Hall of Not Bad, Volume 7: Voittu Jannula (and Frans Spelman!)

[Gustav 6,138]

"...why did we decide to remove Jannula whenever it was that we decided that? [A lot of stats that are too long to list here and that I'll get into later]...Those are good enough numbers to remain on the ballot imo"

-@Victor, S42 BoG HoF Discussion

 

"Someone like [S13 defenseman and eventual HoFer Alexander] Sauve was a snub and I think an argument could and has been made for Jannula in the past."

-@Advantage, League discussion thread from 2014

 

---

 

"If [S25 forward and eventual HoFer Ansgar] Snijider/Kronenburg/Jannula are really HOF material then they should be able to get in eventually, not just because we decided to induct all the players better than them at the same time one year.  If you're concerned about a "deserving" player never getting in because there's always players better than them, then you need to consider the fact they might not actually be that deserving."

-@JardyB10, S35 BoG HoF Discussion

 

"How about a defenceman with 671 points, a Labatte, and two cups? The problem with Jannula is we've lost records for half his career, including when he was a forward to begin with, but what we do have is pretty impressive. Granted, we hate every defenceman who did well in S20, so Jannula's fucked too."

-@Victor, Best players not in the HOF

 

 

 

Yep, you might have guessed it--I didn't know who Jannula was until I came across that last cited article when I was doing research for the last HoNB installment. The last one was my farthest-back installment to date, but it's time to turn back the clock just a little bit more. And do that we will! From the S20s to the S10s we go, and we're really starting to approach the limit of what's possible to analyze here. Let me explain.

 

Those of us who have been around a while know where this is going, but for those unfamiliar, we no longer have access to the VHL index prior to S18. We have the fortune of having HoF articles written for, well, our HoF players, that show their stats in each season, but all that remains for those who aren't in is often just a line on a spreadsheet. And it's really hard to try to justify someone's HoF chances from just their line on the spreadsheet. 

 

But what if someone's career is only halfway wiped out? And what if that half has arguably kept them out of the Hall of Fame? Can we use the half that we know to put together the pieces of the puzzle and make a case--especially when that really hasn't been done in a very in-depth manner?

 

Enter Voittu Jannula. @McNeil is a name familiar to some VHLers as the creator of the S1 draft's biggest steal, the eponymous HoFer Alex McNeil, but not as the creator of Jannula to many who weren't around to see him play. Heck, the name was unfamiliar enough to me that I thought I remembered it and proceeded to ctrl+f "Joittu Vannula" in a few stat spreadsheets while being very confused as to why he wasn't popping up--a fact that I'm sure will make our Finnish user base cringe a little (or a lot).

 

Anyway, Jannula was picked...I'm not actually sure when. The S14 draft thread contains no mention of him, and I can't find any record on this forum of Jannula having been picked up as a GM player or through some other rule. Regardless, we know that his first season was S14. We also know that he played in Seattle, was traded to Davos before S18, and was then traded to Toronto before S21. Also, we know that he won the Labatte in S21 and was part of two cup-winning squads (S20 in Davos and S21 in Toronto). At the time Jannula finished his career, he was third in points among all players who had played defense up to that point.

 

That's a huge exclamation point, but it also carries a bit of an asterisk. See, Jannula started out his career as a forward, and while we don't have exact records of when he switched to defense, it's known that he spent about a season and a half as a right wing (there's a very interesting discussion about historical records to be had later). Still, a season and a half doesn't completely remove all meaning there, especially when one of the two players ahead of Jannula were Sterling Labatte, who played 9 seasons (and would have finished ahead after 8 anyway, but by only about 30), and the other is HoFer Matt Bailey, who spent a well-documented four seasons as one of the league's best forwards. So, it's a huge exclamation point nonetheless. On the same list today, Jannula ranks 7th and is only behind three people who played 8 full seasons on defense. That's nuts for someone not in the Hall of Fame and definitely worth a look.

 

So, let's take a look. We'll be comparing Jannula to:

 

Matt Bailey: a Hall of Fame player. Oh hey, I just mentioned Bailey! A @Quik create, the first overall pick in S12 and a surefire Hall of Famer, Bailey proved throughout his career that he belonged with the best--not just at one position but at two. Bailey is the league's best player to ever spend more than a season or so at multiple positions, and did so by splitting his time evenly at forward and on defense in a career mostly spent with Helsinki before moving to New York and Calgary. One of the most physical players in the league as a forward, he won three Boulets in a row and capped off his career on defense with a Labatte-winning, Cup-winning, campaign at the top in S19.

