Proposal:
Make the Omnivore easier to read, and less depressing for the vast majority of teams, change the way it is reported so all numbers are positive.
Currently:
The Omnivore is calculated by subtracting a "baseline" from your teams current score. The baseline is the total points you have from all the players, including prospects, you collected in the draft. If you do not trade (or--with more snark--if you do not trade like the house is burning down) you cannot realistically get a positive omnivore score.
Why not? Because the baseline is calculated off all your players, including those who you bench, those whose penalty minutes come in freakish unpredictable clusters, and the prospects you chose not to promote. There is simply a margin of error you will continue to hit. Not even the waiver drafts can make up for it significantly, because you're only dropping around a quarter of your players at the waiver draft. Well it could, but, You'd have to draft the equivalent of Philly and then WD the Sharks for that to work; and count on everyone else having made the exact same mistake, but then WDing Philly.
So, with the exception of "can't trade enough" GMs, the rest of us are tugging margin of error FUNHL scores that seem to be about 8% of baseline. With a stat based on two variables, generating teams in the positive and negative range, you have to engage in weird multiplication to figure out how far behind the lead you are. It encourages relegation of the omnivore to "who really cares anyway" status, because there doesn't seem to be much a GM can do about it, and it's depressing to score a "-24.59." (This is not just sour grapes by the way, I'm practically quoting Brian, and he's winning.
How to fix it: Don't change the method, change the reporting.
Add the absolute value of the lowest team in the omnivore race to all scores. Lowest score becomes a 0, every other score increases proportionately. The distance between teams remains the same, but now it all looks much more positive; really the stat itself hasn't changed.
We actually do the same thing at the moment with the Challenge Cup; each teams "score" is wins times 2. There's no particular reason to do this, because every week results in a win or a loss, but the value of wins are increased, just to look better. Real value doesn't change.
So, what does it look like? Here are the scores Doug just reported, compared to my "new" reporting method:
Team / Current Score / Proposed Score
Bladerunners / 26.95 / 68.22
Shadowmen / 25.81 / 67.08
Highlanders / 0.17 /41.44
Severed Heads / -4.40 / 36.87
Ramapithicenes / -15.27 / 26.00
Scourge / -18.54 / 22.73
Great Whites / -21.67 / 19.60
Lost Boys / -24.59 / 16.68
Edge / -36.25 / 5.02
Knights Templar / -36.58 / 4.69
Wolves / -39.88 / 1.39
Personal Vendetta / -41.27 / 0.00
Assuming excel is used to calculate stats as it is the cell formula for the proposed change is "=K23+ABS(MIN(K16:K27))" . K23 is the team in question, and K16:K27 is the range of cells holding the omnivore score as currently calculated.
So, that's my proposal. Since the stats posted here are unofficial anyway, I submit we try out my system for a little while, and see if it takes.
I do raise the ominous spectre of what if one year we all field worse teams than we draft? Do we really want someone winning the omnivore with a score of "-6.82"?
Richard.
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4 comments:
Ah, the vagaries of statistics - We can manipulte them until they "look" the way we want...
Sure, we can redefine how the scores are calculated/reported so that in essence EVERY team except the last one appears to 'improve' based on having a positive score - but all that really means is that you are closer to the ideal lineup than the worst team, even if you're miles off.
True, the baseline does sometimes reflect some freakish and unexpected stats (PIM NOT being one of them), but consider this - our actual total is the result of all the line-up twiddling and promotions etc that each GM does. The baseline is a SINGLE line-up, active players only (NOT benched) as if it were played for the entire year without change. In other words, if you could presciently know which would eb your best players coming out of the draft, you could have your baseline points as your Predator Cup total by dressing a single line-up from the start of the year (and that's with no TG or +/-).
I find it a bit depressing that so few of us have managed to manipulate our rosters to the point of getting less points than a single unchanging lineup from day one could have garnered, and I don't think it reflects well on our ability to know how our teams will perform...
Having said that, one could also argue that the Omnivore is somewht redundant to the Predator Cup, insofar as under the new system, the teams who are leading one race are also in the top few of the other. In other words, trading is helping your omnivore score, but if it is then it is also helping your Predator Cup standing.
Which leads me to a more radical suggestion - if the current definition of the baseline means many teams go negative (unless we "fix" the numbers as Richard suggests so that they are more aesthetically pleasing), then let's redefine the award.
The predator cup already rewards a strong team that makes itself stronger over the year, so why reward it twice?
Instead, make the Omnivore an award for the best team coming out of the Entry Draft - in other words, never mind how your team actually did relative to the start, because how you actually did is what the Predator Cup rewards. How about using the Omnivore to recognize the team that (through drafting and prospect selection) had the best possible team (ie lineup) at the end of the ED...
