Loweball

There's a lot of talk of Sabermetrics and Moneyball amongst the Oilers blogs. The basic premise of these is the use of advanced statistics, beyond typical boxscore numbers, to evaluate a players true value to his team. Moneyball was a book about Billy Beane's Oakland A's and their use of the principals of sabremetrics to outsmart conventional subjective wisdom amongst Beane's peers. Part of Beane's success in Oakland has been his ability to sell high. He traded pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder near the peaks of their careers and kept on rollin'. He has the ability to demand a ransom, get top prospects and serviceable players in return, and keep the A's competitive and on budget. He might be a bigger dickhead than most GMs (that's an accomplishment in and of itself), but he's proven to be a good one. If nothing else, he was ahead of the sabre-curve, being the first of what has now become many GM's that employ sabremetrics analysts.

Anyhoo, one of the Beane-James gang in the oilogosphere is Tyler of MC79hockey.com. I imagine if he ran a hockey team there would be a rate of turnover amongst players that would be alarming to the general fan population. One deal that would have been made last season was the trading of Matthieu Garon. I remember Tyler posting on several occasions that the Oilers should trade Garon at the deadline. Last season, Garon appeared to be emerging as a legit #1 goaltender who couldn't be scored against in the shootout. Now trades for starting goaltenders don't seem to happen all that often (Roberto Luongo notwithstanding), and scouring my memory banks I really can't think of many teams trading for a new #1 mid season or otherwise. Roli to the Oilers for a 1st round pick jumps to mind. Andrew Raycroft to the Leafs for a highly touted prospect. Manny Fernandez for perennial allstar Peter Kalus. Jose Theodore and David Aebisher were traded for each other. Thomas Vokoun got a 1st and two 2nd's from the Panthers. Biron went to the Flyers for a 2nd, Chris Mason was had for a 4th, and Roberto Luongo (the NHL's best goatender) for a bag of pucks - twice. Kiprusoff was an unknown commodity and a stopgap measure for the Flames so his trade value was next to nothing when he was moved as well. So - who did I miss? I definately don't see much of a pattern there other than the Panthers should be the preferred trading partner of every other team in the league and the Avs haven't had a goalie since Patrick Roy was wearing his wife beater under a Colorado sweater. Returns for starting goalies appear to be all over the board and based on team desperation and manager IQ more than anything else. But there may be something to Tylers belief that Garon should have been sent out last season at the deadline. There were a few teams that would have shilled for a goalie that was stealing wins on a regular basis. The afore named Avs perhaps, having already taken Tommy Salo off our hands, could have been fleeced again. Washington and Tampa were both looking for goalie help (oh yeah, Mike Smith - forgot about him), and Ottawa really stands out as the team that didn't have it's goalie shit together. So the market wasn't huge, but the return may have been a 1st or top prospect from the Sens and or a 2nd from some of the others? I don't know much about Ryan Stone, but he's likely not worth a 1st or 2nd draft choice, and the fact that the Oilers had to take a goalie back in the trade shows that there was a least a little negative value in the Garon return as well.

So, the Oilers held onto Garon, didn't make the playoffs, didn't extend Garon, signed JDD, created a three goalie situation, ruined Garon's confidence, took away his playing a practice time, eroded what little trade value he did have, and then moved him. Is this Anti-moneyball? Can we call it Loweball?