 

David Henman: a Hall of Fame player. I'm glad that @Knight is back to see Henman featured. Lasting until the second round in S11, Henman played most of his career in Toronto before a final season with the short-lived Madrid Thunder. This final season (S18) was his Labatte-winner as well, and though he anchored some very good teams in his time, he'd never win a championship. His career got off to a comparatively slow start, and he was never the most physical player, but he built a reputation as one of the VHL's premier playmakers, averaging nearly an assist per game.

 

Alexander Sauve: a Hall of Fame player. Sauve is mentioned up top as one of the league's biggest Hall of Fame snubs, and I'd be inclined to agree if he weren't in yet. Created by @WHEELsnipePARTY, perhaps a lesser-known name to some today, Sauve was nonetheless the first overall pick in S13 and spent a full career in Calgary. His award cabinet is similar to Jannula's, with two Cups and a Labatte, and he broke 600 points in 7 seasons before retiring one too early--a move that I think could have contributed to him not making the HoF ballot to begin with. Perhaps the league wasn't expecting him to be eligible, but in any case, it took until S34 for Sauve to get in.

 

Frans Spelman: NOT a Hall of Fame player. @Arce 's eponymous first player will forever be his most well-known historically, but not long after came Spelman. He was assigned automatically to Vasteras as a GM player and won a Cup with Toronto, retiring after 7 seasons after a career that his agent called "one of the most underrated of all time." Every player here averaged over a point per game in their time in the VHL, but it's still impressive enough to note that Spelman did, too.

 

In all but the case of Jannula, each of these players' stats, in each season, is known--thank goodness for HoF articles. Spelman's first season has technically been lost, but we have all the others plus his career totals, so I've been able to figure that one out myself. This makes for what I think is analyzable data! Jannula's first four have to be guessed (during which I just took the averages of everything we don't know), but from his fifth season on, we can start at the correct total and show you everything else exactly. 

 

Let me show you what I mean.

 

 

 

This is something I covered in HoNB#6, but Jannula's line looking "lower" on the points chart doesn't necessarily make him the worst when you look all the way to the right and notice that his career total is higher than three of the others. It does, however, bring up the argument of career totals versus pace. In my opinion, that's not something that counts too much unless there's a huge difference one way or another, and in this case, I don't really think there is. I don't see Jannula any worse off points-wise than Sauve, but I'll also note that I don't see a massive difference between Jannula and Spelman either. Jannula's early career may have been aided a little bit offensively by being a forward, but seeing as his early-career average follows a lower pace than the rest, I don't think this threw things off very much. It's probably not reasonable to discount his career point totals as "partially from being a forward," at least not to any major extent.

 

I also like to look at goals because there's often a sizable difference in this category even when there isn't in points. Bailey's first half as a forward is very well-illustrated by this. Here, I'd consider Jannula better than Sauve or Spelman because of equal or better pace with a longer career. And even though Henman is significantly lower than the rest, I think of him as somewhat of a special case. Articles throughout the league's history make a point of noting that he was one of the league's all-time great playmakers (imagine if I plotted assists here), so I consider it unfair to count this against him when the reason why he's lower in goals has to do with one of his positive distinguishing features. 

 

What about on defense?

 

 

*Henman's per-season SB are not recorded in his HoF article, so this is just his average rate.

 

Hits are always tricky to evaluate because either a player does or does not hit. A player who does hit should rightfully be credited for it, but a player who does not shouldn't have the door slammed in their face over it. In this case, Bailey absolutely deserves to be credited for hitting. The rest are up for debate--I would say that Sauve and Jannula (both of which collected over 1,000 hits) deserve some credit, while Spelman and Henman shouldn't be talked about positively or negatively.

 

I'm a big fan of SB when it isn't being inflated by playing for bad teams, and luckily, our players here spent most of their time playing for decent ones. Sauve's early career was spent on a not-great Calgary squad (which is visible with a higher rate in his first three seasons), and Bailey's first four as a forward are even more visible. It's unclear whether Jannula's season and a half affected his career greatly--he's got a lower total and a lower pace over his first four than the rest (as would be expected when effectively forfeiting a season of stats), but he reached a higher total than all but Sauve. In this case, I wouldn't put Jannula too far ahead of or behind Henman and Spelman. Sauve is an interesting case because his numbers were arguably inflated for a bit, but I would still say that his total counts for quite a bit.

 

When we just look at the career numbers, I think it's close. In my opinion, Jannula was better than Spelman because he's got a slight edge in goals and hits while holding higher totals with an extra season. I would also say that Henman is pretty similar, though they would be in for different reasons--historic playmaking ability versus more well-rounded stats.

