NHL Power Rankings

Finally.

Ladies and gentleman, the NHL is (almost) back. No lockout to wait for, no CBA meetings to talk about, none of that. It’s game time. We’re only two days away from opening night, and teams are finalizing their rosters. So who are the contenders? Who are the pretenders? Well, once again, I am here to give you the definitive answers to make myself look bad by offering some suggestions. You’re welcome.

The Bottom-feeders

30. Calgary Flames 

Matt Stajan is the 1st-line starting center. Matt. Stajan. I rest my case.

29. Florida Panthers

When 20 people show up to your preseason game, it’s probably not the best sign. They know how bad this team is. The only thing interesting about this situation is the Tim Thomas element. If nothing else, I guess he probably doesn’t need to worry about skipping a visit to the White House.

28. Colorado Avalanche 

Nathan Mackinnon is going to be a great player, but this team is still thin, and usually things don’t turn around that quickly for lottery teams (cough Edmonton cough). Not to compare him with Crosby, but Sid’s team was still awful in his first year too. They’ll be good in the future, just not yet.

27. Buffalo Sabres 

Playing in arguably the toughest division, the Sabres are still in a pseudo-rebuild mode. A lot of people think Ryan Miller might be on his way out, and there’s a good chance it happens if Buffalo is in the East basement.

26. New Jersey Devils

They went out and got Cory Schneider as the goalie of the future, but Martin Brodeur still wants to be the man for now. And apparently the Devils are sticking with him. Schneider just can’t catch a break. Too bad New Jersey can’t convert one of the two to forward, because that’s really where they need help.

The Pretenders

25. Carolina Hurricanes 

The Hurricanes finished 29th in goals allowed last year, and don’t think that Mike Komisarek will come in and solve all of their problems. Cam Ward is still a good goalie, but even Henrik Lundqvist would have trouble behind these guys.

24. Dallas Stars

I like Lindy Ruff taking over behind the bench, and I think Tyler Seguin will have a bounce back year, but the Stars don’t boast a lot of depth anywhere on their roster. They could still make a push in the playoffs, if only because the Central is wide open after the Blackhawks and Blues.

23. Phoenix Coyotes

Mike Smith is a good goaltender and the blueline is pretty good, but the Yotes lack the firepower up front to keep up with the stronger West teams, especially within their own division with teams like LA, Vancouver, Anaheim, San Jose and even Edmonton that have a better top-6.

22. Tampa Bay Lightning 

We know Steven Stamkos can score goals, but defensively the Lightning aren’t very good, and they don’t have enough after the top line to outscore their opponents like the Pens can. Ben Bishop should be an upgrade in the net, but the defence corps is still weak.

21. Columbus Blue Jackets

I get that last year was a small step forward for the Jackets franchise, but I’m not convinced they’ll keep it up this year. A lot of things had to go well just so that Columbus could fight for the playoffs. A lot, maybe too much, hinges on Sergei Bobrovski repeating his Vezina-candidate season.

20. Winnipeg Jets 

For a team that threw around a lot of money in the offseason, the Jets still don’t have that much offensive depth. I mean, Olli Jokinen is their 2nd-line center. I’m scared that they might be stuck in the dreaded land of mediocrity.

19. New York Islanders 

Similar to the Jackets, I don’t think the Islanders can carry last season’s success over 82 games. John Tavares will do his thing, no doubt. I just think that, over the long haul, Evgeni Nabokov won’t be able to keep New York in the playoffs.

The Bubble Teams

18. Minnesota Wild

The Wild are the ultimate ‘meh’ team this year for me. Nothing spectacular, nothing horrible, just there. They have a decent team, some decent prospects, and a decent shot at making the playoffs.

17. Nashville Predators

Should be fun to watch two blue-chip prospects in Seth Jones and Filip Forsberg make their NHL debut. Eventually, Shea Weber and Jones could become the best D-pairing in the league. For now, the team has OK depth, but don’t count them out. Pekka Rinne is a great goalie, and Barry Trotz somehow finds a way to lead his team to the playoffs.

16. Philadelphia Flyers

I see a bounce-back year for Philly. The group down the middle of Claude Giroux, Vincent Lecavalier, Sean Couturier and Maxime Talbot is pretty solid. The main question is on the defensive end, but watch for Ray Emery to be a sneaky pickup to help some of those issues.

15. Edmonton Oilers 

It’s time. It really is. The Oil need to make that next step. We know they have talent up front with all those high draft picks, but it’s time to translate potential into results. I like the additions of Andrew Ference (as do the Oilers, who have made him their captain), David Perron, and most importantly, I think new head coach Dallas Eakins is the perfect fit for this group of kids.

14. Washington Capitals

The Capitals are strange because they seem to underachieve, yet they’ve made the playoffs 6 years in a row. I think a lot of that comes from their lack of success in the playoffs, but in the regular season they always seem to find a way. The big test is moving from the godawful Southeast division to the new Metropolitan PatrickPlus division that has actual playoff teams like the Pens and Rangers.

