientologists walking around with their pamphlets looking for converts, except instead of pamphlets it's corsi and advance stats sheets. I think they don't even watch games.

They don't have to watch games. The stats is what tells you the real story, not the games.

I'm being half sarcastic, but that's actually close to what the advanced stats gang believes. A lot of these modern skeptics-types who read Richard Dawkins books and scoff at everything that isn't immediately falsifiable with measurable evidence, these guys usually have a profound distrust of their own perceptions. They believe that your brain is an unreliable system that produces all kinds of biases and optical illusions, and you need science and reason and skepticism to arrive at the real picture. They don't trust themselves to watch games and get a sense of things. They believe that statistical trends are better than human beings at capturing trends and showing you what's really happening, so why would you watch games when you can just get all the numbers after the game and see what "really" happened?

The whole thing puts the cart before the horse. It's like they believe statistics are the causal element, instead of the resulting element, of how a team plays. Meaning, they believe it isn't a well-performing team that goes out, plays well, and collects good statistics, but the other way around - that guys with good statistics are what make a team perform well. As if you can just pick a group of guys based on their statistics, throw them together on a team, and expect that team to function well and continue racking up good statistics.

The goalie thing is a perfect example. Rinne's statistics were better with Weber, but now that Weber is gone he is floundering. So what do the stats guys say? They blame Nashville's performance on Rinne's poor play, while downplaying the impact of Weber due to Price and Montoya's play.

Statistics can be used to justify whatever you already believe, and give it an air of objectivity. Why do you think people say "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics"?

Here's another funny article. The clowns at Habs Eye On The Prize are struggling with how Shea Weber's success fits into their worldview. They are finding his success "difficult to evaluate". It's just a delight to watch these guys flop around trying to rationalize their nonsensical ways of seeing the world. They are sitting around scratching their heads because Weber is having more success and more impact than his possession metrics would suggest. "Does not compute. Does not compute."

Getting back on topic, though. Weber is a beast and he deserves to be the NHL's first star of the month, but of course it's a close call between Weber and McDavid, who play two different positions.

 

[lamp9post]

Lolol they are like a cult, like Scientologists walking around with their pamphlets looking for converts, except instead of pamphlets it's corsi and advance stats sheets. I think they don't even watch games.

Why would you need to watch games? CorsiRel is the pinnacle of player evaluation and all you need to make an informed opinion on any player. Forget context, forget actual production like goals and assists, forget what you *think* you saw on the ice. None of it matters when you have CorsiRel on your side.

 

[Wats]

Why would you need to watch games? CorsiRel is the pinnacle of player evaluation and all you need to make an informed opinion on any player. Forget context, forget actual production like goals and assists, forget what you *think* you saw on the ice. None of it matters when you have CorsiRel on your side.

Let me preface by saying I do believe Weber is playing great. But I think this witch hunt for corsi is ironic when I see the same people praise Weber's +/- (not saying you, just responding to your post since it does in a sense ridicule people who put value into stats like Corsi). A lot of what people refer to as fancy stats/corsi/fenwick/etc is essentially +/-...for shots. If one is going to brush it off as negligible, then wouldn't it make sense to brush off other stats like +/- too?

Seems to be there's no middle ground, why do I have to be in a corsi cult if I put value into other stats other than the goals, assist, hits, blocks, shots, +/-, etc? The best opinion of a player will take into consideration everything.

 

[Deebs]

Lolol they are like a cult, like Scientologists walking around with their pamphlets looking for converts, except instead of pamphlets it's corsi and advance stats sheets.

Bahaha.....so true.

Advantologists

 

[gunnerdom]

Why would you need to watch games? CorsiRel is the pinnacle of player evaluation and all you need to make an informed opinion on any player. Forget context, forget actual production like goals and assists, forget what you *think* you saw on the ice. None of it matters when you have CorsiRel on your side.

You realize you need to watch the games to compile the stats right? If you don't get that, then I think you don't understand a thing about the advanced stats.

I'm not saying advanced stats are the more important thing in evaluating a player, nor is just watching a player. Both should be used and that's it. But to even consider that someone just looks at stats without watching the game is ridiculous and uninformed.

