I'd have to agree with HF on this one. I think fantasy hockey and player valuation is a lot like the stock market.

People ask me all the time in my line of work... what is a company worth? The answer is always... it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay.

Similarly, in the context of fantasy hockey... when you consider valuation, you need to consider the total package. What's the latest round that can I realistically snatch this guy in a draft? What's his perceived trade value? If you want to maximize value for your draft picks, it is not as cut and dry as taking the player who has the highest overall statistical contribution.

If I know that a player like Steve Ott - a solid contributor across the board - always flies under the radar, and I also know that I can get him in the 7th round instead of the 4th round, then I will always take the "higher profile" scorer before Steve Ott even if that scorer's overall stat line is weaker than Ott's.

Isn't that oversimplifying? If companies are worth something in $, what is the currency we use in fantasy hockey?

We're clearly getting into philosophy more than practice here -- we're discussing the difference between market value and intrinsic value. Eventually, so goes the theory, market value will come to align with intrinsic value.

Again, I'd say there is a distinction to be drawn between player value and market value (be that draft, trade, or whatever). They make a contribution to your roster, and exploiting the gap between how the market values that contribution and the actual value of that contribution is the key to success here.

In your own example, you implicitly validate that point. Nobody has asserted in this thread that you should draft in order of "intrinsic value" or anything like that.

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Yes. While you should never draft solely with more than intrinsic value in mind, intrinsic value in and of itself is important to understand. But as far as intrinsic value goes, I don't think there's a whole lot more to discuss. It's pretty cut and dry, and the actual draft strategy and adjustment of values is a lot more interesting. I think it will be along time (probably never) before fantasy hockey in general operates at high efficiency, so it's always going to be important to figure out how to exploit the inefficiencies. Player projection and proper valuation, especially in redraft leagues, can only get you so far. But maybe that's a topic for another thread.

I love this thread - don't quit now! It's been my serial reading for the week. Some of the most intelligent fantasy hockey conversation I have enjoyed in quite some time.

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Yahoo weekly starts 12 team league, keep 17 plus farm

GS, W, L, SV, GAA, SV%, SO G, A, P, +/-, PIM, SOG, GWG, PPP, SHP, HITS, FOW

3C: H. Sedin,Stepan, Stastny, R. Johansen, Hanzal, Anisimov,
3LW: Burrows, Vanek, Ott, Lupul, Dubinsky
3RW: Doan, Pavelski, Brown, Okposo,
6D: Franson, Doughty, Voynov, Subban, Markov, Gonchar, Karlsson
1Util:
2G: Price, Emery


Farm: (< 100 games): S. Elliott, J. Bernier, Galchenyuk, Etem, Eakin, Atkinson

I'd argue that depending on your situation, stage of the draft etc, that a perceived more valuable player based on your rankings may not be the most valuable player for my roster. They may have a better spread across all categories, but if I have a different strategy and feel can structure my squad in a different way, then perhaps a more offensive player has more value. So, if I were to use your FHG rankings as guidance, I may dispute some of them. Value can go beyond just the straight numbers.

I know and respect that you are trying to come up with a system to keep this distinct, as it can help others gauge players and their contributions across the board to give them a specific value, or FHG number/ranking. I feel that it's not as clear cut as just assigning a number on someone (based on a set of conditions) and say that player x is more valuable than player y. Maybe the number is not as necessary in general (regardless of conditions), rather just list players using a set of categories based on strength/value and let us determine who we consider valuable. I don't know, might defeat the purpose of the rankings, but just trying to look at it from a different perspective.

That's just my opinion on how I value players. It's the reason I've debated some of Terry's earlier articles on assigning value to a player based on their FHG number. For example, having a 18th ranked FHG doesn't mean the player is the 18th most valuable in the league. It means he's 18th given the conditions set out to create that value, without considering how others may perceive the importance on specific categories. To others depending on how they evaluate based on categories and strategy, he could be 30th, 50th or even 70th (just random numbers, no specific player in mind). But any of those numbers could be irrelevant as it's highly situational.

Anyway, it's a good discussion and happy to contribute to it by highlighting a different perspective. It would be boring if we all agreed.

I think that's what FHG was arguing... That we're mixing up "player valuations" with "team value"... What he's saying is that these rankings are based on player value given a and even across the board ranking. So there's no bias to certain stats over others. When you take into account having a "bias" in certain stats then of course these rankings won't work for you. Cause you're placing an emphasis on certain stats over others, whereas FHG's rankings are based on "across the board" contributions.

Horror I think you're just expecting too much from these numbers, at the end of the day everyone's always going to have their opinions, so these numbers should basically be used as guidance to help you justify or criticize your own beliefs. I don't think anyone should be using them as gospel. "Maybe the number is not as necessary in general (regardless of conditions), rather just list players using a set of categories based on strength/value and let us determine who we consider valuable." I think that's exactly what FHG actually does. It paints a picture, but ultimately you're the one that needs to consider the value. The ranking changes if you add in owner bias.

One thing that I find interesting is there is starting to become an overemphasis on owners trying to seek "across the board" players or are overpaying in order to land them.

I could see how Roto leagues would want "across the board" production as you want "high" highs, but you don't want "low" lows... You kinda want an above average team in every category. I haven't seen very many Roto winners who have tanked 2-3 categories.

