NOTE: Given the amount of commentary this post has generated I have moved it back to the top of the Blog. Also, given that Dan's post of the draft order was a repeat of the lengthier one I posted, I have deleted the duplication (sorry Dan). To get the full value of this post, click the header link so you can review the comments section where all the action is taking place. Send your hate-mail to me directly.
A couple of GMs have noted that the lottery isn't an equitable affair, and they make some decent points (see the comments from Rob and Chris).
The fact is we deliberately built the system to discourage teams from tanking in order to improve their lot for next year, so part of what they are experiencing is the short end of that stick. That said, we have created a situation where if you finish low year after year, your chances of having an elite pick are slim - making it that much harder for you to finish any higher.
In an effort to ensure that the worst teams weren't perpetual losers, we eventually built an exception in for the league's Herbivore winner, giving them the highest chance of finishing first so they wouldn't be perpetually left at the bottom of the pool.
(Before we feel too terrible for the Scourge, keep in mind that the previous management of the team had three years in a row with picks in the top three and managed to screw the pooch each and every time. I know that will be cold comfort to current mgt, but when the Wolves GM complains about never getting an elite pick, one of the teams that always had one was the Dogs/Scourge.)
Anyway - here are some thoughts;
Option 1: We move the lottery back to a straight 1 in 12 chance for all teams. That way, no incentive to tank, and everyone has an equal shot at the top spot. The more I think about this, the more I like it.
Option 2: We make the lottery slightly more weighted in favour of non-playoff teams (i.e. non Challenge Cup playoff teams). In this we have two other sub options;
A - weight the draft slightly to favour non-playoff teams by rank - ie. the better your team did the better the chances of getting a top pick (so long as you aren't in the top 4), or;
B - weight the draft to favour the losers by rank - ie. the worse you did the better your chances of getting a top pick.
Option 3: something else.
The problem with option 2.B. is that tanking to improve your lot for the following season is back in play - at least as much as it is in the NBA where the Celtics flushed their season down the toilet trying to get a top 2 pick (only to get handed #5 - sweet justice).
That all said, there are more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to replacing an FP, and we should consider them before we go so far as to change the current lottery rules, because as much as I feel for the Scourge (and Wolves) in landing a late pick there are several options to consider:
- Trading for an FP
This is the route that the Lost Boys went when they dealt Sakic for Richards. They got roughly the same caliber of offense but with an additional 10 years or service.
- Trading for an RFA who is FP worthy
If you can't trade for an FP my preferred methodology is to draft an FP from ones own roster when that player is still under a protected contract. I did this with RFA Heatley (after trading to get him), and I plan to do so again with RFA Malkin. If you are a full blown genius at the prospect draft (ala the Edge) you draft a prospect, slowly mature him on your roster and then Franchise him when the time is right. I, however, am not such a genius, so I am forced to deal for someone elses' prospects before I give them a franchise player contract (and in the case of Heatley, I had to deal for him with a DUI and possible vehicular homicide charge pending as well as trade several top prospects to get him). Bob's recent trade with Brian is another example - the aquisition of Eric Staal gives the Shadowmen a top tier pivot to build around (not that he will).
- Rolling the dice with pick 9.
Here's a shortlist of possible FPs from this years draft: Lecavalier, Spezza, Kiprusoff, Gonchar, Zetterberg, Alfreddson, Giguere, Gaborik, Datsyuk, Jokinen, and if you are a gambling man who enjoys 'fear my wingspan' power forwards like I do, I'd be gunning for Rick Nash.
Personally, I'd be way more comfortable with any of these guys than I would be with the aging Sundin. Is it worthwhile ditching Sundin to take one of them? That's your call. Let me add, that some GMS (ok, just Bob) have rolled the dice with picks from the third round or worse on Franchise players, so it is not only not impossible to do well at the nine spot, you could end up doing VERY well.