13. Anaheim Ducks

The Ducks had a suprisingly strong season in 2013, and they kept most of the pieces from that squad. That being said, I doubt guys like Sheldon Sourray and François Beauchemin can overachieve again like they did last year. Should still be a playoff team though.

The Contenders

12. Montreal Canadiens

If you had told me that Carey Price would have an off year in 2013 but that the Habs would finish 2nd in the East, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But hey, good things happen when you’re well coached and your young players break out earlier than you could’ve hoped. I think we’ll see a regression to the mean of both the overachieving offense and struggling Price. They kind of cancel each other out, so Montreal should still be a very competitive team.

11. Toronto Maple Leafs

Nobody questions the talent on this team (or at least nobody should); everything comes down executing under pressure. Randy Carlyle did a great job of having everyone buy in last year, and it has to be the case again this year. Good goaltending tandem and good offense, but advanced metrics say they need to tighten up defensively to finish high in the standings again.

10. Detroit Red Wings

Moving to the East should help travel-wise, but they join a tough Atlantic division that now counts 5 playoff teams from 2013. That being said, their top-6 is among the best in the league, having added Stephen Weiss and Daniel Alfredsson. Making the playoffs 21 years in a row isn’t an accident.

9. San Jose Sharks

San Jose continues to prove everyone wrong by staying the course with their veterans and managing to find success. It helps when Anti Niemi plays as well as he has. Just like the Wings, the Sharks dare you to bet against them making the playoffs.

8. Ottawa Senators

I want to say that health is the key for the Sens with the likes of Craig Anderson, Erik Karlsson and Jason Spezza all having missed significant time last year, but at the same time, these guys just seem to find a way to get it done. Out goes Alfredsson, in comes Bobby Ryan, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t miss a beat. Paul MacLean has done a fantastic job with this team.

7. New York Rangers

I’m interested to see what the offensive-minded Alain Vigneault can do with a team that is built more for a defensive style. Maybe he motivates Brad Richards to come back to his scoring ways, or maybe it’s a lost cause. Either way, when you have King Lundqvist between the pipes, you always have a chance in every game.

The Favourites

6. Vancouver Canucks

Same with the Rangers, John Tortorella’s style doesn’t seem to fit with the Canucks free-flowing offense. At the same time, he has won a Cup and brings that sort of credibility in the dressing room regardless of what you think of him as a person. I think we see a strong season from Roberto Luongo now that he doesn’t need to look over his shoulder anymore, thus solidifying his Olympic participation. Don’t be surprised if they compete for the division title.

5. Boston Bruins 

The Bruins are built from the net out and can beat you up along the way. Just ask the Leafs. They lost Tyler Seguin and Nathan Horton and replaced them with Loui Eriksson and Jarome Iginla – not bad. They’re still the class of the Northeast the Atlantic division.

4. St. Louis Blues 

The Blues have been money since Ken Hitchcock took over a few games into the 2011-2012 season, picking up the most regular season wins since that time. Now that they have their stud defenceman locked up for 7 years, the key will be to translate that regular season success into playoff success. According to EA Sports, they’re set to do just that this year.

3. Los Angeles Kings

Similar to Boston, elite goaltending and good depth have helped the Kings make the conference finals in back-to-back years, and it’s more of the same for this year. No one doubts that Jonathan Quick can get the job done between the pipes, but it’ll be interesting to see how the team reacts if he has a few bad games now that safety-blanket Jonathan Bernier is in Toronto.

2. Pittsburgh Penguins

Everything hinges on goaltending and health for these guys, because they have that much skill up front. (Coincidentally, as I write this the Pens announced that Kris Letang is out indefinitely with a lower body injury. We’ll see how that affects them). The consensus from NHL GMs is that they have the 2 best players in the league, according to TSN anyway. That’s usually a good thing. And adding Rob Scuderi was one of the best moves of the summer in my opinion; he played a big part in their ’09 Cup run.

1. Chicago Blackhawks 

The reigning champs have been able to keep pretty much the same lineup that got them the Cup in 2013, a much different scenario from the last time they hoisted Lord Stanley in 2010 where they pretty much had to fire-sale half of their team. Losing role players like Dave Bolland, Victor Stalberg and Ray Emery could hurt, but not enough to knock them off the top seed for now.

Stanley Cup Predictions : Pittsburgh Penguins over the San Jose Sharks.

NHL Metric Takeover : Forward Production Rating (FPR)

It’s a pretty common occurrence.

Just about every year for the past 5 years, at the end of the NBA season, you can look to John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER) to find LeBron James’ name at the top of the list. PER is a fancy metric stat that measures just about everything a player does on a basketball court and converts it into one number. It has generally been accepted as a very reliable indication of how good a player really is. Case in point, pretty much everyone in the world considers LeBron to be the best player in the NBA, and PER confirms it.

