Does Free Agent Spending Work?
by ExiledAmongYou on Nov 21, 2011 10:38 PM MST
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PrintAfter looking at DDC's post extolling the supposed virtues of spending money, I started wondering about the relationship between spending money on free agents and improving as a team (if such a relationship actually exists). I've long thought that spending money on free agents is overrated, or at least spending money for spending's sake. But does the data actually support that?
I looked at the free agent signings of each team (using the average yearly value of each deal) during the 2009 (I chose 2009 simply because I came across the TSN 2009 FA Tracker before I found the 2010 one, and I'm lazy) offseason, ignoring any re-signings, since I wanted to concentrate on the effect of new players added via free agency. Then I compared that total to the change in points for each team between 2009 and 2010. The following chart shows this comparison (each dot represents a team):
via i39.tinypic.com
As you can see, there doesn't appear to be any sort of relationship between spending money on new players via free agency; in fact, 4 of the top 5 free agent spenders regressed following their shopping spree. The only big spender to improve? Chicago, who added Tomas Kopecky, John Madden, and most importantly, Marian Hossa. And even they were only the 11th most improved team.
What do I draw from this? Spending money via free agency for the sake of spending money doesn't have seem to have much of an effect on how you'll perform the following season. Good free agent signings, like Hossa, can certainly help. But a team that doesn't spend much in free agency is just as likely to improve (and may even be more likely to improve) than if that team spent a bunch.
So yeah, the Avs have had $39M in unused cap space the last few years. But using any more of that cap space certainly wouldn't have guaranteed any improvement in the team.
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As you can see, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of relationship between spending money on new players via free agency
Give me numbers, not appearances on a graph, though that does look like an r close to zero. Can I ask for some more particular figures? How about:
Total difference in spending from the previous year? As in, sure they added $9m in salary, but did they also lose $10m? That would be a negative cap change. I’m guessing most of these teams would have a negligible cap change, and that would explain your null results easily.
Number of players added through FA? And, relevantly, money spent per player? It would be interesting to see if Ilya Kovulchuk is an outlier or an extreme example, for example.
Good start, but I’m looking for more before I’m willing to take what’s common knowledge and call it bunk.
At exactly what point do you start to realize that life without knowledge is death in disguise?
Give me a couple days.
I wanted to explore it a lot more (I share a lot of your questions), but I already spent far too much time on that considering I have an assignment due tomorrow that I’ve barely started.
Consider this a quick and dirty look; I’ll have a more in-depth one later in the week.
by ExiledAmongYou on Nov 21, 2011 11:27 PM MST reply actions
That’s cool. II’ll be interested to read what you find., and I share Red’s sample size concern as well.
At exactly what point do you start to realize that life without knowledge is death in disguise?
by SteveHouse on Nov 22, 2011 8:21 AM MST via mobile up reply actions
I think this is an interesting subject that warrants further investigation. I’d also say that it needs at least several years of data to even out weak/good FA pools.
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck" -Obi Wan Kenobi
I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink
to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and
sticks when they've invented the lighter?
I charted team player payrolls versus team points for last season. There was a very strong correlation. Unfortunately, I could never format the charts in a way that allowed be to share them via photobucket and SB Nation.
Common sense would also dictate that our forward core, probably among the weakest 3 or 4 in the league, wouldn’t be so putrid if some money had been invested over the past few years. Even if our accountant had to do some creative accounting to get a real threat such as Kovalchuk for a relative long-term bargain. Like New Jersey did. Teams that want to compete (Chicago, Vancouver, Detroit) have done this. Teams that don’t want to compete hump the cap floor and feed their fans BS like “we’re building from within.”
We see a wonderful sun-soaked city nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Enos sees nickels and dimes.
by Bob in Boulder on Nov 22, 2011 10:21 AM MST reply actions
It’s clear that we are all just searching for answers right now—there seems to be so much wrong with this team, where do we start?