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17 comments:
Can i drop FPs on the fly? What if i decide to keep my FPs and there are a cpl of picks that are off the board and suddenly someone that i had pegged 5th is available at 9th can i FP him?
Nope, sorry, you have to make up your mind before the draft to do an FP swap. That said, once I reviewed the players who were available to you at pick 9 it became clear to me that you are definitely better off dumping Sundin and taking someone else.
Even if you don't get a young elite stud, you'll still have someone (say Pavel Datsyuk) who will be MUCH easier to package in a trade.
I'd like to take this opportunity to try to make my FP proposal fly again, since that would address Chris' problem. (FPs are designated year to year, after the season is done, and are two players you hang on to.)
However as a third proposal to what Cameron is offering.
Bob explained to me that the current ranking system is designed to encourage people to finish high, but not generate a perpetual loser in last place. Thus only 12th place gets an advantage. I liked the rationale. There should be a reward of some sort for finishing second, and good odds on drafting when you want seems reasonable.
Why not consider weighting people's final standings relative to last place to generate the number of chips they get? Every 25 points you are above last place generates you a chip in the hat. The bottom team gets generated as (top result)+ 1 chip
This year would have generated:
Scourge: 2 Chips
Lost Boys: 2 Chips
Severed Heads: 2 Chips
Ramapithicenes: 2 Chips
Personal Vendetta: 3 Chips
Wolves: 3 Chips
Knights Templar: 3 Chips
Shadowmen: 4 Chips
Great Whites: 5 Chips
Bladerunners: 8 Chips
Highlanders: 12 Chips
Edge: 13 Chips
Gives you an incentive to finish high, and doesn't dramatically punish for a difference of a few points between teams. Whereas the much better top two teams from this season are still appropriately rewarded.
Just a thought.
Richard
Hey Richard,
Maybe nobody ever explained how we weight the lottery currently;
12 - 12 chips
1 - 11
2 - 10
3 - 9
4 - 8
5 - 7
6 - 6
7 - 5
8 - 4
9 - 3
10 - 2
11 - 1
Now, it may well be exagerrated too much, or you may prefer (as I am thinking we should seriously consider) not weighting the lottery at all.
Ulitmately though, any move from FP's being long term/high value assets is likely going to be unpopular.
Of course any change to FPs\Prospects will be unpopular as the existing teams have all the elite players locked up. You cannot trade for an elite FP as noone will trade them away and you cannot prospect one as players are being prospected at puberty (ie Crosby, Tavares, etc).
With this being said i dont mind the current situation even though i am on the outside looking in but i think there should be a mechanism where u can trade first rd picks allowing u to draft a quality player. I know the previous trading pick debacle but what about limiting to only trading 1st rd picks and u can only hold 1 pick in the first rd? This would allow someone to say trade future assets to someone who has a high pick that has no intention of replacing their FPs and created another marketable and tradeable assets... Also why can you not drop FPs on the fly during the draft? Is it because of excess confusion on an already long day?
Cameron,
Well aware of how the current system works. The problem is it awards 6th place (the Wolves) with a 600% better chance of being picked than 11th (the Scourge), when the difference in points was nowhere near that dramatic.
In my proposed system, someone's odds of getting picked run roughly in proportion to how much better they placed than you did. It's the same sort of fix the "tie game" result would add to the Challenge cup: nerfing slight differences, and rewarding dramatic ones.
Richard,
Your point about the %chance of getting a high pick is fair enough - it is weighted against the lower finishing teams, and perhaps too heavily, and I for one would consider a review of the matter to see if a more fair weighting (or no weighting at all) wouldn't be better. That said, I still disagree with your FP suggestions.
Chris, the reason why we don't allow GMs to change FP's on the fly is that a player becomes available later in the draft who wasn't available to those GMs picking earlier.
Consider this scenario where I pick third. Mike takes Kiprusoff and Doug in 2nd takes Spezza. Suddenly, Lecavalier is available to me as an FP and so I cut Jagr to make Big Vinny my new FP. Jagr is now available to the GM picking 4th as an FP, but he wasn't to the GM who picked first overall!