That’s not the case in hockey. There isn’t one statistic or number that accurately measures exactly how good a player really is. Sure, points can tell you his offensive output, but it doesn’t tell you anything about his defensive play. Plus-minus gives in indication of a player’s ability to help his team score more goals than it allows while he’s on the ice, but often this number relies too much on luck and/or circumstance. Newer metrics like Corsi and Fenwick look to measure the shot differential a player is responsible for while he’s on the ice, but teams don’t win with shot attempts, so it doesn’t reflect enough of what a player does.

Just like Lebron is to the NBA, Sidney Crosby is widely considered as the best player in hockey (yes, I just linked to Wayne Gretzky saying it, that counts as “widely” to me). But there isn’t one stat that assuredly confirms that perception. Or maybe we think he is the best player when really he isn’t. Either way, there isn’t one thing a fan can look at to make the judgment either way, So, just like everyone else does in their spare time, I decided to create a measure of a player’s effectiveness on the ice, which I will hereafter refer to as Forward Production Rating (FPR).

Limits and additional information

Now, before I go any further, I need to underline a few things. First, I don’t think FPR is perfect by any means. I spent a while working on it, trying to adjust the formula, but I’m sure it can still be improved upon.

Second, as you may have realized by its description, the rating can only measure forward productivity (or defenceman who play like forwards…I’m looking at you, Kris Letang). It says nothing for (most) defenceman or goaltenders. That’ll come another day. (A goalie metric would be easy, in fact one does already exist, called WORP. But trying to measure all the subtleties of playing defense is too much of a mountain to climb at this point). For now, we’ll stick to forwards.

Third, all the statistics I use are 5-on-5 numbers. I think this best measures a player’s effectiveness. Generally, the players that are most productive at 5-on-5 are equally (if not more) productive on the powerplay. As for penalty kill specialists, they probably get hurt the most by this rating, but then again, they don’t give $60 million contracts to the guy who scores 3 goals a year.

Fourth, as you’ll see below, the rating most benefits forwards who are productive (hence the name). It shouldn’t be considered to be a “value added” rating, but more of a true production rating. Selke nominees won’t necessarily shine here, but it doesn’t mean they’re not good players. I’ll let someone else come up with the “value added” measure.

Finally, I need to to shout out my buddy René Madden, (@Rmad08 on twitter), my statistics expert who who helped polish the formula for this brand new rating and who helped me be more clear in my explanations.

The formula

(All the hard stats I use below can be found on behindthenet.ca, I didn’t invent them myself. FPR is the result of manipulating those stats).

Earlier in this post, I mentionned some stats that can useful on their own but that don’t tell us everything. That being said, if you combine them, they can begin to tell a much bigger story. This is what I attempted to do. I tried to combine a forward’s point production, individual plus-minus influence and on-ice shot differential, and then multiplied everything by his time on ice. Here’s what the formula looks like:

That may look really complicated, but it’s not, I promise. I’ll use Crosby’s 2012-2013 season as the example.

– TOIgame  is simply the amount of time a player gets per game. For Crosby in 2012-2013, it was 15.53 minutes.

– Rel.Corsi, or relative corsi,  is a metric stat developped by behindthenet.ca that measures the shot attempt differential for which a player is on the ice (his team vs. the opposing team) while scaling down according to the relative quality of his teammates. Shot attempts include shots on goal and missed shots (not blocked shots). I divided this number by 10 because, generally, one shot attempt is worth about one-tenth of a goal. So Crosby’s number for this variable is 2.03. To give you a comparable, Eric Staal, who had the second most points per 60 minutes, had a -0.43, so his final rating will put him much lower than 2nd because of it.

– P60mins  is the amount of points a player produces for every 60 minutes. In 2012-2013, Crosby scored an impressive 4.19 points per 60 minutes. In the formula, I scale this variable by a factor of 2 to raise the importance of the variable. Generally, we consider points to be probably the most important statistic for a forward, so I attempted to reflect this. For Crosby, this turns into 8.38.

– PlusMinusDifferential60mins  is the difference between a player’s plus-minus per 60 minutes and the plus-minus per 60 minutes of his team while he’s off the ice. In other words, if a forward finishes the season with a plus-minus per 60 minutes of 1.00, but his team has a plus-minus per 60 minutes of 2.00 when he’s off the ice, he still garners a -1.00 because his team was worse overall when he was on the ice. In 2012-2013, Crosby had a 2.86 PlusMinusDifferential60mins. In essence, his team scored 2.86 more goals than its opponent when Crosby was on the ice compared to when he was off.

– Finally, I multiply everything by 0.1,  scaling everything down to have easier numbers to deal with. You’ll see what I mean with the examples I provide, but Crosby’s 20.61 (compared to Kunitz’s 15.67) seems easier to grasp than 206 to 156.

So let’s go back to the formula.

using Crosby’s 2012-2013 numbers, it looks like this:

FPR (Crosby) = 0.1*15.53*[2.03 + 8.38 + 2.86]

FPR (Crosby) = 20.61

The Results

So Crosby earns a 20.61 FPR for last year’s effort, but that doesn’t tell us anything on its own. We obviously need to compare it with the others to properly rate him. For that reason, here are the top 20 FPRs for 2012-2013. (Players must have played at least 20 of 48 games).