I disagree with the whole “you get what you pay for” argument. While that may be true to an extent (and there are many teams that spend a lot and get diddly), the fact is this team has much more potential than it is displaying right now.
I’m sticking with the “fire the coaching staff” camp.
Landeskog - O'Reilly - Jones. When.
Two of the six division leaders today are playing under first-year head coaches. Those teams, Florida and Minnesota, are not as talented as the Avs should be. Another new coach, Ken Hitchcock, has the Blues at 4-0-1 in his first five games.
By the time the franchise realizes that there’s nowhere to go but up, it may be too late for this season.
4th biggest pessimist of MHH.
"There's always next season." -- Jimmy Howard on not winning the Calder Trophy.
Just for Fun (seriously)
And because I teach “basic” excel to my students, I dug up an old exam, that is based on inputing #’s based on NHl standings.
Using nhlnumbers.com/ for salary info and nhl.com, I asked myself two questions: from the 2007 season to the 2011 season, how many of the top 16 spenders made the playoffs, and how many of the bottom 5 made the playoffs. I chose these numbers because there are 16 playoff spots, and the bottom five, umm…. don’t really know why I chose that
Anyways:
- In 2007-2008, 10 of the top 16 spenders made the playoffs, with 3 of the bottom 5 making the playoffs too (SJ, washington, and Nashville)
- In 2008-2009, 12 of the 16 top spenders made the playoffs, with 1 of the bottom 5 making it (Nashville)
- In 2009-2010, 11 of the top 16 made it, with 2 of the 5 making it (Nashville and Phoenix)
- In the 2010-2011, 12 of the top 16 spenders made it, with none of the bottom 5 spenders making it.
- And just for fun, so far this season, 9 of the top 16 top spenders will make the playoffs, with 2 of the 5 of the bottom (Nashville and Dallas) making it……. however, with so few points seperating so few playoff spots and it being so early, I hesitate to put much weight in these numbers
Now, I’m not claiming to be a top statistician, and I’m sure you could poke holes in this methodology, but generally speaking: the odds are that if you spend the money, you make the playoffs.
Moral of my story: let’s try to be like Nashville, who makes chicken salad out of chicken bones….. but let’s not be wastefull like Toronto or NYRangers
Last year regular season success, or lack thereof, tracked very closely with player payroll. Too bad it coincided with our salary floor stranglehold.
We see a wonderful sun-soaked city nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Enos sees nickels and dimes.
by Bob in Boulder on Nov 22, 2011 11:44 AM MST up reply actions
EAY, I appreciate the effort, but I have one fundamental hiccup in your approach:
Nobody is saying they should spend money just to spend money. That’s just going after players for WANTS sake. I think we can all agree that there are better options out there for addressing the team’s NEEDS .
I’m not saying hand out millions to a handful of guys just to fill out the roster and bring them above the salary floor. I’m saying spend some money/trade salary to get wingers with legit NHL Top 6 talent so that we don’t have to rely on the Yips, Galiardis, and Porters to fill those roles. I’m saying spend money/trade salary to get d-men with experience and a developed skill set that can be utilized now and help our in-house future corps. develop.
In my opinion your phrase “spend money just to spend money” is EXACTLY what management has done in the last couple of years. Tucker, Kobasew, Preissing, Lindstrom, Dupuis, etc. Some guys did ok, some collected a check, and some collected a check in the A. In my opinion (this year especially) they only signed the BARE MINIMUM PLAYER from a talent and salary standpoint just to get to the salary floor. That’s a waste when a couple of million more per player or a couple of years more on the contract could net you a second line winger that would both produce and alleviated the depth issues the team has suffered from the last few years.
If we don't get our sauce, we ain't watching the game!
by Mike @ MHH on Nov 22, 2011 2:43 PM MST reply actions 4 recs
Well said.
"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck" -Obi Wan Kenobi
I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink
to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and
sticks when they've invented the lighter?
