a mangy Meowth
Registered Meowth
Yes he has been advocating for head in sand. Look at page 2
Do 'Expected' goals statistics suck?
- Thread starter Filthy Dangles
- Start date
Bear of Bad News
Now 25% more unBearable!
- Sep 27, 2005
- 15,124
- 31,320
Oh, 100%
That's like saying a skater doesn't deserve a Hart Trophy or Art Ross (or Rocket Richard), due to strength of schedule or calibre of goalie faced.
Still gotta do the work, and some are just better at it than others.
If this is seriously where you're starting from, then there's really no point in trying to convince you otherwise.
Your analogy is shit.
Strangle
Leafs Smol PP
- May 4, 2009
- 9,918
- 7,199
That's not really a flaw of xG. It's intended. Part of the point of it is trying to determine what the average likelihood of scoring in a given scenario is, absent goaltending or shooting. Like, that is the point. What should I expect on average?
It's a BS metric, mostly used by people who barely watch games to rationalize whatever stance they're trying to push.
Strangle
Leafs Smol PP
- May 4, 2009
- 9,918
- 7,199
They’re trying to galaxy brain that non-sense
Expected goals are even simpler than that. You expect to score 1 goal on every 10 shots on goal.
32 shots on goal? Expected goals is 3. Less than that and you got goalied, over that and the goalie played like shit.
Done
Last edited:
FerrisRox
"Wanna go, Prettyboy?"
My opinion on "Advanced Stats" in hockey dramatically changed a few years back when I got paired up with two guys for a round of golf. Turned out both of them worked for different NHL clubs in the analytics department.
One of them had been with his team for about five years and was part of an "early adopter" organization that built out one of the first "analytics" departments in the league. The other had spent a few years with one team and had just changed, that summer, organizations.
I had a long, fascinating talk about the hockey analytics with them over the new few hours and both of the agreed, despite having careers in the field, that "advanced stats" don't work for hockey.
One of them in particular was adamant that there is absolutely nothing that you can learn from "Advanced Stats" that the organization doesn't already know from their actual scouts. There are no "hidden" attributes and there is zero replacement for actually watching the players play.
One of them said that could conduct an entire baseball draft using only your analytics team and you'd probably do pretty well in the draft looking at just data, stats and numbers.
He said in hockey, that is absolutely false, and no team would ever draft a player they hadn't seen play "live" before because there are way too many variables that the stats don't tell you.
One of them freely admitted that his department isn't really a factor, at all, in building their draft board and that trades were made often without even requesting a report from the analytics department because their GM (he had worked for two, same for both) said that the analytics department would just echo what the professional scouts already told him (This guy carries the puck well, makes a good first pass, has a high IQ, doesn't make unforced errors, etc.) and that the primary use of their data and reports was for contract negotiations. Any way they could justify lowering a contract offer to an existing player in the organization backed by "stats" but otherwise they were largely ignored.
One of them mockingly said that there is no such thing as "the moneyball" player where you find that hidden gem that is being overlooked in hockey. One of the two guys was actively trying to get a job in baseball but couldn't find an opportunity and ended up taking another hockey job.
People slagging stats a ton really don't know what they're talking about.
As if the actual NHL teams themselves aren't employing a lot of the people who created these statistics. As if people don't use data to bet and make money consistently on the NHL. As if a children's game is far too "complex" to quantify when we have companies modelling the entire economy and human behaviour.
As if the actual NHL teams themselves aren't employing a lot of the people who created these statistics. As if people don't use data to bet and make money consistently on the NHL. As if a children's game is far too "complex" to quantify when we have companies modelling the entire economy and human behaviour.
Last edited:
Djp
Registered User
My career Is in data analysis.
Baseball and golf are thr brst when it comes tu o individual data.
Both might have some subjective weighting attached tied to situations and weather
Hockey is much harder to do team and individual metrics
Shooting % does not factor in quality of shot
Baseball and golf are thr brst when it comes tu o individual data.
Both might have some subjective weighting attached tied to situations and weather
Hockey is much harder to do team and individual metrics
Shooting % does not factor in quality of shot
GreeningOil
Yarpmeister
These statistics very clearly have value. The issue with them is what has been noted already.
They are goals that are expected, based on a scoring position. An elite shooter will exceed their stats, and volume shooters may not exceed the stats.
The deserve to win thing is pretty cool. More often than not the team who wins also wins on that graph.
It is a simple way to see who has better positional scoring chances. As for determining more? That’s what scouts are for. It’s impossible to measure effort and players on defense can interrupt the shot.
They are goals that are expected, based on a scoring position. An elite shooter will exceed their stats, and volume shooters may not exceed the stats.
The deserve to win thing is pretty cool. More often than not the team who wins also wins on that graph.
It is a simple way to see who has better positional scoring chances. As for determining more? That’s what scouts are for. It’s impossible to measure effort and players on defense can interrupt the shot.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
GreeningOil
Yarpmeister
Romang67
BitterSwede
I will never understand the take that we should ignore information we have readily available to us. It would be like my trying to find the fastest route to get from point A to point B, but refusing to use traffic data because I already own a map.
GreeningOil
Yarpmeister
That model doesn’t account for what has actually happened though. 10 weak shots, unscreened from poor angles should have 0 go in.
The context is in the shooting position.
Strangle
Leafs Smol PP
- May 4, 2009
- 9,918
- 7,199
It’s what we do with goalie stats.
.900 is baseline, 8xx is shit and .910+ is good/great
Bear of Bad News
Now 25% more unBearable!
- Sep 27, 2005
- 15,124
- 31,320
But traffic data sometimes has flaws in it! How can you use that?
If it takes 30 minutes to get downtown on average, I should just assume that for every drive I have. Adjusting for traffic data is silly.
Strangle
Leafs Smol PP
- May 4, 2009
- 9,918
- 7,199
Romang67
BitterSwede
The secret is to scream angrily at Google maps when I'm 10 minutes late despite leaving early enough that I should only have been 5 minutes late!
I'm sure that method translates to expected goals models too.
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
It's not a goalie stat.
The goalie is not fighting the other goalie and he's not doing worse because the other goalie is doing better. He's acting relatively independently. Therefore, it's a bit more reasonable to have a baseline quantity of saves.
When a team does better in its share of xG, the other inherently does worse. It's a completely different set of variables.
GreeningOil
Yarpmeister
As in a goal? Shot placement would be awesome to track, but would be incredibly difficult to manage.
It would be cool if the sensor in the puck idea did that tracking. (Idk if that was or is a thing)
Dr Pepper
Registered User
You're going to keep pretending save % gives any weight whatsoever to the difficulty of shots faced? By all means, have at it.
But I think I'd rather take a goalie with a .930 sv % over another goalie at .902, even if he faces "tougher shots".
Machinehead
Fox Mafia Consigliere
Shot placement isn't repeatable. If it was, you would see a lot more goals.
Goaltending is illegal in basketball and 70% would lead the league in shooting.
Goaltending is illegal in basketball and 70% would lead the league in shooting.
Romang67
BitterSwede
You're introducing a whoooooole lotta difficult number crunching by doing that. Very small errors in shot location (whether the tracking data is wrong or the time is wrong) and where the puck was stopped by the goalie would make massive differences in the supposed shot placement.
Reliable shot placement data is probably one of the things we're farthest away from realizing.
wintersej
Registered User
And there are limits on what data is going in right now. A 85 mile per hour shot from the right circle when the goalie is square and coming out to meet the shooter with the D handling the back door is a million times different than when the goalie is moving laterally to get to the post and there is a guy open on the back door they have to worry about.