 

[VladTheLimpWhaler]

You realize you need to watch the games to compile the stats right? If you don't get that, then I think you don't understand a thing about the advanced stats.

I'm not saying advanced stats are the more important thing in evaluating a player, nor is just watching a player. Both should be used and that's it. But to even consider that someone just looks at stats without watching the game is ridiculous and uninformed.

The point here is that a lot of the "analytics guys" really do distrust their own perceptions. When I say analytics guys, I mean guys who are obsessed with analytics and find them predictive, not the rest of us who think analytics have a place but disagree about how much reach they have, or disagree about what is quantifiable and what isn't, or disagree about whether something that is not immediately quantifiable has any value or not.

Take a look at this sentence from the Habs Eye On The Prize article I linked to earlier, they say

Analytics have allowed growth in understanding the game, and have redefined notions of success for all but the most narrow-minded traditionalists.​

Umm, no they haven't. The first thing to take away from this quote is that the author really does mistrust his own perceptions. What else could he possibly mean by the notion that analytics have allowed "grown in understanding the game". He means that analytics have helped us notice things that we couldn't have otherwise noticed with only our biased, untrustworthy brains. That sentence is basically saying that we need analytics to understand certain aspects of the game, which we are incapable of understanding without analytics. He also says that they have redefined notions of success. No, they haven't. They have only redefined success if you subscribe to the first notion that your brain cannot be trusted to know what's "really" going on. Once you accept that statistics hold the real story and your perceptions are untrustworthy, there is no choice but to redefine what success is. You thought Weber played a good game, but you see that his Corsi was not good, so you decide to throw out your perception in favor of the statistic, which holds the "real story". There you go, success redefined. You thought Weber played a good game, but it turns out he didn't.

He also insults everyone who doesn't believe this to be true by using a dishonest trick - by saying that all but the most narrow minded traditionalists agree with this ridiculous idea that analytics redefines success. Yeah, analytics does redefine success, it redefines guys like Tom Gilbert as good defensemen and guys like Shea Weber as mediocre defensemen.

But all this crying about people not understanding analytics or misrepresenting analytics; I don't see anyone misunderstanding or misrepresenting analytics other than analytics guys. Every time some analytics guy issues one of his "unbiased decrees" from "the realm of objectivity" and bestows his objective knowledge on all of us lowly uneducated rubes who don't understand science as good as they do, if somebody happens to disagree, the analytics guy starts screaming about how all the rubes don't understand analytics, when in reality, it's the analytics guys who are making a joke out of analytics by giving them so much weight, and by believing analytics to have so much reach.

Weber is one of the best players Montreal has had in decades, and the analytics guys are dumbfounded by how this can be, because what they are seeing isn't jiving with what they believe about Corsi. All I see when I read that article is a person struggling to accept reality. Analytics and statistics do not have the significance that the author believes, and Shea Weber's success is exposing the limitations of his stats-centered worldview, and he is struggling with accepting the limitations of his worlview. It's basic denial.

 

[Uncle Gary]

Corsi is essentially plus minus with shot attempts. Just like plus minus a lot of it is based on the overall team and the players you play with, the systems a coach uses and the kind of match ups a player gets. All of these things have to be taken into context when using Corsi to evaluate a player.

For the following I am using 5v5 score adjusted numbers.

So far this season Weber has started a mere 33% of his shifts in the offensive zone and has put up a below average 48.6% Corsi for. Now lets take a look at some of the other top defenders. Keith so far has put up a fantastic 55.8% Corsi for but he has had the luxury of starting 56.7% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Doughty has put up an insane 58.4% Corsi for but started 55.1% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Karlsson 51% Corsi for while starting almost 70% of his shifts in the offensive zone.

Yes, Weber has worse Corsi stats than most of the other top 10 defenceman in the NHL. However he has quite possibly the hardest starts and minutes in the NHL.

 

[TopTenPlayz]

I'd assume Weber's Corsi and Fenwick stats to be subpar. He's had an overwhelming amount of defensive zone starts. His team sucks at faceoffs which lead to more shots from opponents. He's had to defend leads during the last minutes of games where the opposition brought on an extra attacker. I wouldn't expect his shots differential to be great.... Advanced stats should always be taken with a grain of salt since they do not take context into consideration.