Exactly. Further, I think the pendulum has swung too drastically towards investing resources in our back end while at the same time neglecting our forward lineup badly. Hejda was a nice signing. EJ may still turn out to be a franchise D-Man. Varly could still be our goaltender of the future and Giggy was a solid depth signing. And O’Brien has exceeded both my expectations and his salary. But counting on Mueller’s noggin and signing bargain basement turds like Kobasew and Lindstrom to “bolster” our forward depth after losing Stewie and Flash was completely unacceptable. And is only hurting the development of young studs like Dutchy and Landeskog.
We see a wonderful sun-soaked city nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Enos sees nickels and dimes.
by Bob in Boulder on Nov 22, 2011 3:31 PM MST up reply actions
That’s a waste when a couple of million more per player or a couple of years more on the contract could net you a second line winger that would both produce and alleviated the depth issues the team has suffered from the last few years.
Hypothetically speaking, I agree with you. My problem is that I just don’t think there have been many of those types of players on the market in the last couple years. I’d like the Avs to have signed Simon Gagne this summer, but maybe he wouldn’t have signed with the Avs. Other than him, who else could they realistically have gotten? Flash (or so it’s rumoured) didn’t want to sign with the Avs because of the altitude and travel. In 2010? Outside of Kovalchuk, there’s Tanguay, and that’s about it. Would Tangs even have signed here, considering how he left Colorado the first time? I don’t know.
So In the past two off-seasons, there have been maybe four top 6 wingers that could have helped. Maybe the Avs tried to sign them and couldn’t. Who knows? I just have issues with criticizing management for “not spending money” when there were so few options available. Spending money on a top 6 winger sounds great in theory, but when only 2 teams actually can sign a guy like that every summer, is it realistic to expect the Avs to land one of them?
By spending money to spend money, I mean the types of signings that Buffalo and Columbus made: overpaying for players (e.g. Leino, Wisniewski) that won’t actually make much of an impact on their teams. The number of signings every year that actually make a difference is very small; that’s the point I was trying to make. The Avs certainly had a few signings that won’t make much of a difference (as you mentioned, Lindstrom, Kobasew, etc.) but the difference is that the Avs didn’t overpay them. If they suck, who cares? It’s not like the Avs are locked into them for 6 years like the Sabres are with Leino.
by ExiledAmongYou on Nov 22, 2011 5:36 PM MST up reply actions
But I don’t think that any of us are asking the owner to spend money just to spend money. We’re asking them to spend money to improve the team. They haven’t done that in the last three years. The trades that have been made ostentiably to improve the team (I honestly believe they have/will) have also not added payroll. That’s not a bad thing, but what if they are only improving the team via neutral or negative cap impact trades? Isn’t that a cheap path on par with miserly FA signings?
As to your larger point that there wasn’t much to pick from on the FA market, you may have a point if you limit it to just FA’s. However, significant player movement has occurred via trade from cap-strapped teams across the league. Peverley, Penner, Versteeg, Neal, and Brewer, were all had at the deadline, while guys like Booth, Nystrom, Cole, Stempniak, Richards, Parish, Sullivan, Talbot, Gagne, Bradley, and Fehr were all had in the offseason either through FA or trade. That’s just this year. I didn’t go back and look at the 09-10 crop or the 10-11 crop so I’m sure there were some trades and FA’s that would have made more sense for a few pennies more there too.
If we don't get our sauce, we ain't watching the game!
How bad are our forwards?
Just looking at NHL.com forward stats for the season so far, we have exactly one forward, Duchene, in the top 74 in terms of overall scoring. And he is the statistical equivalent of Radim Vrbata, having scored the same number of points (16) in two more games for a rank of 42nd. Yuck.
We see a wonderful sun-soaked city nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Enos sees nickels and dimes.
intentional jibble, I can't reply right now for some reason
The Avs certainly had a few signings that won’t make much of a difference (as you mentioned, Lindstrom, Kobasew, etc.) but the difference is that the Avs didn’t overpay them. If they suck, who cares? It’s not like the Avs are locked into them for 6 years like the Sabres are with Leino.
