The Sabres Draft Like Garbage: Here are the Receipts

[ubkev]

On 4/6/2021 at 8:56 PM, rakish said:

There's a book out there called the Genius of Crowds by Charles Bukowski. Though I've been drinking, I will try to make my argument coherent. Bukowski argued that if you poll the voters, you will get a better prediction of the results than any particular analyst. So for example, if you poll movie watchers as to who is going to win the award for best film, they will come up with a better prediction than you. The problem here is that they are talking about prediction of who is going to be voted best movie, which doesn't interest us. What we are looking for is what the actual best movie is, which, if you look at the history of the Academy awards, does an embarrassing job of valuing the actual best film. So what Genius of Crowds predicts is who will be selected, not the value of the selection.

Hiring a bunch of scouts to come up with a composite list, works very poorly.  They do tell you the order they will be selected (like in the Genius of Crowds), but they have no ability to tell you the quality of those picks (like the Academy Award results). You can go to thedraftanalyst.com and look at the last 20 years of Central Scouting and see how terrible Central Scouting is.  I would love to hear your argument that Central Scouting has value because... I like changing my mind.

I call my project of comparing Sabres drafting to other pundits Mom's Basement Stakes. My conclusion, so far, is that analyst that use group valuations, like McKenzie, are losing about 1/2 player per year to those not, like Pronman. For me, Pronman, Liger, Me, and Button are about a half player per year ahead of McKenzie and the Sabres.  I believe that if you understand what Charles Bukowski is telling you, that wouldn't be a surprise.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/2020-moms-basement-stakes.2769630/

I love that you're drunk reading Bukowski. Nothing could be more fitting.

[rakish]

1 hour ago, ubkev said:

I love that you're drunk reading Bukowski. Nothing could be more fitting.

I was misquoted. I obviously meant The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

[ubkev]

18 minutes ago, rakish said:

I was misquoted. I obviously meant The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

Bukowski would probably approve. 

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

Nice to know where The Athletic writers get ideas for their topics:

https://www.twobillsdrive.com/community/topic/225191-buffalo-sabres-nhl-2020-2021/page/37/?tab=comments#comment-7081395

😁

[HOF Wingman]

On 4/7/2021 at 12:07 PM, triumph_communes said:

Reinhart pick was over which Sam to pick. And we picked at least the better one. Just a disappointing draft overall that year after #1

Nylander pick was out of left field and totally whiffed. Again a Murray overlooked all the soft factors and chose the guy with drive issues. As if going into harder and harder leagues is somehow going to fix that?

I thought Sam was the best player in that draft at the time especially coming off a great Junior Gold Medal where he was the best player on team Canada that included a young McDavid. I also liked Sam because of his pedigree. His Father Paul was one of the most underrated players in the league when he played for Calgary and helped the Flames win a Cup during the Gretzky years. His father often played very well when the Flames and Oilers went toe to toe. I had no problem with taking Sam in the draft and I still don't. Sam is a very good player and is getting better. I think one of our best players and very consistent. I think we will be thankful we have him in the very near future.

Nylander on the other hand, I was red smokin hot that we took him when we were crying for defensive help and Sergachev was right freakin there. I consider that the Sabres Donte Whitner pick. And his father was a softy.

[Drag0nDan]

9 hours ago, HOF Wingman said:

I thought Sam was the best player in that draft at the time especially coming off a great Junior Gold Medal where he was the best player on team Canada that included a young McDavid. I also liked Sam because of his pedigree. His Father Paul was one of the most underrated players in the league when he played for Calgary and helped the Flames win a Cup during the Gretzky years. His father often played very well when the Flames and Oilers went toe to toe. I had no problem with taking Sam in the draft and I still don't. Sam is a very good player and is getting better. I think one of our best players and very consistent. I think we will be thankful we have him in the very near future.

Nylander on the other hand, I was red smokin hot that we took him when we were crying for defensive help and Sergachev was right freakin there. I consider that the Sabres Donte Whitner pick. And his father was a softy.

Whitner... With JP losman at QB, and the worst rush defense in the NFL and Ngata on the board.  Youboty and Ko Simpson in the same draft too... Oh and starting offensive linemen including Mike Gandy, Melvin Fowler, Chris Villareal, and Terrance pennington. The offense is bad?  Start right there...

Jets grab ferguson and Mangold in the 1st - which are like franchise cornerstones for the next 10+ seasons.  

Edited April 9, 2021 by Drag0nDan

[dudacek]

Well, we've quietly gone from five picks to 9 in this year's draft, so that does up our chances at picking up even more trash receipts 😘