 

[Non Player Canadiens]

I think my eyes just popped from gloating and smugness overdose after reading only one page of this thread

 

[Newhabfan]

I don't want to turn this into an "advanced stats" discussion. However, I consider myself a bit of a scientist in (social/human science) and I've learned to trust published scientific papers (they a have a ton of flaws but they're still better than a blog or an internet page).

Statistics as a "science" has an important academic and scientific community and many specialised journals. There is, for instance, an American Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.

I've looked through some specific scientific engines to find published papers in solid journals on Corsi and other similar measures - could not find any Corsi +hockey ended on a study using the "Corsi block memory span" test for athletes with concussions not what I was looking for. Google scholar found some titles but they did not seem that solid to me. Mostly regression models to predict performance that would include many variables including Corsi/Fenwick. A lot unpublished.

Can someone point me to a reliable, solid, scientific, published research on the reliability, validity, predictive force etc. of advanced stats ?

 

[VladTheLimpWhaler]

I suspect a lot of that knowledge is guarded like a trade secret by individual clubs. It is doubtful that the serious work on the validity of analytics would be published in academic peer reviewed journals. I just don't think that it's the right place to look, for this topic.

But it does highlight the arrogance of these bloggers who are always claiming analytics to be an objective, peer-reviewed science. There's not actually much work in published academic peer-reviewed journals about this stuff at all. Yet these guys act like anyone who disagrees with them is no different than people who deny evolution. They lump everyone who disagrees with them into the anti-science crowd.

Most of these guys have a "science vs anti-science" chip on their shoulder. They perceive a lot of stuff in society to be blatantly anti-science, and they see the world as a giant cosmic struggle between the forces of objectivity and rationality against the forces of darkness and ignorance. That's why they are always arguing against perceived enemies of science, and why they act adversarial to those who disagree with them. Because to them, this isn't just a disagreement, it's a cosmic struggle against an enemy who wants to keep you in the dark. Whether those are religious people, people who hold traditional values, old-school sports guys, whoever. They constantly feel under attack by people they perceive as anti-science ignoramuses, and a lot of what they say is actually a reaction to perceived attacks, or at the very least, it comes from a science vs ignorance type of worldview.

My apologies for bringing up these things that appear to be off topic, but I think this social trend that we are seeing, the cult of reason that is dominating the discourse, as exemplified by the modern skeptic/atheist movement, is a huge part of this disagreement. It's partly a generational thing, partly a philosophical thing, partly a technological thing. One side inherently distrusts human perception and doesn't trust humans to make observations without their biased brains leading them astray, so they say we must rely on science and reason to tell us what is really true and what isn't, while the other side is constantly seeing things that definitely exist but aren't quantifiable statistically, or can't be accounted for with science, and therefore those people are aware of the limitations of science, while the other side is constantly trying to use science to reach into areas of life where it doesn't belong, or where it falls short.

 

[Hoople]

I think my eyes just popped from gloating and smugness overdose after reading only one page of this thread

Get used to fans being happy to have Shea Weber on the team.

If you are sad, Nashville --------->

 

[Non Player Canadiens]

Get used to fans being happy to have Shea Weber on the team.

If you are sad, Nashville --------->

I'm also happy we have Weber on the team! He's a great player. But there's a difference between being insufferably smug (especially after a 9-game sample) and being happy. You know?

So yeah thanks for the suggestion boss, but I'm gonna stay right here.

 

[Plante]

They don't have to watch games. The stats is what tells you the real story, not the games.

I'm being half sarcastic, but that's actually close to what the advanced stats gang believes. A lot of these modern skeptics-types who read Richard Dawkins books and scoff at everything that isn't immediately falsifiable with measurable evidence, these guys usually have a profound distrust of their own perceptions. They believe that your brain is an unreliable system that produces all kinds of biases and optical illusions, and you need science and reason and skepticism to arrive at the real picture. They don't trust themselves to watch games and get a sense of things. They believe that statistical trends are better than human beings at capturing trends and showing you what's really happening, so why would you watch games when you can just get all the numbers after the game and see what "really" happened?

The whole thing puts the cart before the horse. It's like they believe statistics are the causal element, instead of the resulting element, of how a team plays. Meaning, they believe it isn't a well-performing team that goes out, plays well, and collects good statistics, but the other way around - that guys with good statistics are what make a team perform well. As if you can just pick a group of guys based on their statistics, throw them together on a team, and expect that team to function well and continue racking up good statistics.

