The comments to Dale's question, 'What do we really want?' are summarized below. Please speak up if I've misunderstood the issue or your point.
Matt argues that goalies are undervalued (as keepers, trade bait, and on the waiver wire) such that even elite goalies are not sought after commodities. He wants to see a system in which the best goalies are among the most valuable assets in the league (alongside elite players). Andrew agreed, as did Sean. Sean also thought this was a function of having only one goalie slot and suggested we add a second.
Ben voiced that fluctuations in per week goalie games have a disproportionate effect on whether a team wins or loses. Specifically, a team is twice as likely to lose if they have even one fewer goalie game. He also echoed Matt's point about the value of goalies being messed up, but was cautious in suggesting we grow the number of goalie slots.
To further summarize, I see two issues:
1) People are concerned that other owners don't value goalies.
2) People are concerned that goalie performance has too great an effect on weekly matchups, a problem made considerably worse by the very up-and-down nature of a one goalie system.
Is that an accurate depiction of the comments made on Dale's post? Further, is that a fair summation of how you (Matt, Ben, Andrew, and Sean) actually feel about the currently goalie system?
I have no problem if peeps want to search for a wider audience for a hockey blog / podcast. I could be really cool.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if this site changes for a general audience, it ceases to be a venue for league bidness, discussion, and general silliness. Our goalie debates and super awesome statistical modelling and regression analysis of draft performance and scoring mechanics would have to go somewhere else. Or, do we just have a spinoff -- www.definitelyoffside.com -- and let this blog be?
I've really enjoyed this so far. It seems to be working well for us (18 posts in October so far!). I think whatever people want to do a league-specific site of some kind would still be an asset for us...
Adding a second goalie helps with the first summary point; however, it would likely deepen the second problem. Although, I am sure if we had only one centre position we would be arguing the same issues. Perhaps the only solution is to add a second goalie slot, but they both become team slots. This way you will likely get more consistent point totals (since night offs will not affect things) and the better goalies/teams will be worth more.
ReplyDelete@ Matt: Yeah, Ross and I talked about keeping a space for us to talk as a community, because that's been really fun and important so far this year. We talked about that as a 'page' on the blog (perhaps restricted), or as you suggest, another site. I'm leaning toward the other site idea right now, but we're a bit stuck on how to create it. We can buy definitelyoffside.com and power the site through blogger (as this one is) or perhaps wordpress or something. But we can't yet find a template that has everything we want (such as a built-in player for the podcast). Do you have the sort of time and inclination to help us alter an HTML template? I think Ross was talking about a January launch, so it wouldn't be a real rush job, but obviously we can't pay you either. Unless you take invitations to be on a podcast as payment.
ReplyDeletePS: You want to be on the podcast next weekend? Mike can't make it and we need another person or two.
Damn. Obviously my first comment was related to the "Future of the Blog" post. For whatever reason, every time I comment with Firefox, my post vanishes into the aether when I hit the submit button. If I don't give up in rage, I usually use Chrome to quickly re-type my comment... sometimes on the wrong post, I guess.
ReplyDeleteYeah, @Eschatologists. I can advise about hosting, tweak templates, whatnot...