Problem is, they aren’t locked into anyone right now. In fact, Kobasuck is one of three forwards signed beyond this season. And I do care that Lindstrom and Kobasew suck, and that Mueller has provided exactly three games of nothingness. Because somehow our brass believed that we’d be competitive with them in the mix. And, except for the 5-game road trip miracle we started the season with, we aren’t.
I also don’t get the whole “there was nobody out there” thing. Our forwards, as a whole, suck. Maybe worst in the league suck. Looking at this list of last year’s UFAs, I see plenty of guys who would have significantly reduced our level of suck. Jokinen, Flash, Leino, Gagne, Cole, Vrbata (don’t laugh, he has as many points as Dutchy in 2 fewer games right now), Ryder, Kopecky. Sign two of those guys instead of Kobasuck and Lindstrom, we may actually be competitive now.
We see a wonderful sun-soaked city nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Enos sees nickels and dimes.
I sort of agree with you. Leino and Flash cost too much, so I’d say no to them. But I think Jokinen & Vrbata were reasonable targets the Avs should have looked at. It’s hard to tell if they did pursue them but wouldn’t cough up the dough, but that’s kind of the point of the complaint too.
Erik Cole would help this team too, even if he’s struggling in MTL.
Maybe
Jibblescribbits: C'mon over and waste some time
by Jibblescribbits on Nov 23, 2011 9:32 AM MST up reply actions
I'll give you Vrbata
The last thing we need is Jokinen….. centres are our strength.
Unless he’s wearing a Hurricanes jersey, Cole is useless.
And hindsight is 20/20…. but yes, resigning Flash shoulda happened
Maybe it’s “unless he’s wearing anything but a Habs jersey”…?
If we don't get our sauce, we ain't watching the game!
Oiler Fans
would side with me in this debate.
Unless Erik Cole is a paid member of the Carolina Hurricanes, he is useless
I think yoda once said it best:
Spend too much money, regret it you will, spend not enought money and Kobesew you will get.
Spoon!!!!!!!!
by An Unmitigated Disaster on Nov 22, 2011 10:26 PM MST reply actions
I mean really to get to the floor they signed Kobasuck and lindstom and hunwick, they get absolutely nothing out of the them. Florida is getting a point per game for only about a million more with Fleischmann’s horrible contract. Money mismanagement. The avs have no idea on who to spend money on. Notice that Duchene is still unsigned eventhough Tavares has set the bench mark. Franchise that once boasted the highest payroll is now the team that raids the ‘take a penny/leave a penny’ trough.
Spoon!!!!!!!!
by An Unmitigated Disaster on Nov 22, 2011 10:39 PM MST up reply actions
If I could take a different approach.....
It’s one thing to suggest that we could sign high quality FA’s…..
…. but could we honestly and objectively look at the team that the Avalanche has been in the last 3 years, and still say that FA’s would want to come? Historically, players signed with the Avs because here was the Cup. Now look at how we have done.
Nevertheless, I do agree with the sentiment that we could do better than Kobasuck and Lindstrom. But to most FA’s, there are more attractive options out there for them.
But a team that doesn’t spend much in free agency is just as likely to improve (and may even be more likely to improve) than if that team spent a bunch.
Just so you know, this statement does not follow from your data. You didn’t address this question at all.
But thanks! Interesting stuff.
Yeah I was a little loose with my language there, my bad.
What I should have said is that spending a lot on free agents does not guarantee that the team will improve, nor does spending little guarantee that the team will get worse.
by ExiledAmongYou on Nov 23, 2011 3:40 PM MST up reply actions
Nothing is Guaranteed in Sports
But as my excel “awesomeness” showed…. unless you have a coach with dedicated followers to your system with consistently great goaltending (Nashville or Phoenix), and/or you have once-a-generation talent (Ovechkin, Crosby)… you have to spend money to have success and make the playoffs.
I think it’s safe to say that the Avs, excluding the Year of the Anderson, have not had those things. Thus, to have success, they need to spend money.
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