The Jaguars spent big money...but why?

One of the surprise big spenders in the first few days of free agency were the Jacksonville Jaguars.  After a 3-13 record in 2014, Jacksonville made a big splash early on in free agency by making Julius Thomas the highest paid Tight End in the NFL.  They also signed Jermey Parnell to a 5 year contract to help a league worst offensive line and committed $22 million to Jared Odrick, along with 3 other signings, to help their defense.  And the rumor continues that they are interested in signing Demarco Murray....

 Some experts are asking why the rush to sign high end players with a team that has so many holes to their roster and didn't have many bright spots last season.  It's my belief that losing breeds...well more losing.  The Jaguars invested a 3rd overall draft pick in quarterback Blake Bortles, along with a 2nd round pick on wide receiver Marquise Lee, and he had a very difficult season.  In order to continue his (and other young players') development and improve his confidence, it's best to improve the talent around him and help him gain confidence.

Let's start with Julius Thomas, a player who gained recognition playing with the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos.  The 26 year old had 12 receiving touchdowns in back-to-back seasons and the advanced stats paint a picture that Jacksonville fans may not be happy with.  A player can be evaluated by his contributions to the team winning with a statistic entitled Win Probability Added defined below.

An individual player’s WPA is the sum of the WPA of the plays in which that player was directly involved. Being directly involved is defined as an offensive player who ran, threw, or kicked the ball, was targeted by a pass, or flagged for a penalty.  Thanks to Advanced Football Analytics.

Thomas was 29th amongst tight ends with 6 or more games played in WPA per game last season with a 0.02 WPA added per game (for a total of 0.24 wins added).  In a basic fashion, That means that Julius Thomas' contributions on the field contributed only to 0.24 of Denver's wins. During the 2013 season however, Julius Thomas added 1.21 Win Probablity (or 0.09 per game).  There are two arguments to be made here, that counter each other.  One would be that the amount of targets for Peyton Manning in Denver including Emmanuel Sanders (0.15 WPA/G), Demaryius Thomas (0.10 WPA/G), along with the emergence of CJ Anderson (0.05 WPA/G) meant that Julius had a lesser overall impact in 2014.  The other argument could be made that it's because of this talent that he was able to get open for so many catches and touchdowns.

This Jacksonville offense had only three players (Toby Gerhart, Lee and tight end Clay Harbor)  with positive WPA, something unsurprising for a 3 win team.  Thomas immediately bring another competent target for a young quarterback who threw more interceptions than touchdowns.  It will also be interesting to see if they utilize Clay Harbor or Mercedes Lewis in two tight end sets  and Julius Thomas...

Jacksonville will be an interesting team to watch throughout this off-season and into the regular season, in the end, the most important thing will be to develop their franchise quarterback.  Signing a good pass-catching tight end and improving their line should help keep him on the field making positive plays and gaining confidence. 

How the Browns may help the Eagles land Mariota...nevermind

So this won't happen, but I'd typed it up, so you can read it anyway.  Who knows what Chip's next move is...but maybe there's still a concept here...

The Philadelphia Eagles are in a full revamp in the first off-season after handing Chip Kelly the keys to the franchise.

Kelly has re-signed Mark Sanchez and signed cornerback Byron Maxwell while cutting Trent Cole, Todd Herremans and Cary Williams.  They also traded running back LeSean McCoy to Buffalo for Kiko Alonso and seemed to sign Frank Gore to replace him...until they didn't.

However, the rumour that won't go away is their interest in drafting quarterback Marcus Mariota  and as covered in this ESPN article, I think the way to draft may be to go through the Browns.  With the Bronws holding two first round picks and looking to move on from their 2014 quarterbacks, would a swap of the number 12 and 20 picks be interesting if Nick Foles was dangled?  According to the incredibly valuable Draft Value chart, the number 12 pick is worth 1,200 while the number 20 pick is worth 850 with a difference of 350.  The difference equated to the number 55 pick in the draft, so the question is now:  What is Nick Foles value?  More or less than a 2nd round pick?

The other option could be for the Eagles to flip their 2nd round pick (53rd overall) to the Browns to move up if it was interesting to Cleveland.

All that being said, does Mariota get past the NY Jets at number six overall?  It's been said that Washington is looking to re-invest in value in the draft, would they be interested in moving down to 12 in exchange for a future pick?  The difference in value from 5 to 12 would be 500 (an early 2nd round pick or a 1st round pick for the next season).  It will be interesting to watch...

UPDATE - In the Foles/Bradford swap, the Eagles gave up their 2016 2nd round pick, which obviously leads me to believe they will not be active in giving up a quantity of draft picks to improve their draft spot.  Mariota may be headed to New York......unless the Eagles send Bradford to Cleveland...?

Karlsson and the problem with counting stats

To follow up on yesterday's musings, questions should be asked, but let's first accept that counting stats are just that: a count.  Wins and Points are counted in the standings; counting goals can help you evaluate how player production relates to wins but even then it doesn't completely evaluate the player.  Evaluating the amount of goals a team needs to win a game and then looking at a player's goals per game can help you evaluate the player's contribution to wins via goals but it does not evaluate the entire ice surface.