The goalie thing is a perfect example. Rinne's statistics were better with Weber, but now that Weber is gone he is floundering. So what do the stats guys say? They blame Nashville's performance on Rinne's poor play, while downplaying the impact of Weber due to Price and Montoya's play.

Statistics can be used to justify whatever you already believe, and give it an air of objectivity. Why do you think people say "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics"?

Here's another funny article. The clowns at Habs Eye On The Prize are struggling with how Shea Weber's success fits into their worldview. They are finding his success "difficult to evaluate". It's just a delight to watch these guys flop around trying to rationalize their nonsensical ways of seeing the world. They are sitting around scratching their heads because Weber is having more success and more impact than his possession metrics would suggest. "Does not compute. Does not compute."

Getting back on topic, though. Weber is a beast and he deserves to be the NHL's first star of the month, but of course it's a close call between Weber and McDavid, who play two different positions.

"They believe that your brain is an unreliable system that produces all kinds of biases and optical illusions, and you need science and reason and skepticism to arrive at the real picture." - Are you arguing against this point?

Why would those same Richard Dawkins lovers only use certain segments of the scientific process?

"As if you can just pick a group of guys based on their statistics, throw them together on a team, and expect that team to function well and continue racking up good statistics."

Pretty sure that's the basis for all star teams, olympic teams, et cetera.

"The goalie thing is a perfect example. Rinne's statistics were better with Weber, but now that Weber is gone he is floundering. So what do the stats guys say? They blame Nashville's performance on Rinne's poor play, while downplaying the impact of Weber due to Price and Montoya's play."

So when Rinne played like crap with Weber last year, and Price played great without Weber before the injury.... Is that just a glitch in the matrix? Stats guys probably would have chosen Price for either of those years. Terrible example.

Statistics in baseball is still in its infancy, let alone hockey, and you want to pretend that these ideas are cemented because of some bloggers? The scientific method will keep evolving until it finds the correct path, and that stems far outside of Richard Dawkins followers. I'm not an analytics guy, (I hate math with a passion) I am simply a guy that finds human perception to be misleading... Our brains are simply terrible at understanding things on the micro and macro level.

"That sentence is basically saying that we need analytics to understand certain aspects of the game, which we are incapable of understanding without analytics." I don't see the issue with that? Are you saying you are capable of understanding ever single nuance that goes on in a hockey game? Don't be absurd, growing our understanding means access to more information.

"You thought Weber played a good game, but you see that his Corsi was not good, so you decide to throw out your perception in favor of the statistic, which holds the "real story". There you go, success redefined. You thought Weber played a good game, but it turns out he didn't."

Success is being redefined, but these people aren't presenting the final step of this process, as we gain access to more and more information we will eventually. You have to realize how young this kind of statistical analysis is in hockey. The scientific process is big on sample size, people like Tom Gilbert were lauded by unscientific people using the full scientific method.

You seem to be fighting the fringes of this sports analytical scene and extrapolating it onto the entire scientific community. Ignore the people who froth at the mount saying how they have all the information, grab what you deem reliable and move on, remind yourself that correlation doesn't equal causation and try to go to as many sources as possible as not to get bogged down by an ideological stance - friendly or otherwise.

 

[Hoople]

I'm also happy we have Weber on the team! He's a great player. But there's a difference between being insufferably smug (especially after a 9-game sample) and being happy. You know?

So yeah thanks for the suggestion boss, but I'm gonna stay right here.

I know you will.

Meanwhile , there will be more and more Habs fans appreciating Weber on this team. And even some praising him in his role.

 

[rubco55]

To be fair Weber right now is playing miles better than what he showed since 2-3 years. Not even the people happy with the trade could've predicted he would have that kind of start.

Now it must be euphoriant for you to act all proud and stuff but you're denying that people raised valid concern about his play, and you dismissing it as "they never watched him" is, without disrespect, so puerile. You act as if you know better than other posters and it just isnt true. Some posters had greatly build arguments supported by stats and the eye-test. What is going on right now is not habitual and could not have been predicted. But most importantly MOST posters against the trade said they would have to wait to see him play before judging. You strawmanning the situation to paint the people against the trade like they are stupid or "haters" or w/e is a bit arrogant, honestly. Not sure what you are trying to accomplish here. You think you are the only one who had seen Weber play before the trade lol?