1. Sidney Crosby – 20.61
2. Chris Kunitz – 15.67
3. Henrik Sedin – 14.51
4. Taylor Hall – 13.85
5. Pascal Dupuis – 13.61
6. Daniel Sedin – 13.19
7. Alexander Semin – 13.16
8. Jonathan Toews – 13.13
9. Andrew Ladd – 13.13
10. Rick Nash – 13.06
11. Patrice Bergeron – 13.03
12. Tyler Seguin – 12.97
13. Eric Staal – 12.97
14. Justin Williams – 12.54
15. Brad Marchand – 12.43
16. Nazem Kadri – 12.15
17. Derek Stepan – 11.91
18. Anze Kopitar – 11.19
19. Martin St. Louis – 10.92
20. Jiri Tlusty – 10.92

Pretty strong list.  According to this, Crosby was in fact the best player in 2012-2013, something that wasn’t really debated. A few things stand out though, like the fact that Kunitz and Dupuis both rank in the top-5. Obviously the fact that they played with Crosby helps, but at the same time, they did play well, and you can’t take that away from them. Seguin, Bergeron and Marchand are all in the top-15, and they also played on the same line.

It seems like FPR will benefit players that play on strong lines, but when you think about it, that’s not unfair. When teams played the Penguins last year, they were crushed by the Crosby line, so it’s fair that they all be ranked high. Maybe not that high, but in a short sample size (48 games), statistical outliers are common.

Another notable element is that 2012-2013 MVP winner, Martin St. Louis, finishes only 18th (10.92). FPR doesn’t like the fact that St. Louis had mediocre shot and plus-minus differentials, or that many of his points came on the powerplay. Again, inexact science, but it’s a start.

How about a bigger sample size, like a normal 82 game season? Here’s the top FPRs for 2011-2012 (with at least 60 games played).

1. Evgeni Malkin – 15.40
2. Steven Stamkos – 13.34
3. Patrick Sharp – 13.04
4. Alexander Steen – 12.53
5. Ray Whitney – 12.28
6. Henrik Sedin – 11.86
7. Tyler Seguin -11.80
8. Jamie Benn – 11.60
9. Joe Thornton  -11.42
10. Patrice Bergeron – 11.28

Not bad. Malkin won the MVP that year, and FPR backs him up, while Stamkos, who is second on this list, was also a Hart trophy nominee (the other was candidate was Henrik Lundqvist).

Now the top 10 for 2010-2011 (again, with at least 60GP).

1. Daniel Sedin – 17.15
2. Bobby Ryan – 15.18
3. Anze Kopitar – 14.88
4. Henrik Sedin – 14.57
5. Alex Ovechkin – 14.54
6. Ryan Getzlaf – 13.81
7. Justin Williams – 13.37
8. Rick Nash – 13.32
9. Milan Lucic – 12.92
10. Martin St. Louis – 12.89

Interesting. Bobby Ryan and Ryan Getzlaf both find themselves on the list, but it was linemate Corey Perry who actually won the MVP that year (over Daniel Sedin, who was first in FPR, and St. Louis). Perry was 16th on this list (12.53). Another example of the super-line effect.

Ok, one more year, 2009-2010.

1. Daniel Sedin  – 17.63
2. Alex Ovechkin – 17.39
3. Henrik Sedin  -15.88
4. Sidney Crosby – 12.94
5. Zach Parise – 12.68
6. Nicklas Backstrom – 12.57
7. Marian Gaborik – 12.31
8. Wojtek Wolski – 11.74
9. Ryan Getzlaf – 11.31
10. Dustin Penner – 11.22

That year, Henrik defeated Ovechkin in MVP voting, ending his hopes of a three-peat. Even though Daniel was a bit more effective than his twin brother according to FPR, he played only 63 games, so he wasn’t really considered for the MVP race. Crosby, who is 4th here, was the other finalist. I don’t know how Dustin Penner made it on that list, but I guess anything can happen when you reduce players to numbers.

Probably the biggest omission from these lists is Pavel Datsyuk, generally considered to be one of the best, if not the best two-way forward in the league. (He did rank decently high in every FPR list, just not top-10 high). The only reason I can see to justify that is that his points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 aren’t as strong as they would need to be to rank him higher.

Going forward

So there you have it. A new metric to look for. I’ll be updating this season’s FPR rankings at least a few times throughout the year to see if they mesh with our perceptions of the best forwards in the league. Maybe I’m onto something. Or maybe I just wasted my time. Either way, it was a fun exercise.

Wait, Why Did We Need a Lockout Again?

One year later, the 2012-2013 NHL lockout still seems ridiculous.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the start of last year’s NHL Lockout. Thankfully, we got through it (somehow) and salvaged a 48-game season. But for almost 4 months, all we had to talk about were meetings, negotiations, meetings, offers, more meetings, and, of course, Steve Fehr’s fashion.

