Prediction Contest: What will Kyle Dubas' first "Moneyball" type move and who is untouchable?

[rumman]

I can't really blame him for being nervous about pulling the trigger, on either a big move or a coaching change. Because let's face it, there's a group in Toronto who really didn't like his hiring in the first place, and the group includes some of the biggest loud-mouths in Toronto (hello, Steve!). And if this goes wrong, I think his JOB's on the line, considering the assets he's already invested into the team this year...

and so it should be, he create this team, he and he alone should answer for it's failings.........

 

[Martin Skoula]

Have any of you actually watched Moneyball? That movie wasn't even about spreadsheets, it was about finding different ways to win. The whole point was about them buying runs on base, not guys who can hit home runs, because the market paid the big hitters more than they were worth in terms of contributing to wins for a small market team. It's not a good movie or story, but at least get it right.

If you're going to get into histrionics about Dubas "playing moneyball", the equivalent would be stacking the team with guys who deny/gain zone entries instead of focusing on big point producers. That's not what's happening considering how weak our zone entry/denial has been this year.

At least know something about the movies you use to complain about problems that don't exist. It would be like me assuming you want a GM who's entire hockey knowledge is having watched Slapshot once and insisting he's going to stack the team full of Christian Hansons. Difference is, I don't need a strawman to tell you why abandoning speed and skill is stupid.

 

[Menzinger]

Despite your extreme example (Marleau at 6.25 million vs Mikheyev 940K), you probably don't need a whole analytics department to see that almost every team has this phenomena. Every organization has someone who is paid less and performing more. Sometimes by design and sometimes by chance.

I'm sorry, but you can't just deny what we went through at the time of Dubas hiring: Leaf fans bringing to light the merits of analytics, newspaper articles on how innovative Dubas is, and this notion that Dubas was going to go with speed/skill as a recipe for success.

Perhaps HF, the fans, and media were mislead, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

A less "extreme example" would be ditching Brown whose salary at 2.5 mil wasnt great value. The fact is we still see GMs continuously overspend money on depth guys shows that GMs still frequently get blinded into spending money on the wrong guys

And i think analytics are underpinning most decisions being made by the Leafs today (though not to say theyre the only thing being taken into account), but everything from tactics to scouting to drafting/evelopment is using them to some extent. So it can be difficult seperating where analytics influence starts and stops with the Leafs.

I think youre oversimplifying things too much saying speed/skill are the only things that matter with Dubas (ie Muzzin was one of his biggest moves as GM - and while higly skilled still has a fair amount of jam to his playing style)

 

[Menzinger]

Have any of you actually watched Moneyball? That movie wasn't even about spreadsheets, it was about finding different ways to win. The whole point was about them buying runs on base, not guys who can hit home runs, because the market paid the big hitters more than they were worth in terms of contributing to wins for a small market team. It's not a good movie or story, but at least get it right.

If you're going to get into histrionics about Dubas "playing moneyball", the equivalent would be stacking the team with guys who deny/gain zone entries instead of focusing on big point producers. That's not what's happening considering how weak our zone entry/denial has been this year.

At least know something about the movies you use to complain about problems that don't exist. It would be like me assuming you want a GM who's entire hockey knowledge is having watched Slapshot once and insisting he's going to stack the team full of Christian Hansons. Difference is, I don't need a strawman to tell you why abandoning speed and skill is stupid.

Spot on. That book/film was about a budget team trying to find waysnto be competitive against wealthy teams full ofnexpensive star players. This isnt the Leafs situation at all.

Dubas likes to look for inefficiencies, but theres no such thing as "money puck" for the Leafs. Who are a team built around star power lol

 

[Lightsol]

and so it should be, he create this team, he and he alone should answer for it's failings.........

That's pretty impressive; building a whole team in a year and two offseasons...

 

[Pilky01]

That's pretty impressive; building a whole team in a year and two offseasons...

Not nearly as impressive as Vegas.

 

[ImpartialNHLfan]

Apparently Dubas thinks the term "moneyball" is literally throwing money around.

 

[Gabriel426]

Speaking of looking, a person playing Moneyball are making decisions by using analytics to manage your transactions and decisions based on the stats, however the irony of that is you don't even need the eye-test and even watch games to make decisions simply take the data from the games results, focus on ones that you believe impacts the outcome and act accordingly.