(mod)

Not true, most posters against the trade brought stats and said they already knew Weber would be inferior to Subban. Some, did say they did not think it would work but that they would wait to see how Weber would play.

There was also comments like this one:

''With Weber we're going to get more dump-and-chase, less puck possession, and a player who didn't want to be in Montreal whatsoever. Oh, and a lot less personality and charm to boot. But he scores PP goals. Yay - what a great fit.''
or
''Welcome Weber, hope you'll like the stay here. Unfortunately for you, your slow ass is not going to get covered by strong defensive system and defensively responsible players like in NSH.
Will be bought out in year 2-3.''

and I have many more full of hate and totally stupid comments....I saved a lot of them just to see if the people who wrote them would behave like men and admit they were wrong...a few have and I applaud them!.....but alas, (and I will not name anyone) most of them avoid threads like this one, and some have simply left the board....

 

[lamp9post]

Let me preface by saying I do believe Weber is playing great. But I think this witch hunt for corsi is ironic when I see the same people praise Weber's +/- (not saying you, just responding to your post since it does in a sense ridicule people who put value into stats like Corsi). A lot of what people refer to as fancy stats/corsi/fenwick/etc is essentially +/-...for shots. If one is going to brush it off as negligible, then wouldn't it make sense to brush off other stats like +/- too?

Seems to be there's no middle ground, why do I have to be in a corsi cult if I put value into other stats other than the goals, assist, hits, blocks, shots, +/-, etc? The best opinion of a player will take into consideration everything.

I think we are actually on the same page here, and I agree that the lack of a middle ground on these boards can be frustrating (and I'm sure my post didn't help in that regard). I have no problem with placing value on stats like corsi. I do take issue with those who ignore all other data and use CorsiRel in particular as if it is the final word in any conversation.

You realize you need to watch the games to compile the stats right? If you don't get that, then I think you don't understand a thing about the advanced stats.

I'm not saying advanced stats are the more important thing in evaluating a player, nor is just watching a player. Both should be used and that's it. But to even consider that someone just looks at stats without watching the game is ridiculous and uninformed.

LOL, you compile your own stats as you watch the game?

I agree that both should be used. My post was meant to mock those who use CorsiRel as the final word and dismiss other data.

 

[aresknights]

I was roasted on twitter and lost at least 100 followers for simply stating that Weber is a beast and I liked the trade. The advanced stats gang in particular went out of their way to inform me and anyone else that defended the trade that we were nuts.

Weber was washed up because he was -5 in his last playoff game. By 32 he would be sent to the minors.

Price is in his prime..the prime time to win is over the next five years..while IMO Weber..just like Bourque, Lidstrom, MacInnis, Howe, Leetch, Chara, Chelios, Blake and dozens of other elite dmen before him..will still be a superior defencemen who is nowhere close to being on the decline. His shot, size, strength grit, smarts and character aren't going to disappear.

Enjoy your posts n tweets. But the again I often think similarly. Havent agreed 100% but often do.

 

[aresknights]

The point here is that a lot of the "analytics guys" really do distrust their own perceptions. When I say analytics guys, I mean guys who are obsessed with analytics and find them predictive, not the rest of us who think analytics have a place but disagree about how much reach they have, or disagree about what is quantifiable and what isn't, or disagree about whether something that is not immediately quantifiable has any value or not.

Take a look at this sentence from the Habs Eye On The Prize article I linked to earlier, they say

Analytics have allowed growth in understanding the game, and have redefined notions of success for all but the most narrow-minded traditionalists.​

Umm, no they haven't. The first thing to take away from this quote is that the author really does mistrust his own perceptions. What else could he possibly mean by the notion that analytics have allowed "grown in understanding the game". He means that analytics have helped us notice things that we couldn't have otherwise noticed with only our biased, untrustworthy brains. That sentence is basically saying that we need analytics to understand certain aspects of the game, which we are incapable of understanding without analytics. He also says that they have redefined notions of success. No, they haven't. They have only redefined success if you subscribe to the first notion that your brain cannot be trusted to know what's "really" going on. Once you accept that statistics hold the real story and your perceptions are untrustworthy, there is no choice but to redefine what success is. You thought Weber played a good game, but you see that his Corsi was not good, so you decide to throw out your perception in favor of the statistic, which holds the "real story". There you go, success redefined. You thought Weber played a good game, but it turns out he didn't.

