Pearls and Pitfalls - Awards in the Time of Expansion

[Renomitsu 930]

 

Pearls and Pitfalls - Awards in the Time of Expansion

 

What additional details should be taken into consideration when voting for awards?

 

Award season is notorious for its frustration and excitement in equal parts, with the former coming from those narrowly missing out on the award and the latter from most others. And since most award voting goes on behind closed doors, it’s pretty tough to tell what the criteria for most awards is aside from looking at the name of the award itself. But there are oftentimes conflicting definitions of “Top” – which appears in at least seven of the named awards’ titles – exactly means. Does a lead in points define better ‘top’ defenseman? What about one with an overwhelming lead in plus-minus? Is that viewed as an exclusively team statistic or as an aggregate of a player’s impact on the ice?

 

Ultimately, this nebulous definition serves a few purposes for the Board of Governors and their associates, among them (1) giving integral flexibility in their selection of an award winner and (2) allowing for multiple potential justifications in their selections should there be challenging interactions after the ceremony. But for the min-maxers/collectors among the VHL userbase, this can sometimes be a difficult pill to swallow: after all, how are you supposed to optimize your trophy case if there isn’t truly a set definition? This season, as the largest (or at least tied-for-largest) expansion season in the VHL, will have stats massively in favor of single great players on new teams desperate for players, as well as generally inflated scoring due to large mismatches of good non-expansion teams vs. expansion teams.

 

With the awards definition already somewhat ill-defined, what additional parameters do the committee have to wade through – and, perhaps most relevantly, what should we be worried about as we progress through the season?

 

Awards Without Context

 

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of awards voting is taking those shiny numbers from the index and turning them into something meaningful.

 

For those of us that don’t have a ton of time to pore over the stats and team performance, it’s tempting to do one of two things:

(1) Vote strictly based on volume stats, since everyone plays the same number of games, or

(2) Look at how others have voted and make our selections based off of the subset of players they’ve argued for.

 

There are clear flaws with both of these methodologies, and neither is ideal – optimistically, this would be a worst-case scenario and affect an extremely small minority of voters. But that’s not my primary point. Not every player can be like Condor Adrienne.

 

When isolating simple volume statistics from their greater context – overall team skill, the extremely finicky nature of STHS in terms of apparent minimum randomness/points, lopsided forward vs. defenseman vs. goalie ability, and so on – it’s extremely tempting to go with #1 above. If all players play the same number of games, then naturally the best players should produce the best volume stats. Right?

 

…Right?

 

Well, it’s a little tough to say that for certain (and I’m certain that quite a few high-earning players would agree with it). Season 72’s top defenseman, Malmo’s Condor Adrienne, was far and away the best point producer and arguably the best defensive volume stat player in the VHL at 100 points even, 254 hits, and 188 shots blocked. But he also did so on a league-worst 26-41-5 Malmo team that was outscored by 70 goals last season. They were, by a margin of 35 goals, the worst defensive team in the league, and Adrienne basically willed them to their 26 victories by sheer force. But this still came at the cost of a shockingly poor -29 plus-minus in the process.

 

There are five winners (well, four solo winners and one co-winner) in the 72-season history of the VHL that won the Orr/Labatte trophy with a negative plus-minus including Adrienne. The most recent ones were Samuel Gate (S66) and Joseph McWolf (S64), who won with a -9 and -7, respectively. But you have to search all the way back to S38, when Calgary’s Godavari Yumalatopino clearly outclassed Conner Low in all volume stats (2 more points, 142 hits, 81 shot blocks) with a 67 plus-minus differential in Low’s favor just to become the co-winner, let alone a winner outright.

 

What I ask for in this situation is extreme caution as we find several more players in similar positions for this season – including four of the top five scorers in the league at present. While it’s not the Top Defenseman award, these four forwards have a pretty reasonable lead (or are at least tied) on New York’s Acyd Burn, a 37-point player who ranks tied for third at present. Don’t get me wrong – the likes of Sigard Gunnar, Tyler Barabash Jr., Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and Guy Lesieur are among the league’s most talented players and might contend for awards even in different situations. But we also very carefully need to examine the LA, London, and Warsaw team success when considering these players’ candidacy for awards this season.

 

All three of the teams that own these players currently sit in the bottom six of the league (even if this may change by a spot or two in the coming days). And it’s tempting, based on their volume stats should they continue along their current trend, to vote them in as the ‘Top XYZ’ in the league. My concern is it sets a relatively dangerous precedent.

 

Sure, these four players may not have the same overwhelming statistical lead of Condor Adrienne in all categories by the end of the season. I think that’s relatively difficult to predict, but we can likely argue they won’t be more than a half-dozen points past second place, or more than two dozen points past third place like Adrienne was, and they very likely won’t dominate in hits and/or shots blocked like him, either.

 

But when voting for awards, I would think quick voting based on volume stats is less acceptable this season than most others – as rewarding great single (or duo) players on a team for carrying the league minimum stats is an absolutely damning proposition. Team success should continue to be an incredibly important factor from “most improved” to “most valuable.”

 

[1,044 words - claiming for week ending 8/2/20 & 8/9/20]

[Devise 4,475]

Good read Reno. Speaking only for myself I'd like to think that overall context gets heavily applied to the volume stats debate of awards.

 

Obviously we are always limited by just what we can consider reasonable analysis given STHS and what it gives us stats wise. Ultimately though yes how competitive your team is does start to factor into the process. 

 

Usually it'll come up the closer the battles are stat wise. Where as with players on rebuilding clubs the stat lead may mean less. However if their overall stats lead is high enough it's easy to overlook what difference team quality may make.

 

Users here after awards are released should feel free to respectfully inquire about the decision making process on certain awards as well. I know most of the BoG have no problem being open about what was discussed and what was valued. That awards ceremony thread in the old days used to more regularly serve for that type of discussion.

[Advantage 2,769]

I think that's the good thing about how we do awards.  Discussion is promoted for over a week before we make any decisions.

 

Thats also the reason I brought some of the concerns I had with VHLM Awards in the past and I'm happy to see it changing too.

 

Doesn't mean bad selections won't be made but at least there is some general discussion now.

[Renomitsu 930]

Thought I would claim this last week but did the EFL Media Week instead.

 

Claiming for Week Ending 08/16/20 (claim 2 of 2)