 

But as much as I said earlier that I don't think Jannula's first season mattered all that much, what if it threw things off? We'd expect fewer SB, for example, from a forward, but perhaps Jannula's points and goals were raised a bit (despite me saying that they weren't) by being a forward. And we don't know for sure, but we do know that Jannula's pace increased over the second half of his career in every category.

 

So, what do we do about that? Let's look at everyone's last four seasons.

 

I'm not really a big fan of letting a player's early career harm their chances at making it, first of all, but second of all is that we're looking at a player whose first four seasons we don't even know about. It's absolutely true that starting a career with good numbers and having those bolster a career is a good thing, but I also feel sometimes that that's something that leaves itself up to luck. The Hall of Fame has lots of precedent for voting in players that started slowly but had a great peak, and with Jannula's awards and championships exactly matching some of our others, I think that's worth a look. Taking everyone's last four a) gives us only Jannula's known seasons, that only show us what he did on defense, b) offers us a fair comparison between Jannula and defenseman Bailey, and c) shows us what everyone did during a period of time where they were capped out and playing for good teams, stripping away some possible number inflation for Sauve's earlier years. I'll just dump four graphs on you and talk about them later.

 

 

 

 

*please ignore Henman's. I should have excluded him from this one because this is still just the average rate--but that oddly helps us a bit here. He's third in the career chart, but this one is radically different. Over the second half of each career, Sauve (who leads overall) has the lowest rate, while Bailey (who's last overall because of his time as a forward) is now on top. Jannula, too, goes from a lower pace overall to a higher pace over this time.

 

Jannula gets better in every category here. He beats easy HoFer Bailey in every category aside from SB, leads in goals and hits, and is only second in points to assists machine Henman. This doesn't mean that in my head he's automatically in, but in the seasons we have records of, I think Jannula is (slightly) the best of the group.

 

But what about:

Quote

...we hate every defenceman who did well in S20, so Jannula's fucked too...

 

...and what about the implications that it has on Jannula's chances?

 

The league is no stranger to its "weird" seasons. Some remember S62 as unusually high-scoring. Even more probably remember the late S70s and the VHL's meta era for changing the entire way we update our players. Those are the times I can name...but what about earlier? Of course it's happened, and S20 was one of those times. Out of all the players we've looked at, Spelman is the only one other than Jannula who played in S20. Heck, Jannula went from 83 points in S19 to 122 points in S20. And Spelman is mentioned in the link way up top (the one about hating everyone from S20) as one of few non-HoFers to record over 100 assists in a season on defense. Guess which season that was? Of course, it was S20, when his 106 assists made up a good portion of his 134 points. 

 

Jannula arguably was granted 30 or so points in S20 that many of our others never got the chance to get. This doesn't mean at all that he didn't record those points or that he doesn't deserve his career totals--after all, many other players who were part of S20 never did either of those things--but when it comes down to slight differences in points, we can't fairly say that Jannula was better than someone he barely beat (for example, maybe Sauve).

 

That was a lot. Let's wrap it up.

 

There's a big case for Jannula, and I think it's that, plain and simple, he was inarguably good enough. That doesn't mean "in," necessarily. But his strongest seasons were just as good as anyone else's, and if we decide he was undeserving of 30 points from playing in S20, all we've really decided is that he's 15th all-time in points on defense instead of 5th (and still way higher up the list than that when he retired). I also want to point out that--and anyone with BoG access can verify this--the S42 discussion thread, the last time Jannula's name was mentioned in HoF discussion, mistakenly says that he spent three and a half seasons as a forward. This isn't true--first, we'd see a similar drop-off in SB to the one we see with Bailey's four seasons as a forward, and second, he was already on defense by the S16 World Cup, in his third season. Voters under the impression that Jannula's career arc looked more like Bailey's would be inclined to compare it most directly to Bailey's, and in that case, the goal differential would have been enough to make the line look very clear. But that's not a fair comparison when his career wasn't like that. 

 

The case against Jannula is that there's just enough uncertainty. That absolutely shouldn't mean "out," but I think BoG usually likes to be entirely convinced that they're making the right choice. On one hand, Jannula looks quite a bit better as a peak defenseman than he does when comparing career numbers. That's awesome. But on the other hand, Jannula looks worse when comparing career numbers than he does as a peak defenseman. That's the same statement made two different ways, and it all depends on how you'd like to look at it. We can infer that the first half of Jannula's career just didn't measure up to the first halves of the others, and even though I don't like to exclude someone based on the very beginning, it's stretching that a little bit if I were to say that we shouldn't based on four whole seasons. Yes, he was just as good as the Hall of Famers. But would BoG accept that limited evidence as enough?