The primary source should be viewing and accessing what happens on the ice and how the game is played and Moneyball a distant secondary option to support your viewing conclusions.

I think the whole moneyball concept is pretty much looking at something non traditionally and proving that there are other ways to do it instead of proving tradition way is wrong. However, I think some views moneyball as being Round Earth while tradition as Flat Earth, and constantly try to prove the other is wrong.
I think in average, the moneyball concept will work but when it comes to best vs best, the law of average is thrown out the window. Let me put it this way. NHL have 31 teams, 16 teams will make the playoffs after a 82 games season. Say 95points is the cut off point for playoff hockey. For a team trying to make the playoffs, statistically, they need to get all 82 points(41 games) against non playoff teams and win 7 out of the remaining 41 games to make the playoffs. But for them to advance in the playoffs, they need to be much much better than winning 7 out of 41 games against playoff teams in the regular season.

 

[Gabriel426]

Spot on. That book/film was about a budget team trying to find waysnto be competitive against wealthy teams full ofnexpensive star players. This isnt the Leafs situation at all.

Dubas likes to look for inefficiencies, but theres no such thing as "money puck" for the Leafs. Who are a team built around star power lol

That’s the thing that bother me the most about Dubas, market inefficiencies. As I don’t think you can apply that to hockey due to the lack of movement among players.
Baseball is different bc there are a lot of movement of players(from top to bottom) and there are always late bloomers in baseball but rarely the case with hockey.

 

[Martin Skoula]

That’s the thing that bother me the most about Dubas, market inefficiencies. As I don’t think you can apply that to hockey due to the lack of movement among players.
Baseball is different bc there are a lot of movement of players(from top to bottom) and there are always late bloomers in baseball but rarely the case with hockey.

It's pretty clear that no one is applying money ball to anything when we're signing star UFAs to 11 mil contracts.

Moneyball is not at all relevant to anything happening with the Leafs. The analytics budget probably went to getting guys in Siberian arenas to do manual tracking on potential free wallets like Mikeheyev. We're not doing anything that other teams aren't doing yet, we're just doing more of it and to a greater level of precision.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

I mean the guy has invested A TON into this season

Agreed.

Dubas doubled down to try to win this year and it really doesn't seem to be transpiring.

 

[Its not your fault]

A less "extreme example" would be ditching Brown whose salary at 2.5 mil wasnt great value. The fact is we still see GMs continuously overspend money on depth guys shows that GMs still frequently get blinded into spending money on the wrong guys

And i think analytics are underpinning most decisions being made by the Leafs today (though not to say theyre the only thing being taken into account), but everything from tactics to scouting to drafting/evelopment is using them to some extent. So it can be difficult seperating where analytics influence starts and stops with the Leafs.

I think youre oversimplifying things too much saying speed/skill are the only things that matter with Dubas (ie Muzzin was one of his biggest moves as GM - and while higly skilled still has a fair amount of jam to his playing style)

I'm sorry it was more a player of said value being barried in depth overall, rather then it being over paying for his value. Gosh! Stop watching tsn highlights.

 

[Gabriel426]

It's pretty clear that no one is applying money ball to anything when we're signing star UFAs to 11 mil contracts.

Moneyball is not at all relevant to anything happening with the Leafs. The analytics budget probably went to getting guys in Siberian arenas to do manual tracking on potential free wallets like Mikeheyev. We're not doing anything that other teams aren't doing yet, we're just doing more of it and to a greater level of precision.

that’s something I agree with, maybe MLSE should start partnering/owning a team in the Swedish League and the KHL, in order to groom Euros players for the Leafs.
Don’t see why not

 

[LeafingTheWay]

Have any of you actually watched Moneyball? That movie wasn't even about spreadsheets, it was about finding different ways to win. The whole point was about them buying runs on base, not guys who can hit home runs, because the market paid the big hitters more than they were worth in terms of contributing to wins for a small market team. It's not a good movie or story, but at least get it right.

If you're going to get into histrionics about Dubas "playing moneyball", the equivalent would be stacking the team with guys who deny/gain zone entries instead of focusing on big point producers. That's not what's happening considering how weak our zone entry/denial has been this year.

At least know something about the movies you use to complain about problems that don't exist. It would be like me assuming you want a GM who's entire hockey knowledge is having watched Slapshot once and insisting he's going to stack the team full of Christian Hansons. Difference is, I don't need a strawman to tell you why abandoning speed and skill is stupid.