Player salaries were getting out of hand, the owners said, both in length and in amount. It was a tedious affair, but in the end it got us what we wanted, and when we look back in perspective, a relatively unnecessary one.

Here we are one year later, and not much has changed (besides the fact that we missed hockey for 4 months). Big contracts are still being thrown around with a relative carefree attitude. Teams may be a bit more stingy with their role/depth players, but the big contracts are still there.

Examples you say? Nathan Horton : 7 years, $37.1 million. Ryan Clowe : 5 years, $24.5 million. Mike Ribeiro : 4 years, $22 million. David Clarkson : 7 year, 36.75 million. And the list goes on.

According to capgeek, 88 unrestricted free agents have signed contracts since the beginning of July totaling nearly half a billion dollars, at an average of $2.873 million a year. That’s significant considering the league’s average salary of $2.45 million, and even more so considering the salary cap is falling to $64.3 million for this year. Teams have less money to shell out this season, but somehow they’ve managed to pay 88 players more than the league’s average for next year. So why did we need a lockout again?

That’s easy. The owners wanted a bigger slice of the pie. And they got it. Sure there’s some rhetoric going back and forth, some issues that both sides wanted and/or needed to be addressed in the deal (including the contract-term-limit hill that the NHL apparently died on), but when all is said and done, it all comes down to revenue.

Just look at the last two lockouts. The owners wanted more money in 2004, so they cancelled a season in order to implement a salary cap and to grab 43% of hockey-related revenues. Nine years later, they felt that there share wasn’t enough, so they’ve brought it up to 50% now thanks to the latest lockout. Very non-coincidentally, the NHL’s overall hockey-related revenues have increased an average of 18.57% over the past 20 years (prior to the 1994 lockout), from approximately $700 million to $3.3 billion. That’s not just the inflation factor, it’s an impressive increase in overall popularity. Say what you will about Gary Bettman’s insistence on keeping US teams in bad situations, but you can’t discount his success in growing the market, especially in the States.

Anyway, let’s get back to the main point, which is that the owners are still to blame for the lockout. Sure both sides got some of what they wanted, but the main issue I see with these three consecutive lockouts is that there’s no way to assure there won’t be a fourth. If the NHL’s revenue continues to grow, don’t you think the owners will want more of it?

When the current CBA expires in 2022 (seems like far away, but it’ll come quickly enough), who says the owners won’t demand to increase their share from 50% to 55%? And the when that CBA expires, maybe they’ll want to jump from 55% to 60%. Is this going to create a conflict, and consequently, a lockout, every time? I know these are rhetorical questions, but the thought is frightening.

I don’t know what the players can do, the owners seem to have all the leverage. Honestly, I’m not sure losing a season is that much of a threat to the owners anymore; fans have shown again and again that they’ll just keep coming back. The players, on the other hand, know that losing a season is much more difficult, especially to the dozens that weren’t able to find their way back on an NHL roster as their careers were nearing the end.

The main thing is that the owners need to set the example if they want to be trusted. If owners want to stop the ridiculous spending, here’s one solution: STOP THE RIDICULOUS SPENDING. Last time I checked, players can’t sign a contract unless the other side, known generally as the “team” (and condoned by what we call the “owner”), signs said player to said contract.

I’m not saying that the NHL players are overpaid, and I’m not saying that they’re underpaid. All I’m doing is observing how much they are paid, and thinking back to the lockout, wondering why the hell we needed to go through that. (Ok, I’m happy they limited the contracts to 8 years. Those 15-year contracts were just ridiculous. You know it, I know it, and Charles Wang even knew it. He just didn’t care).

I don’t need to draw this out any longer, because, frankly, we were all tired of the lockout while it was happening, let alone one year later. But here’s the thing; owners, go ahead and pay big money. Give Cody Hogdson a 6-year, $22.5 million. Give Alex Pietrangelo a 7 year, $42 million contract. Just don’t come crying to me in 2022 saying that things aren’t going so well and that you need a bigger share of hockey-related revenues. Because if 2013 (and 2004 and 1994) are any indication, I don’t think things are as bad as you make them out to be.

The Annual Blue Jays ‘Next Year’ Column

Brett Lawrie has, at different moments, exemplified what is so right and so wrong with the 2013 Toronto Blue Jays.

It was mid-March of this year.

I was watching a Toronto Blue Jays preseason game, thinking to myself, like so many others, that this year was the year the Jays would make the playoffs again. I kept thinking of their rotation that looked solid from 1 to 5, their lineup that had power from top to bottom, and I started to get my hopes.

Around that time, I received an email from the College of Sports Media in Toronto, telling me that I had been accepted into their Sports Broadcasting Program. I was ecstatic. This was another step towards my dream.

