Analyzing THE Encarnacion’s “40% Fail” Projection

[Tagger 2,722]

Look at this glorious human being! How could he possibly fail?!

 

Some of you may have already read @gorlab’s recent VHL.com article that gave each prospect taken in the first round of the Season 70 Draft a projected outcome of either Lick or Bust. Heading into the article, I actually believed that Gorlab was going to list me as a potential Bust (based on what he’d written in his Mock Draft) and, to be honest, I’m kind of gutted that he didn’t! I’d been planning to make this article once he came out with his “Bust” ranking of myself to analyse the actual chances of that happening based on his criticisms, only to find that he thinks I’m just about good enough to be a “Lick”. I’ll still be doing that, but it doesn’t have quite the same effect when someone actually thinks you stand a better chance of making it than not!

 

Could THE Encarnacion be a Bust in terms of TPE Earning?

 

As of writing, I currently hold a 21 TPE lead over my nearest Season 70 rival Mikko Lahtinen, but by the time this week ends it will be closer to 35 TPE as I’ve yet to add any TPE to my player yet this week (Lahtinen has added 10 capped so far) and I have a Doubles Week donation reward to use with this article. This marks the first time I’ve had a lead over every one of the players in my draft class since Edwin Reencarnacion, although he benefitted from a pretty mediocre draft class.

 

The real question though is can I maintain this earning rate, or at least close to it, throughout my career? Well, that’s impossible to say. Whether it’s something coming up that severely puts you off the league or something outside of the league that greatly limits your internet time, anyone at any point can see their activity fall of a cliff unexpectedly. A great recent example of this would be the case of STZ’s Season 60 player Bryce Zhields. STZ entered the VHL with his center Ethan Osbourne in Season 30 and, despite being a first gen, he was taken first overall in the VHL Draft (demonstrating the significance is the fact we would have to wait till Ryan Kastelic in Season 63 to see the next first-gen taken first overall) and would go on to make the HOF. His next three players (Jake Wylde, Unassisted and Rhett DeGrath) followed Osbourne into the HOF and his fifth player, Ike Arkander, looked set to have a good career in his own right. As he was allowed to create a second player (the general second player rule had been retired at this point, but GM’s were still able to make second players), STZ came in with Zhields and, while he was STZ’s latest drafted player to date (fifth overall) and a second player (so was perhaps more of a side project in comparison to Arkander), there was no reason to believe that Zhields wouldn’t follow closely behind his previous HOF players. However, just 2 months after the draft, STZ left the league due to a change of situation in the real world and, while Zhields played out his entire career, he would leave his player at 281 TPE. Longer than I anticipated to write about an example and there are in fact other examples that follow a similar trend of unexpected inactivity (Dragon McDragon, ACL Tear and Shane Mars are a few fairly recent examples of this) but the point I’m trying to make is that there is absolutely no way anyone can say they will not wind up going inactive because we don’t know what will happen in the future that could potentially change our approach to the league.

 

As it stands, there is at least no immediate reason why I would have to leave the league on short notice based on what is going on in the real world. I’ve got a comfortable job with enough free time to comfortably do what I need to do to earn the 12 TPE and more (hence why I do an updating job rather than just settling for earning the 12 cap through those much easier mini PT’s like Press Conferences). In regards to something that could happen in this league that would put me off continuing to be active, there’s certainly nothing close to that being the case at the minute. While I’ll see some decisions made that I disagree with and occasional frustrations with odd bits here and there, none of those are in the vicinity of being enough to make me pack my shit up and move on. However, like I mentioned before, there’s no way of telling what could possibly happen.

 

As for my history (something that was cited by Gorlab as a reason for having doubts about me), while I have certainly had times in the past where I have gone inactive, I think the counter argument to that would be that I think it would be a stretch to say that I’ve ever disappointed with a player. Just as an example, we’ll compare where each of my previous players have been drafted in comparison to where they ranked in TPE out of the players in their draft class.