In other words, changing on the fly isn't fair precisely to the GMs we most want to be fair to. (and don't get me started on the whole 'just go back and ask the other GMs if they wanted Jagr' thing - cuz THAT is what is insanely time wasting).
Your suggestion about being allowed to deal for 1st rnd picks is interesting, but wouldn't it be just as easy once the draft is over to trade for a new FP using players/prospects you now have on your roster?
Once upon a time in the very first FP draft, I had to choose 12th overall and ended up with Brendan Shanahan and Jim Carey. Shanny was OK, but Carey was BRUTAL.
Did I recover? Not immediately. I blew my team apart over the course of the year and traded for Jagr and Kariya.
As Kariya struggled with concussions and then with suckiness it became apparent I needed to switch him out - for Lindros (ewww). With that stinking fish around my neck, I made a deal with Doug to get Heatley (post car-crash) as a prospect in exchange for Pitkanen, Carter, Zherdev and stuff. Turned out to be winner for me, but it could have been very, very bad.
When I drafted Heatley I had to let Luongo go to Bob because I couldn't match before I took Heatley. C'est la vie.
Just this year you watched me deal a truckload of players and futures to Brian so I could get Malkin as the replacement for Jagr moving forward - and I did so with mid range drafted prospects (Stastny and Parise were both non-first round prospect picks, and Stastny came out of your first prospect draft) - so it wasn't like I made that trade with assets I had accumulated from long before your arrival.
So is replacing an FP easy? It hasn't been for me - but it isn't rocket science either.
Hi all,
2 threads in one here:
1) FPs - The entire point of FPs is to create a lasting connection between a team and 2 key long term players (bob's strategies notwithstanding). Allowing teams to redesignate FPs from anyone on their team at season's end all but nullifies this principle. If you don't like the notion of FPs, and want a pool where you always have a shot at drafting Crosby, or Thornton, or Heatley, this is not the pool you're looking for (insert Obi-Wan wave of hand here)
2) Lottery weighting - I actually really like the concept of Richard's suggestion. We still provide a reason for teams not to tank for better slot selection, but the magnitude of the advantage is much smaller. I'm not sure 25 pts is the right increment, but we could fiddle with that aspect. With teams often finishing very close to one another, the magnitude of our current weighting seems a little medieval.
Alternatively, we could add this pattern to the Challenge Cup as well, with all 4 playoff teams receiving a high number of picks (in addition to last place) and seed the remaining 7 teams using a method similar to what Richard suggests...
My $0.02
Dan
With thoughts for Dan.
It would be easy to add something to the formula like +4 chips for making the Challenge cup playoffs. But I'm uncertain why that's something we'd want to reward with a better draft position.
It's probably better to figure out what behaviour the system is trying to reward and the desired results and then design accordingly.
My problem with the lottery is that I almost never seem to have my chits pulled earlier than my expected probability and more often lower than my expected probability. According to Bob this year I finished 6th but my number was pulled 9th. This seems to be the norm for me. You would think over the last 10 years the odds would work in my favour a little more often. I think it is partly in that the first part of this run we reward the lower finishers with more picks and I was finishing in the top group so less pick and now that we have reversed it I have been a middle of the pack team.
How about:
Every body starts with one chip.
gain 1 one chip for every 50 points behind the winner.
loose one chip if more than 50 points behind the person directly in front of you. (one only)
Gain 4 chips winning Predator Cup
Gain 2 chips winning Challenge Cup
Gain 1 chip making Challenge cup playoffs
Lose 2 chips if you win the herbivore
Use whole number rounded down.
The chips from last year would be distributed as follows
8 Highlanders
2 Bladerunners
3 Great Whites
6 Shadowmen
5 Knights Templar
5 Wolves
5 Personal Vendetta
5 Ramapithicines
6 Severed Heads
5 Lost Boys
6 Scourge
4 Edge
60
Everybody in the middle of the pack ended up with a similar number of picks. Only Dan and Brian lost a chip from being more than 50 points back. Brian mainly because he plus minused the last week. So that may not happen any more.