Thoughts?
Dan
Dan:
1) You didn't mention if we used your method the omnivore winner, at present, would be you.
2) How much skill is there really in drafting the best team? Isn't dumb luck a factor? Doesn't an award carry with it the notion of "merit."
3) Your basic premise is... well... wrong. The omnivore scores don't reflect the predator scores at all. The fact that Brian is winning both awards has more to do with the fact that he's running a damn fine team, and trading like the house is burning down to do it.
But compare, say, Bob and Doug's scores in both competition's, or Rob's and Cam's. These are two very different races
Richard.
Hey Richard,
1) I may be leading that race now, but I doubt that wil continue - I'm far more interested in a meaningful award than winning it personally
2) If drafting a good team is "dumb luck" then that is a VERY sorry statement on our pool. Also fails to explain how Darrell has done it year in year out consistently (until this year that is). If drafting a good team is dumb luck, trading to improve it is dumber still
3) I didn't say the Omnivore and Predator were the same, simply that history has taught us that you need to trade in order to have a Predator Cup winning franchise, no matter how well you draft. I'm just concerned that under the current definition, it may be far more common for the Predator Cup and Omnivore to go to the same team, and if it always does, why have both? There are different races within them to be sure, but at the end of the day, only the winner of each really matters...
Basically I'm just raising the question of what it is we want to reward. I think the quality of your team at the end of the ED is meaningful, and I think winning the Cup is of course meaningful. I worry that the Omnivore merely reflects an averaging out of these two factors.
I'm also expressing disappointment that as a group, we are doing such a poor job of getting the most out of our teams. Considering the baseline does not allow for getting more points from a given player in a given week (say when he plays 4 games to another's 2), nor plus-minus, nor PIM, we should all be doing MUCH better than we are.
One partial reason why we might not, which partially detracts from the new method of calculating the Omnivore, is the WD factor. Many of us have not promoted prospects who may be worth promoting because of the need to then protect them through the WDs - If we could safely promote anyone we liked and not have to sacrifice anything in the process (which in essence is whatthe Omnivore baseline allows us to do), we would see more promotion and likely higher Omnivore scores as a result...
Hi Guys,
Interesting, and I belive astute observation Dan on your point #3 above, the WD's impact. That said, I share your disappointment that so many of us have really under-preformed as far as keeping up with our Baseline this year.
There is always a back and forth in the Omnivore discussion but essentially it was seen as a "most improved" award and - yes - it does imply some merit and skill being displayed by the recipient.
We see a lot of negative points here becuase the "freebee pts" that used to be provided by prospects were eliminated by the changes we made this offseason to how the Omnivore baseline is calculated.
For example, you could add another 34pts to my total if I could have gotten Crosby "for free". Certainly drafting Crosby was a smart call by the GM but was hardly something I did to improve my team this season.
One of the problems Richard may have is that he has not participated in an Omnivore race before. The past winners have shown improvements of 100 and even 200+ pts but this was before we got rid of "free" pts from your prospects and, far more significantly, the distortions caused by trades involving the following season's ED picks - which so skewed everything for everyone we will never, ever go back to trading ED picks.
While Omnivore winners were racking up big + Omnivore totals, those not "in it" were similarly posting big negatives - far, far greater than the -40pts we see here.
By comparison, take a look at the 2000-2001 season. Darrell will take the Predator Cup, with a modest total but he truly ran away with the pool that year.
Final Predator Cup Standings
2001-02):
1 Personal Vendetta 1013.2
2 Bladerunners 948.8
3 Knights Templar 903.72
4 Highlanders 873.27
5 Edge 785.7
6 Great Whites 780.61
7 Shadowmen 779.27
8 Wolves 775.05
9 Dogs 767.78
10 Ramapithicines 752.94
11 Barbarians 745.53
12 Severed Heads 743.72
The Omnivore totals were similarly modest, Rob will win with less than a 70pt improvement (a stunning departure from the habitual +100pt norms) in part because the wholesale now-for-future trades never happened as Darrell's draft-day lead was so great. Seven teams, however will go positive, including the Herbivore "winner" the Severed Heads - clearly trying to avoid their fate.
1 Wolves 69.66
2 Highlanders 41.23
3 Dogs 38.9
4 Barbarians 27.54
5 Personal Vendetta 22.11
6 Severed Heads 19.34
7 Shadowmen 13.71
8 Knights Templar -40.28
9 Bladerunners -46.79
10 Edge -47.78
11 Ramapithicines -58.29
12 Great Whites -61.47
The Great Whites' total of -61pts seems fairly similar to what looks to be happening this season save for the number of teams in the negatives. I suspect that when this season is complete that half the league will be in the +. At that point we will be much better positioned to review the Omnivore and the system we use to calculate it.
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