 

Season 35: Edwin Encarnacion – 5^th Overall, Ended Career 5^th in TPE

Season 44: Edwin Reencarnacion – 1^st Overall, Ended Career 1^st in TPE

Season 52: Edwin Threencarnacion – 7^th Overall, Ended Career 5^th in TPE

Season 56: Aackckqz Ky – 4^th Overall, Ended Career 5^th in TPE

Season 61: Edwin Preencarnacion – 6^th Overall, Ended Career 3^rd in TPE

 

So looking at that, I think it would be fair to say that more often than not, I will meet or exceed expectations that are set of my player in comparison to when I was drafted. In addition, the only example that would be considered weaker than where he was drafted (Ky) was a player who had every single one of his TPE added randomly along with all of his TPE earning activities, so not really a player to set any expectations for.

 

So to answer the question I make at the top, I can’t make any guarantees, but as it stands, I don’t believe THE Encarnacion will wind up a bust based on his TPE earning and activity.

 

 Could THE Encarnacion be a Bust in terms of stats/player impact?

 

While the ability to earn lots of TPE to add to your player is highly desirable and well received, our players’ careers will ultimately be judged by how we perform in the sim engine. It’s all well and good earning over 1000 TPE with a player, but try convincing someone to give a shit about a player who never put up over 50 points in a season.

 

So will THE Encarnacion’s TPE earning capabilities translate into success in the sim? Well, it certainly doesn’t look like it’s going to help him at all in his early years. While I don’t have a problem with being on the Wranglers, I’ve unfortunately found myself in a situation where it’s going to be difficult to break into any meaningful minutes. As the fifth best defenseman on the roster this season in TPA (and potentially next season as well given the two defensemen ahead of me are 150 and 350 TPA ahead of me respectively), I’ve found myself on the third line with no special teams minutes, meaning I’ll likely be playing no more than 12 minutes a game for at least my rookie season. While the current setup of the league means that rookies will find it more difficult to have the immediate impact that they once were able to, with these minutes I would be surprised if I even get half of the leading rookies stats, and that in turn will have an impact on both my overall career numbers and my HOF chances.

 

The other problem that faces THE Encarnacion is the amount of good young defensive prospects there are in the league right now. Take Season 68’s draft class for example, seven of the top eight skaters in TPE taken in that draft were defensemen! That means that, even once THE Encarnacion advances out of these low minutes and finds a way onto the top two lines, he’s going to face some tough competition for quite a few years yet when it comes to winning Valiq’s and Labatte’s. Provided the other defensemen don’t have the same idea, it may actually be an idea for THE Encarnacion to change position down the line if he wants to have a better chance at winning awards. If I were to do this, it would actually be the first time that I’d have a player change position midway through his career, so that could be an interesting twist to my usual formula.

 

So could THE Encarnacion be a bust statistically? It’s certainly possible, he’s going to have to come back extremely strong from a projected slow start to his career if he’s even going to think of challenging for a HOF place.

 

Final Verdict

 

While he has different reasons for his percentages, I think Gorlab’s actually spot on with his assessment that there’s a 40% chance that I fail to live up to expectations. While he’s cited potential inactivity, I’m more likely to believe that my competition, both on my own team and across the VHL, could be the deciding factor in whether Edwin THE Encarnacion is considered a success or a failure.

 

1500+ Words, Using for W/E 26th, 2nd and 9th

[gorlab 4,321]

Very thorough tbh. Analysis like this is the reason you're 60% lick.

[Beketov 8,642]

38 minutes ago, Tagger said:

 

As of writing, I currently hold a 21 TPE lead over my nearest Season 70 rival Mikko Lahtinen, but by the time this week ends it will be closer to 35 TPE as I’ve yet to add any TPE to my player yet this week (Lahtinen has added 10 capped so far) and I have a Doubles Week donation reward to use with this article.

TBH I’d be amazed if you don’t stay ahead of me. For one I don’t donate so that bites me in the ass on TPE sometimes and second, Thompson’s earn rate was a bit insane and I need a bit of a breather. Obviously I’ll still be hitting the cap and all that but a pile of uncapped stuff? Unlikely.

[Doomsday 4,034]

I can't wait for the advanced analytics on how many home runs THE Encarnacion hits and how many cars he destroys. 

[Tagger 2,722]

2nd week of claim

[Tagger 2,722]

3rd Week of Claim