He also insults everyone who doesn't believe this to be true by using a dishonest trick - by saying that all but the most narrow minded traditionalists agree with this ridiculous idea that analytics redefines success. Yeah, analytics does redefine success, it redefines guys like Tom Gilbert as good defensemen and guys like Shea Weber as mediocre defensemen.

But all this crying about people not understanding analytics or misrepresenting analytics; I don't see anyone misunderstanding or misrepresenting analytics other than analytics guys. Every time some analytics guy issues one of his "unbiased decrees" from "the realm of objectivity" and bestows his objective knowledge on all of us lowly uneducated rubes who don't understand science as good as they do, if somebody happens to disagree, the analytics guy starts screaming about how all the rubes don't understand analytics, when in reality, it's the analytics guys who are making a joke out of analytics by giving them so much weight, and by believing analytics to have so much reach.

Weber is one of the best players Montreal has had in decades, and the analytics guys are dumbfounded by how this can be, because what they are seeing isn't jiving with what they believe about Corsi. All I see when I read that article is a person struggling to accept reality. Analytics and statistics do not have the significance that the author believes, and Shea Weber's success is exposing the limitations of his stats-centered worldview, and he is struggling with accepting the limitations of his worlview. It's basic denial.

Thanks for this and the others who have articulated very well the issues with the #s only crowd.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

The goalie thing is a perfect example. Rinne's statistics were better with Weber, but now that Weber is gone he is floundering. So what do the stats guys say? They blame Nashville's performance on Rinne's poor play, while downplaying the impact of Weber due to Price and Montoya's play.

Rinee's stats have been on the downswing for a while man...

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Thanks for this and the others who have articulated very well the issues with the #s only crowd.

Well, I've seen two games so far this year. I didn't think Montreal or Weber have looked good in either one. He's putting up points and that's awesome. If he keeps doing that it's all good. I still think he's got limitations though. I'll give credit where it's due, he's off to a great start.

 

[Andrei79]

Well, I've seen two games so far this year. I didn't think Montreal or Weber have looked good in either one. He's putting up points and that's awesome. If he keeps doing that it's all good. I still think he's got limitations though. I'll give credit where it's due, he's off to a great start.

You must be joking... even without the points, Weber has been a rock. There's something wrong here.

 

[Hoople]

Well, I've seen two games so far this year. I didn't think Montreal or Weber have looked good in either one. He's putting up points and that's awesome. If he keeps doing that it's all good. I still think he's got limitations though. I'll give credit where it's due, he's off to a great start.

You still sound disappointed in Weber.

Do us a favor. Continue to push your "limitations" and "not looking good" meme all season. Don't backtrack down the road. Stick to your guns. Keep up the negative talk around Weber with your postings.

Thanks.

 

[Andrei79]

You still sound disappointed in Weber.

Do us a favor. Continue to push your "limitations" and "not looking good" meme all season. Don't backtrack down the road. Stick to your guns. Keep up the negative talk around Weber with your postings.

Thanks.

Some people will never be able to see beyond their biases. I'm not sure if it's sad or pathetic.

I hated the trade, but after seeing 9 straight games of Weber, I can see why they went for him. His impact is the same Chara had in his prime with Boston, but he's a better skater. He takes away so much space and almost always makes the right play. The plays he makes that don't appear on idiotic fancy stats just doesn't appeal to some.

 

[Hoople]

Some people will never be able to see beyond their biases. I'm not sure if it's sad or pathetic.

I hated the trade, but after seeing 9 straight games of Weber, I can see why they went for him. His impact is the same Chara had in his prime with Boston, but he's a better skater. He takes away so much space and almost always makes the right play. The plays he makes that don't appear on idiotic fancy stats just doesn't appeal to some.

Some people get so heavily invested in their opinion that reality gets bent and warped into non-existence.