But I'm starting to see a lot of H2H teams trying to go "across the board" which is interesting to me, cause at the end of the day you only need to 50/50 plus win the tie breaker and you essentially win the week...

FHG has a strong emphasis on "across the board" production, but that's not what vitally important for H2H...

Let's say you grab Perry, Lucic and Backes (who are 3 of the "big name" across the board producers out there) you'd end up with a stat-line of:
87 G, 88 A, +15, 363 PIM, 51 PPP and 660 SOG.

Now if I grabbed 3 "soft" guys in Daniel, Henrik and Thornton, I'd have a stat-line of:
62 G, 163 A, +54, 54 PIM , 75 PPP and 498 SOG.

I'd essentially 50/50 those stats if I had a trio of "across the board" players in Perry, Lucic and Backes compared to Sedin, Sedin and Thornton, so there's little to no advantage in grabbing "across the board" players compared to focusing on straight offensive players in H2H. I could certainly see it useful for Roto leagues, but H2H I don't see it...

Of course this is all based on default settings, if you added in hits and BS it could definitely add more value to the more physical "across the board" types, but in standard leagues over-reaching for those types of players does nothing...

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Dobber Expert Pool Champion 2011-12

I guess my main argument is that there is becoming a trend for people who are looking at these values and basing most of their decisions around them or suggesting improvements revolving around a particular value. I've even seeing it in Terry's articles in particular (don't mean to pick on him, but since he represents FHG it's important). I feel he's crossing the line from, as you put it, 'player valuations' to 'team value'. He's using the FHG value alone to indicate how valuable players are in a specific league setup, and then suggesting that he should be drafted/higher lower accordingly. I disagree with that because he's taking all the categories together equally (which FHG value does), but you cannot always look at it that way since it depends on a manager's strategy and situation. So, in a way, that's his own bias by using FHG to suggest ways of managing our teams, when it's not as straightforward as that. Of course, it's up to the manager to decide whether it has value or not.

All this being said, FHG, I really do think it's great what you have done and where the site is going to help managers. But I also feel that it's important to look at other perspectives to highlight possible issues that could arise in this age where people are relying on all these tools to make their own decisions.

Yep, that's true. Though, across the board production doesn't have to mean picking an 'across the board' player each time. Even if you go more offensive early and peripheral late you can still have an 'across the board' squad and be a contender for the title. Some people will argue that it's a less efficient way of building a balanced team, and I would argue that there are plenty of ways of building a balanced team if you have a clear strategy.

I agree with this as well. I think that some people feel that if you have a player with more category contributions, and they have a weaker offensive week, they could still help your squad. A lot of this comes down to league and roster depth, and the number of categories used.

Yeah H2H is it's own animal which really is hard to create reliable values for. I don't really like H2H, I'm more of a roto guy (been playing fantasy baseball much longer than hockey and I just find it a much better strategic game). H2H is definitely more dynamic though. I guess i like the simplicity of roto; I want to be great in every category, and so does everybody else. We all have the same goal and we'll see who is best at achieving it. It also makes analysis more universal. With H2H every league and setup and team is different.

I'd be interested in hearing the rationale from those who target scorers and put less emphasis on peripherals like hits, PIM, blocks. I usually assume it's just a residual bias from watching hockey on TV and recognizing that most of the great players are great scorers. But maybe there are other reasons.

I think the key is that no valuation system is 100% perfect. No matter what you have to interpret the numbers in the way that best suits your team - either now (punting categories, cap hit, etc) or in the future (potential, age decline, future opportunity, etc).

I use FHG rankings and had huge draft success but it is not a replacement to using your brain to make decisions. But even if the "BPA" wasn't the #1 guy available in the FHG output spreadsheet, the BPA that I selected wasn't far from the top.

If I want a great PIM option, why not get a the best overall PIM option instead of a one-dimensional goon?

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Great discussion, guys. Horrorfan, your point is fair. I guess I need to qualify that there are now three separate and distinct (though intertwined) issues here:

1. Market (perceived) value
2. Intrinsic (overall) value
3. Team need value

When we talk about player value I think most people focus on 1 and 3, and quite frankly I think it's because there are very few effective tools out there to judge intrinsic value.

Team need value also varies a huge amount as a team unfolds -- a team that has only one roster spot filled out of say twenty has many needs, and their priority is less clear. You're certainly right that it comes to personal preference as to how each GM wants to use their grasp of market value and intrinsic value to motivate their choices.

I've thrown the line out there a few times but nobody has yet bit on it: I assert that maximizing the intrinsic value on your team -- which typically, though not exclusively, means players without such high "peaks" in specific categories, while minimizing "troughs" in others -- while managing to team-need category targets provides a better result because it inherently reduces the volatility (and thus production risk) in each scoring category and leaves more flexibility to make trades to address real needs.

You're right that it would be a 3-3 category split, but which do you think you'd be able to get more bottom-line contribution out of in a trade: 25 G, 309 PIM, 162 SOG or 75 A, +39, 24 PPP? There is inherent value in each of those different pots than can be traded for production value for your team needs.

To back my man T-Camp here, he often argues that players should be taken higher than their average draft position (ADP) but never counsels to take them at their intrinsic value, because if they'll be around the next time you pick that would be stupid.

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