After I had settled down from the excitement of the acceptance, I began to think about everything living in Toronto would mean. It’s obviously a huge sports scene, and that’s big on its own. And then I thought back to the Jays, and how I would be in Toronto in September, and that I could go watch a few games, and it would be so exciting because they would be right in the thick of the playoff race.

Well, here I am in Toronto. In September. And it just so happens that I will be going to a Jays game tomorrow night. Except that the Bluebirds are nowhere near the playoff race thanks to an extremely disappointing 2013 campaign.

If you haven’t followed the team much this year (and consider yourself lucky), know that it has been as disappointing a season as any for the Blue Jays, at least since they last made the playoffs (and won the World Series for the second consecutive year) in 1993.

It started with the busy offseason during which GM Alex Anthopolous acquired Jose Reyes, Mark Buerhle, Josh Johnson and Emilio Bonifacio from the Marlins as well as 2012 CY Young winner R.A. Dickey from the Mets. He signed Maicer Izturis to add depth to the infield, and took a chance on Melky Cabrera who was leading the NL batting race before being caught for PED use.The expectations were set. The new guys, coupled with solid veterans like Edwin Encarnacion  Jose Bautista, and aided by the anticipated progress of JP Arencibia, Brett Lawrie and Brandon Morrow, among others, made the Blue Jays the World Series favourite at the start of 2013.

Boy, were we they wrong. Murphy’s law applied. Just about everything that could go wrong, has. Brett Lawrie started the season hurt. Jose Reyes had a gruesome ankle injury a few games in. Jose Bautista then missed some time, came back, got hurt again, and was consequently shut down for the rest of the season. The starting pitching has been a disaster, thanks to a combination of underachievement and injuries. The defense has seemed, at times, like stuff you’d see in pee-wee baseball. They can’t hit in the clutch, can’t produce runs, can’t bunt, can’t apply the basic fundementals of baseball. Melky Cabrera even had a tumor removed, of all things!

All of this has the Jays last in the AL East. Sure they’re playing better now, but at this point it seems like wasted effort. Toronto isn’t mathematically out of the wildcard race, but they may as well be.

It hasn’t been all negative thouh. Encarnacion has put together another 35+ HR, 100+ RBI season, while Bautista has also been productive when he hasn’t been hurt. Brett Lawrie has made big strides since his return, adding a much better plate approach to his already fantastic defense. Mark Buerhle has been good for most of the year, while R.A. Dickey and Esmil Rodgers are coming on strong of late. And the bullpen has done its part, posting a 3.38 ERA, good for 10th best in the majors.

Now, we know that Anthopolous’ plan was to build a team that would be able to contend for a few years, not just one. And although this year didn’t go (anywhere close to) as planned, the Jays aren’t about to tear the team down just yet. Maybe things just didn’t gel this year with all the moving parts, and it’s a season of growing pains, literally and figuratively. They’ll still have, on paper at least, a solid lineup from top to bottom and should have more depth at pitching with guys coming back.

So that means playoffs for next year?

The Case Against It

Like I stated above, the starting pitching has been horrendous, posting a 4.83 ERA, second to only the Minnesota Twins as the worst in the MLB. Their batting average allowed (.277) is 5th worst in the league. And because they stripped away their farm to trade for Dickey and the Marlins, there aren’t really any prospects ready to make the jump to the mound next year for the big club. Their fielding has also been brutal, as I mentionned earlier. Their .981 fielding percentage and 103 total errors both rank 3rd worst in the majors.

I can’t stress these two points enough, as they’re responsible for the Jays poor record. When you hear the expression “defense wins championships” all the time, it isn’t just because it’s fun to say. Defense and pitching are a great measure of success, usually more so than hitting. Of the top-10 teams in pitching and in defense, 6 are current playoff teams, while only 5 out of the top-10 hitting teams are playoff teams.

Toronto also seems to struggle in close games. Their 18-23 record in games decided by one run ranks in the bottom third of the league. Unsurprisingly, good teams usually excel in this situation. Detroit is the only team with a losing record in one-run games (15-21); the 10 playoff teams are a combined 220-182 (.547 winning percentage). As for the Jays poor record in this situation, it’s a combination of poor clutch hitting and game management, as well as some bad luck. You can’t blame the bullpen, because they’ve done their share.

And the fact that the bullpen has been so good this year (after being so bad last year) is not necessarily a good sign either. Statistics show that dramatic swings from one year to the next usually tend to regress to the mean over time (which is something we’ve already seen as the season has progressed).

Furthermore, the entire franchise looks like a mess at this point.  The players have acted like spoiled brats at times; they’ve spent more time blaming the umpires or the media than themselves for their poor play. The front office hasn’t been much better. They murdered the Ricky Romero situation, sending the former ace down to the minors to begin the season and then bringing him back up again, just to crush whatever little confidence he had left in a few terrible big league outings, to then promptly send him back down again. And he’s not the only pitcher they messed up on. They seem to have no idea where they’re going next with prospects, especially starting pitchers.