 

Would I accept that limited evidence as enough? In other words, is Voittu Jannula a Hall of Fame player?

 

I think so. We have limited evidence, that's true. But what limited evidence means is not that we shouldn't do anything. It means that we should go as far as we can in trying to extract as much information as possible to make the most informed decision as possible. And I like to think I've done that. I've read through every post that mentions Jannula's name on this forum. I've manually extracted statlines from HoF articles and extrapolated data to fit unknown ranges. I've cleared up an inaccurate point raised the last time he was considered that would have negatively influenced his chances. And you can agree or disagree with my reasoning, but I've done my best to try to fill in the gaps of what we don't know about how Jannula's early career, position change or not, affected the rest. I believe that Voittu Jannula has a place, and a somewhat unconventional article to be written, in the VHL Hall of Fame. It's up to you whether to believe me.

 

 

Voittu Jannula was removed from the HoF ballot in S36 after receiving 3 out of 9 votes, the same year that the subject of HoNB #6, Lasse Milo, was removed with 4 out of 9. Since then, his name has been mentioned only once in HoF discussion, that being the S42 thread where he was incorrectly identified as having played forward for a longer period of time. In case you're wondering, that was almost nine years ago in real life, in March 2015.

 

 

Previous HoNB articles:

Volume 1: Alexander Pepper

Volume 2: Shawn Glade

Volume 3: Jakab Holik

Volume 4: Bo Boeser

Volume 5: Tyson Kohler

Volume 6: Lasse Milo

 

3,352 words! See you whenever it's next convenient.

[Knight 1,221]

This was awesome - really well done. I look forward to going back and reading the rest of this series!

[Victor 10,559]

5 hours ago, Gustav said:

 

Anyway, Jannula was picked...I'm not actually sure when. The S14 draft thread contains no mention of him, and I can't find any record on this forum of Jannula having been picked up as a GM player or through some other rule

Yeah Seattle GM player. I actually have a spreadsheet on Drive I made for someone towards the end of the GM player rule so I should just stick that in the HOF.

 

The stat on Jannula being 3rd in defencemen scoring is interesting and I wonder why that wasn't picked up on back then (I think stats were compiled for the first time before S20 and the 3.5 seasons as forward mistake shouldn't have been made when it was still in living memory). I suspect it's because he was one of the first defencemen to play 8 seasons because very few people played 8 seasons back then (carryover was heavily weighted to encourage retiring after 6 and 7, especially 6).

 

Just like Milo from your last piece, Jannula always pops up if I'm looking through the stats as the best without a HOF tag next to him. So the name remains in my mind. I think with this season's smaller ballot and I think just 1 new name being added, maybe it's time for a campaign. But your point on needing to really convince the BOG is key, I'm hesitant to re-add players who then won't get enough traction. It took a monumental effort to get Chouinard in and I thought he was very clear cut AND had all his single season stats available. 

[Ahma 1,292]

7 hours ago, Gustav said:

"Joittu Vannula" in a few stat spreadsheets while being very confused as to why he wasn't popping up--a fact that I'm sure will make our Finnish user base cringe a little (or a lot).

indeed. And Voittu makes me cringe as well, because it's "Voitto" not Voittu. Voittu is not a word lol

[Gustav 6,138]

5 hours ago, Victor said:

 

Just like Milo from your last piece, Jannula always pops up if I'm looking through the stats as the best without a HOF tag next to him. So the name remains in my mind. I think with this season's smaller ballot and I think just 1 new name being added, maybe it's time for a campaign. But your point on needing to really convince the BOG is key, I'm hesitant to re-add players who then won't get enough traction. It took a monumental effort to get Chouinard in and I thought he was very clear cut AND had all his single season stats available. 

I think it would certainly be worth me dropping these things in a thread or two and asking how we feel about adding them when the topic comes up. I’ve felt that a handful of players I’ve written about at least matched the performance of the others well enough to make it, but Milo and Jannula seem like the strongest cases I’ve covered for far. 
 

I’m not sure this applies to many particular members of BoG, but I think as a group it can be very hard to make BoG care about things sometimes. In this case, I don’t see the group being very enthusiastic about Jannula, partly because not many of us remember him. It’s an issue that would have to be pressed, for sure, but I don’t think that’s a reason not to try. Perhaps Chouinard might have had an easier time if the ball were to start rolling in this series too