Thank you! This is needed to be said.

I think the best example (not the perfect example, but pretty good) of 'Moneyball' in the NHL right now is the Carolina Hurricanes. They're mostly filled with 'moneyball' type players. Filled with underrated players that other teams passed on such S.Aho (in the draft), T.Teravainen, D.Hamilton, J.Staal, N.Niederreiter, Slavin, Pesce, Gardiner, Mzarek, etc. These players were underappreciated throughout their careers despite being advanced stats darlings. Combine that with other talent such as Svechnikov, Ferland, etc and it's a great 'Moneyball' team.

 

[Teeder Keon]

Untouchables
AM
MM
MR
JT
That’s it

 

[killer1980]

So keeping to the theme of a "Moneyball" approach to team building, what do you believe will be Dubas' first (outside the box) move?

Hopefully, his own out the door. Analytics don't work in hockey. You actually have to know what you're doing.

 

[Cotton]

I would appreciate seeing some Paul Holmgren like shake-up. People thought he was nuts when he traded Carter and Richards, and maybe he was, but he has brass balls and this team has too much soft skill.

I'd like to see this team actually compete for a Cup in my lifetime, I'd be fine with them moving both Matthews and Marner if the sum of the return translates to a more competitive on ice product.

Won't happen, but it would be nice to see a little panic and trigger pulling on some crazy ass team altering trade, ala the Gilmour trade.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I would appreciate seeing some Paul Holmgren like shake-up. People thought he was nuts when he traded Carter and Richards, and maybe he was, but he has brass balls and this team has too much soft skill.

I'd like to see this team actually compete for a Cup in my lifetime, I'd be fine with them moving both Matthews and Marner if the sum of the return translates to a more competitive on ice product.

Won't happen, but it would be nice to see a little panic and trigger pulling on some crazy ass team altering trade, ala the Gilmour trade.

Keep in mind after making it to the Stanley Cup finals they haven’t been anywhere close since then.

Depending on the trade, I’m interested but they’re rare. I do imagine a shake up is coming if the team doesn’t make the playoffs or go past round 1.

 

[PromisedLand]

dubas' first moneyball move should be "resignation" for being absolutely brutal at his job

 

[killer1980]

Dubas likes to look for inefficiencies

Well I've got news for him. He doesn't have to look any further than the team he put together.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Spot on. That book/film was about a budget team trying to find waysnto be competitive against wealthy teams full ofnexpensive star players. This isnt the Leafs situation at all.

Dubas likes to look for inefficiencies, but theres no such thing as "money puck" for the Leafs. Who are a team built around star power lol

This kind of ignores what has been a pretty damn good job of compiling guys to fill out the roster. That's quite a bit harder than stars. We have a lot of guys we can bring in in a heartbeat to replace guys we will lose due to not being able to pay them.

 

[Lightsol]

Not nearly as impressive as Vegas.

 

[ottomaddox]

A less "extreme example" would be ditching Brown whose salary at 2.5 mil wasnt great value. The fact is we still see GMs continuously overspend money on depth guys shows that GMs still frequently get blinded into spending money on the wrong guys

And i think analytics are underpinning most decisions being made by the Leafs today (though not to say theyre the only thing being taken into account), but everything from tactics to scouting to drafting/evelopment is using them to some extent. So it can be difficult seperating where analytics influence starts and stops with the Leafs.

I think youre oversimplifying things too much saying speed/skill are the only things that matter with Dubas (ie Muzzin was one of his biggest moves as GM - and while higly skilled still has a fair amount of jam to his playing style)

The Muzzin trade was great. I thought Dubas did pretty good to acquire him. I wish he could have acquired more guys like that. I don't think it's enough to negate the physical nature of most of this team: stick checkers.

 

[Lightsol]

The Muzzin trade was great. I thought Dubas did pretty good to acquire him. I wish he could have acquired more guys like that. I don't think it's enough to negate the physical nature of most of this team: stick checkers.

I'm going to say it again, because it bears repeating; if the Leafs wanted to increase their ability to play physical, they should probably have a look at guys like Korhskov, Marchment and Engvall. But they were all sent down; why exactly? It's not Dubas who decides who is in the main lineup, unless you think Mike is being overridden from above...

 

[RoadWarrior]

Rielly and Tavares are untouchable. That's about it.