I remember earlier this summer, when the Jays rotation got hit with a whole bunch of injuries at the same time, an interview where Anthopolous admitted that they had no idea who to bring up for an empty spot in the rotation (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it).  As the General Manager, Anthopolous has scouts, advisors and assistants who are supposed to give him information so that he can manage, generally. It may just have been a mix-up, but it seemed to indicate a frightening nearsightedness.

The Case For It

If defense and pitching are areas that need improvement, hitting really isn’t. Apart from Edwin, who has had a spectacular season, the entire overall offense has been strong throughout the year. They rank 2nd in homeruns, 7th in slugging and 9th in runs scored. And as much as people tend to criticize the Jays for being a “long-ball-only” squad, they actually rank in the top half of the league in batting average, on-base percentage and average with runners on (and with runners in scoring position). That should still be a strength next year.

The fielding has improved lately, especially since Ryan Goins has taken over at second base. If I’m the Jays, I’m very happy with Ryan at second base Goins forward (I had to). The Jays have enough so-so defenders that can hit; they need a guy that can play defense, especially at middle infield. With Lawrie, Reyes and Goins, the Jays have strong defenders manning the main infield positions. Even JP Arencibia has taken a few strides defensively, moving from horrendous to mediocre behind the plate.

As for the pitching, there should be a vast improvement there, especially among the starting rotation. Mark Buerhle and R.A. Dickey will be back to contribute their 200+ innings, while Brandon Morrow should return from injury. Then there’ll be plenty of competition for those final two spots. Todd Redmond, Esmil Rodgers and J.A. Happ will not want to give up their current spots, but they’ll be pushed by the return of Kyle Drabek and Drew Hutchinson from injury, a possibly rejuvenated Ricky Romero (believe it), and whatever free agents they decide to spend on (Matt Garza, anyone). Even without Josh Johnson (who has been an unmitigated disaster and who they’ll probably let walk), that’s a good  9 or 10 pitchers vying for 5 spots. That’s a good thing. All of a sudden, Canada’s team has an MLB-level rotation again.

And although he may be vilified for the offseason moves, Alex Anthopolous is widely considered among the baseball world as an excellent GM. He built a strong farm system from scratch and then flipped some of those assets for (supposed) MLB talent, usually a good recipe for World Series contention. Keep in mind that this is a multi-year experiment. There’s still some time for things to work out.

The Verdict

The key here is not to overreact one way or another. They may not be a 95 win team next year, but they shouldn’t be a 75 win team either (like they are this season). I truly believe that the Jays will bounce back next year. Even though John Gibbons will be brought back to manage the team at the start of next season according to Anthopolous, don’t be surprised if he has a really short leash if things go sour, to allow the next manager to turn things around. I truly think that, come next September, the Blue Jays will be competing for a playoff spot.

So for now, I’ll try to build up a bit of anticipation for tomorrow night’s game against the Orioles, but deep down I know that, once again, I’m already looking ahead to next year.

But wait, I just thought of something: I’ll be in Toronto again next September!

Here we go again…

Data from mlb.com and espn.com were used to research this article.

The Eight Tiers of Super Bowl Contention

Led by former MVP Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay is one of the preseason Super Bowl favourites.

It’s that time again.

The NFL is back, and not a moment too soon. The season kicks off tonight with the annual Thursday night opener pitting the Super Bowl champs, in this case the Baltimore Ravens, against a marquee opponent, in this case the Denver Broncos. This year’s version has a little twist to it as the defending champs will be on the road (instead of being at home as they usually are) since the Baltimore Orioles decided that they’re too good now to make a few compromises for their football brethren.

I thought about doing a full preview of the league, team-by-team, but I’m tired of that, and I’m sure you are too. Instead, I’m dividing the league into 8 groups (and I realize that’s already the case, and that they’re named “divisions”, but these are different groupings). Because here’s the thing: as of right now, all 32 teams technically have the same chance of winning the Super Bowl, but we know that, in reality, that’s not the case. It’s like in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: all teams are equal, but some are more equal than others (it’s literature, check it out).

So with that said, here are the eight tiers of Super Bowl contention, from the weakest to the strongest.

1. Not a chance : Arizona Cardinals, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets, Oakland Raiders

One thing that will be apparent early on is that the NFC is much stronger than the AFC.

As the name would suggest, this group doesn’t have much to hope for in 2013 besides landing a high draft pick and drafting either Teddy Bridgewater or Jadeveon Clowney in the 2014 Draft. The Jags, Jets and Raiders don’t yet have a real answer at quarterback, and that’s not a good thing. Their offenses will struggle, and because of that, their defenses will be tested much too often.

As for the Cards, someone has to have the worst record in the NFC, and it’ll probably be the weakest team from one of the strongest divisions, which Arizona happens to be.

2. Still No : Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, San Diego Chargers, Tennessee Titans

Another three sub-par AFC teams and an unlucky NFC team. The Bills and Titans, like the 3 AFC teams in the first group, are far from solid at QB, while Phillip Rivers seems to be losing stock by the minute in San Diego. The Panthers, like the Cards, find themselves in one of the toughest divisions of the toughest conference and will suffer because of it, although if Cam Newton bounces back this season, it could be a different story.