Also there is a punishment if you tank of the minus two.
The point differentials may need to be worked on but a system like this could work.
Rob,
Let me plead for some statistical sanity for a moment, even as you raise some very interesting points.
The distribution of top end picks will inevitably follow a bell curve where some Gms are lucky (Bill) and some are not (you). Over time the curve will tend to flatten (and you may well have a streak of two or three years in a row where you finish high to flatten the curve), but while 17-18 seasons seems like a lot, it isn't statistically significant enough a sampling to ensure that the flattening takes effect.
You do have a point that once upon a time you were finishing high and we were rewarding low finishing teams, and then about when we flipped it around to reward higher finishing teams your Wolves started to have more low finishes - obviously this won't help your statistical chances all that much!
I am more and more inclined to do away with the weighting at all. Let the Royal Crown Bag of Fate decide our futures with everyone having an 8.5% chance of being first or last out of the bag.
It would give a clean start to every year, not reward tanking, and not prejudice the GMs who finished well.
On the downside, there will be less for teams to strive for as they fall further and further back.
Thoughs?
Rob,
As long as the lottery system is being used there is still a good chance your chips won't be drawn opportunely. It sounds like your problem is just bad luck.
For example, even if the last teams to be chosen this year were the bottom 6 (not including the Edge), your odds of being drawn 6th over all were only 6 in 21. The greatest odds, but not guaranteed ones. (it probably got better with only four left in the pot... realistically you were going to get picked before myself or Chris.)
I'm not sure I understand what your proposed chip system is rewarding. It does give the interesting possibility that someone could finish in second place by less than 50 points, not make the challenge cup playoffs and enter the lottery with no chips at all.
I also don't see why your system rewards every kind of winning, except finishing with high points compared to most other teams in the league. It's my instinct to say that any lottery system should reward Brian and Dan for running good teams, not punish them for letting Doug finish higher than they did.
Cameron and the "Crown Royal Bag of Fate":
Just to be clear, would it be a one step lottery where the order drawn is the draft order? Or is it a two step" "Doug gets drawn, when would you like to draft Doug" type setup? (I'd vote for the former, the latter... we might as well have weighting)
As for reversing the weighting after Rob started to do well... ouch.
How does the NHL do it?
I think there does need to be some sort of weighting giving incentive to mid pack teams not to quit managing their teams when they are out of contention for all the trophies. Current weighting is extreme so perhaps something irrelevant to standing but more points based giving ppl a reason to not sell their team mid way through the season? Perhaps similar to Richards +25 point plan.
Ok, Richard's comment first:
"Just to be clear, would it be a one step lottery where the order drawn is the draft order? Or is it a two step" "Doug gets drawn, when would you like to draft Doug" type setup?"
I favour using the 'where would you like to draft' option, for the obvious reason that we have a wrap-around draft - which means that there is a slight statistical advantage to being either in the top 5 (or so), or near the ends (12, 11) where you get relatively high picks close together.
It is near universally accepted that the worst draft positions are 9-8-7.
It's also worth noting that your comment that allowing GMs the choice is equivalent to 'weighting the lottery' is false. Allowing GMs to choose in effect rewards GMs who come out of the bag by letting them choose the slightly advantageous draft slot. Otherwise you'd have higher chip GMs getting the 7 pick and low chip GMs getting the advantangeous 12 pick.
Chris' point that weighting isn't necessarily bad, but that we might want to review the percentages is completely valid. I don't want the system to reward tanking, but I also don't want to condemn low finishing teams to a perpetuity of bad draft positions.
Crown-Royal:
I see why choice is good, I just don't see the point in having it if the order from which we'd be drawn from the bag will be random anyway. Since the odds are identical at being drawn first, last, seventh or second, why not assign that value to the team's draft order?
Richard.
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