To yesterday's post; I simply took giveaways, takeaways and the sum of these, then divided those numbers by the TOI, multiplying by 60 for the amount of time in a regulation game.  To be fair, some of this is already done by sporting charts.  My first issue with my basic math is that the average game is longer than 60 minutes...but I digress.  Here are the findings for the Senators after the Calgary game:

Player	Pos	SUM/TOI* 60	GvA/TOI *60	TkA/TOI *60
Mark Stone	R	2.13	1.71	3.84
Zack Smith	C	1.54	0.86	2.40
Erik Condra	R	1.48	0.87	2.36
Bobby Ryan	R	0.83	1.23	2.06
Curtis Lazar	C	0.78	0.87	1.65
Alex Chiasson	R	0.71	0.36	1.07
Jean-Gabriel Pageau	C	0.70	1.12	1.82
Mike Hoffman	L	0.62	2.13	2.75
Milan Michalek	L	0.50	0.56	1.06
Mika Zibanejad	C	0.35	1.24	1.60
Chris Neil	R	0.32	0.32	0.65
Colin Greening	L	0.27	1.60	1.87
Kyle Turris	C	0.20	1.67	1.87
David Legwand	C	0.14	1.43	1.57
Clarke MacArthur	L	0.00	1.86	1.86
Marc Methot	D	-0.61	0.91	0.30
Cody Ceci	D	-0.89	1.44	0.55
Mark Borowiecki	D	-0.91	1.24	0.33
Jared Cowen	D	-1.00	1.80	0.80
Erik Karlsson	D	-1.11	2.63	1.52
Chris Phillips	D	-1.52	2.07	0.56
Eric Gryba	D	-1.61	2.17	0.56
Patrick Wiercioch	D	-2.15	2.51	0.36

First things first, defencemen finish last in the sum of giveaways - takeaways / Time on Ice * 60.  The reasons for this should be obvious, defencemen are trusted with the puck in the defensive zone and usually in higher risk situations attempting to move the puck to the offensive zone.  Forwards get to forecheck and attempt to create giveaways.  Karlsson is the defencemen's exception, his aggresive style of play creates more takeaways than his compatriots.

The second thing you notice is that although Karlsson has the most takeaways, his ability to create takeaways and his time on ice places his sum of giveaways/takeaways divided by time on ice 4th on the team amongst regular defencemen.  Corsi darling Patrick Wiercioch is last on the team in this statistic however does this make them less valuable than the defencemen ahead of them?  What this basic stat doesn't identify is the amount of passes a player attempts or the amount of time they have the puck on their stick.  Offensive defencemen like Karlsson tend to have the puck on their stick more than their defensive counterparts, leading to a higher possibility of turning the puck over (and also of scoring a goal, registering an assist, etc.)

This is basic, and led to more questions to me:
How do you evaluate the value of the stat?  How many giveaways/takeaways lead to a goal?  How many goals lead to wins?  The NBA actually tracks the amount of points stemming from turnovers.

Also, what was the location of the giveaway?  A giveaway in the defensive zone should lead to a higher percentage of goals against...but maybe not?

The timing of the giveaway should be important as well.  A giveaway during a powerplay leads to less time with the man advantage therefore does it affect the odds of scoring a goal more than a giveaway during 5 on 5 play?  And a giveaway in the last minute when leading by one goal is much more stressful than a giveaway during the first period but are their values the same?

How important is puck possession time and why aren't we tracking this?

Also...how do you calculate clutch?!?

Did this bring any questions to your mind?

A long break for my first post

mus·ing

 (myo͞o′zĭng)

adj.

Deep in thought; contemplative.

n.

1. Contemplation; meditation.

2. A product of contemplation; a thought: "an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections" (James Atlas).

 

I have thought about what I want this blog to be after stepping away post-creation.  It is as it says, a place for my musings meant to encourage discussion and look at new ways to find answers to questions.

So naturally, my first post would have to reflect two players I enjoy watching on a nightly basis...Mark Stone and Erik Karlsson.

Both can be found quickly when the Sens' stats leaders page, at the time of this writing both have 16 goals and 25+ assists..but it's their play on the ice that captivates my attention.  Both the players pass the Advanced Stats eyeball test, ranking in the top 5 in SAT Rel % (thank you autocorrect) for the team.  Although I'd love to discuss Patrick Wiercioch and the great analytics vs eye test debate, I believe Travis Yost did that some justice already. 

However, I'm not here to discuss their stats, or at least not the ones we have in front of us, I'm here to discuss potential holes in the advanced statistics development.  For a long time, baseball's black of advanced statistics was defensive metrics...pun fully intended.  Something I find lacking is something that reflects with both of these players and the way they play.  Mark Stone has become a takeaway machine with 65 and a TK/GA differential of 36 this season, many coming in the offensive zone with his forecheck.  Meanwhile, Erik Karlsson effortlessly navigates the neutral zone with dazzling rushes but has 76 giveaways and a differential of -32.  This does not make Karlsson any less effective than Stone and as shown with advanced statistics even with a much higher differential, Karlsson is a player whose possession stats are more favourable than Mark Stone's. 

By making takeover and giveaway statistics a counting statistic similar to RBIs in baseball, it is my belief that we are not evaluating the whole story.  The statistic is useful for a counting purpose but tomorrow I will dabble in what could make it a more interesting statistic without over-complication.

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