Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
The point is your analysis may be flawed because of the subjectivity of it. There's no empirical data to go along with your interpretation. So yes, this time your interpretation is correct, but it's about 50/50 or maybe 60/40 at best to assume your interpretation will be correct in the future.
I can't tell you how many times I thought I was right about player X or team Y only to be proven wrong later. Objective analysis will often give you perspective on a situation that you may not have been aware of, and it's an objective reality, so you have to include it in your thought process somewhere. How you decide to form a conclusion should have some sort of objective process to it, because we are all prone to bias, and we are especially prone to emotional responses/overreactions when we are talking about sports.
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This is where a disconnect is forming with advanced metrics to me. The empirical data SHOULD be showing something different than what we as fans are seeing.
So, do we believe in the empirical data provided and find some relief in that the system implemented is indeed a good system that the Flames should continue with, and that it is predicting a turn-around for next season?
Or perhaps the empirical data is incomplete as we know it, and that the 'eye-test' not aligning with the advanced metrics is providing enough of a discrepancy whereby we should be questioning the data in the first place, and/or looking for differing/additional data?
I understand exactly what you are meaning here - and I actually mostly agree. I just think that the data itself is faulty (or at best, forming an incomplete picture), and the lack of additional data is making the argument difficult to complete.
Too many teams this year seem to be showing good CORSI and so on, but haven't matched up with the expectations. I do agree that the existing advanced metrics are SOMEWHAT predictive - there are definitely a lot of examples where they align, and they shouldn't be completely discredited or irrelevant. I just think they are incomplete and the confidence interval is too low for people to be this fixated on them.
They are additional info at best right now (IMO), until more data sets measuring different events (or measuring them in a more effective manner) start coming out.
For now, we are left with the 'eye test' vs 'advanced metrics', and because they aren't always aligned, one crowd shouts "advanced metrics are garbage" while another crowd shouts out "it is random luck affecting them".
Truth is somewhere in the middle, and I don't think you can necessarily discount either side. This very team's own history over the last 4 or 5 years has shown too much of an inconsistency to have advanced metrics predictive of anything. They are descriptive, and they allow me to better understand a certain system, and it makes me take interest in possible explanations either way (which I actually find very interesting).
I just think that existing data is incomplete and can't be as trusted/accepted as it seems to be, and that the eye test can't be as trusted either as people have biases or just plain see things differently (or interpret them differently).
Is this team's CORSI really reflective of how well they play? Definitely not. Are they only taking long range shots from bad angles to 'pad the stats'? Definitely not. Truth is somewhere in the middle for me.
The only thing I come up with is contrasting and comparing the two systems we have seen this team play in recent memory - Hartley's and Gutluzan's - and see why both seemed to buck the trend that the advanced data was telling us would happen. One relied on a lower volume of shots and trying to get odd-man rushes, the other relies on having a higher number of shots and breaking out as a 5 man unit maintaining as much possession as possible. I find it extremely interesting how they have had somewhat similar results in the actual standings, but the game-play and resulting advanced metrics very different. At this point, neither side should either be believed or discounted, even without the available empirical data.
No side seems to have the required data to explain anything definitively. So I don't mind the speculating from both sides - except the shouting 'my eye tells me' and 'luck' that kind of goes on at times.