Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
I think one of the reasons there's so much antipathy to "advanced stats" is that they refute long held tropes, biases and stories we tell ourselves about team X or player Y. We don't like that, we like the story of "heart" and a player being "clutch." It creates a causal and hence relatable nature to the game. Watching the game and drawing conclusions is available to anyone who wants to do it whereas those who want and are able to evaluate data is a much smaller segment of the population. That's seen as an attack by many, that somehow there knkowledge of the game isn't as valuable as new knowledge, of course there would be almost a visceral pushback.
But that's the precise value of the stats, they provide a way to 'ground-truth' your biases and assumptions. Are they perfect, no but should that preclude them from being used? Are they any less perfect that Joe fan sitting on the couch complaining about how terrible Phaneuf is?
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That's beside the point. Of course advanced stats are indicators, and legitimate ones... but one piece of information taken on its own with no context is useless.
For example, the Flames have difficulty with possession right now but we are missing 5 NHL regular starting forwards in our lineup including our 2nd and 3rd line centers and another player who can play center. If you are missing your regular centers, you lose more faceoffs... which hurts possession.
Yes, the Flames might drop back down to Earth in terms of luck but they should also improve in possession when the veterans return to the lineup... especially at the center position.