One of these first 8 teams could surprise a few and make a run at the playoffs if things fall into place, but their odds of challenging for a Super Bowl are slim to none.  

3. It’s a Long Shot : Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams

Things are beginning to look up slowly, but these teams are still far from solid. There are a lot of question marks surrounding these four squads that could decide whether they grab a playoff of spot or a top-5 pick. Will Norv Turner’s arrival as offensive coordinator help Brandon Weeden take the next step to become a solid QB for the Browns? Are the Lions closer to the 10-6 team that made the playoffs in 2011 than the one that collapsed in the second half of 2012 to finish 4-12? Can new head coach Chip Kelly’s supersonic offense revitalize Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy and the rest of the Eagles offense? Is Sam Bradford the answer in St. Louis, and does he have enough weapons to help him? Unfortunately, the answer to all of these questions is probably not.

4. Doubtful : Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers

It’s starting to get interesting, but we’re still not quite at real contenders just yet. That being said, these are all teams that can make the playoffs if they put things together. The Cowboys still have a great passing attack; the Chiefs should be a lot better than last season, thanks to upgrades to their head coach, quarterback and defense; the Dolphins aren’t great but aren’t bad; and the Steelers, just like their QB, just seem to grind it out when you most expect them to fail. Dallas will have a hard time making the playoffs in that strong NFC, but the Chiefs, Dolphins and Steelers all have a shot in what should be a pretty wide open AFC playoff race.

5. If Things Go Their Way : Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

These are teams that need some “luck” on their side (I’m sorry, I had to), but they could be sneaky sleepers. The Bears need to be able to protect Jay Cutler in Marc Trestman’s new scheme so that the offense can approach the level of play of the defense. The Colts need even more of Andrew Luck this year because, as Bill Barnwell of Grantland writes, they may not have as much of the other (more common) type of luck in 2013. The Vikings need Adrian Peterson to break Eric Dickerson’s record because Christian Ponder isn’t really a great QB; apparently that shouldn’t be a problem, at least according to Peterson. And the Bucs need Josh Freeman to not do what he did in the second half of last season, especially in the tough NFC South, so that Tampa can be competitive.

There are no guarantees here, but one of them could make a run in the playoffs if everything goes well.

6. Don’t Count ‘Em Out : Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, Washington Redskins

They’re not the sexiest picks, but you just can’t count them out.

Aside from the Redskins, these teams all have good playoff pedigree and are three of the 4 last Super Bowl champions. It’s not like they don’t have weaknesses, but you can hide those over the course of 3 or 4 playoff games, just like the Ravens themselves did last year, thanks to what will most likely be remembered as “those 4 games where Joe Flacco played way over his head”. As for the Redskins, I think they take another step in Year 2 of the RG3 era, as long as he can stay healthy.

Out of all these teams, however, I think New Orleans is the one to watch for as a “surprise” (if any of these can be a surprise). They may not have a great defense, but they sure have a good offense, and having head coach Sean Payton back from his bounty-gate suspension not only makes a difference tactically, but also in overall mindset and emotions. I think they’re going to be in “Screw the NFL” mode. Score a touchdown to put you up by 30 points with 2 minutes left in the game? Go for two. This is definitely revenge time for the New Orleans Saints.

7.  They Will Compete : Atlanta Falcons, Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers

No surprises anymore. Anyone of these last eight teams has a very legitimate shot to lift the Vince Lombardi trophy come early February. They either have an elite offense (Falcons), an elite defense (Bengals), or a good balance of both (Patriots and 49ers). They may not make it to the Super Bowl, and they may not even win their division (ok, except for the Patriots, that’s almost a given); but nobody should be surprised to see any one of these teams go deep in the playoffs.

8. Definite Contenders : Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Seattle Seahawks

Again, no surprises. These are the my 4 conference finalists. They’re the 4 teams with the best balance on both sides of the ball. You could make an argument against each of these, but it would be either biased, nonsensical or pedantic.

For example, a lot of people are scared of Von Miller’s 6-game suspension, but I’m not one of them. Peyton Manning is apparently back to full arm strength and will limit any damage caused by Miller’s absence, and the Broncos will have him afterwards for the important games anyway. Houston QB Matt Schaub may not be among the elite, but that defense is, and at this point I’m not convinced that J.J. Watt can’t play quarterback too. The Green Bay Packers will be perennial contenders as long as they have Aaron Rodgers, and the Seattle Seahawks defense is so scary I’m surprised they haven’t scared all the Skittles out of Marshawn Lynch. These are the best bets, in my opinion, to contend for the Super Bowl.

And because I’ve gone this far, I may as well go a bit further. Like I said, these are my 4 conference finalists. I have the Packers and the Broncos facing off in the Super Bowl, with the Packers taking home the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Sorry Packers fans. I had to jinx someone.