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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics here on the Wharton podcast
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network. This is Kade Massie hosting today with two of my three regular colleagues and co-host. Shane Jensen is
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in here. Audi Winer is in here. And quite unusually, we are all three on campus. Sadly, we're in different parts
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of campus, but we are all three on campus. Eric Bradlos isn't. Eric is away doing Eric Bradlo things. Steve will be
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back. As you guys know, we some combination of us anyway are here almost every week of the year. We're talking 48
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49 weeks a year and have been for more than 12 years now going back to when we started March 2014. We're recording on
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Tuesday afternoon as we typically do. Show will go up Wednesday morning and we're going to follow our usual format
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guests in the first half hour, open topics, open lines in the second half hour. We are delighted to welcome onto
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the show, first time in a long time. It's hard to have a bigger gap than Eric
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has had appearing on the show, but Eric Tolski is joining us, head of hockey operations with the Carolina Hurricanes,
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the wildly successful Carolina Hurricanes, highly thought of executive, rags to riches story, if you will. We'll
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cover that in a moment. Eric was on the show in May 2014, just before he went to
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work for the Hurricanes. one of our first, I don't know, 20 or 25 guests ever. It's quite a delight to have you
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back, Eric. Thanks for making time for us. >> Yeah, of course. We should do this once
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every 12 years as a matter of routine. >> And hopefully we'll get three or four
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more in. >> Yeah, we promise. We promise if it goes 12 years, we'll make sure to get back to
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you, Eric. But but we may may come to you before then. Eric, um give us we have lots of questions for you, but just
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let's make it concrete. You're running a hockey club right now and the season's
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heating up and you guys are as competitive as you usually are. Give us some sense of what today has been for
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you. Something a couple of things that you've done or worried about or thinking
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about right now. >> Yeah, so this part of the year we're through the trade deadline. We're
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getting ready for the playoffs. So there isn't a lot of player movement going on
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right now. A lot of it is sort of day-to-day stuff. you know, we had a player who was sick during the night and
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so can we get someone here in time in case he can't go. Um, what does the flight schedules look like? There's a
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lot of logistics like that that people don't think about that end up, you know,
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just being stuff you have to organize. Um, and then we're also, as we, you know, with a couple months left in the
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season, it's time to sort of think about what we want to do from a staffing perspective in the coming year. And so
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thinking about, you know, getting contracts extended, thinking about who's ready for a promotion, thinking about
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where we want to reshape things a little bit. So I've had some of those conversations today, too.
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>> Okay. But it feels like from from this team's construction perspective, it's
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baked. You've done the baking. It's it is what it's going to be. And does does
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that does that what does that say about where team dynamics and play and and game
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strategy and that kind of lower level more detailed than roster construction where that sits in the organization and
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where it sits right now this time of year? >> I'm sorry I didn't follow. What was the
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question? >> The things like in-game strategy, closer decisions week to week, anything about
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team dynamics and any interpersonal stuff going on. Does that all just sit with the coaching staff? And so it's
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kind of outside your purview. What's your role in that stuff? >> Yep. So the coaches have primary
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responsibility for all of that. Um I, you know, everybody in the world has opinions about it. Um I have
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conversations with them from time to time about how I see things. Um it's ultimately like they are the experts,
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right? And so in management, we will have things that we do to sort of highlight, hey, here's an area where we
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might be able to get better. here's something that looks like a problem. Um,
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the coaches are the ones who are going to be better than anyone at going through the video and saying, "How do we
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fix that problem? What can we do about it?" Or, "Hey, you know what? If we
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tried to fix that, it would create these two other problems. We don't want to go
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down that road. This is just a weakness we have to learn to live with." >> Um, that sort of consideration mostly
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falls within them. But yeah, you know, I have conversations with the coaching staff every day about what we're seeing,
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how we're seeing it, you know, what we think. >> And when you say what you're seeing, do
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you mean what you're seeing with your eyes or what you're seeing maybe with
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the data or both? >> Both for sure. So you know it's the daily conversations are mostly about
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what I saw with my eyes watching the game and um you know we will get regular reports from the data team analyses
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where they will say hey you know it looks like in this area we're giving up a lot of chances like this that we
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didn't used to give up and that's something that can be hard to pick up by
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eye because a lot might mean you know one or two a game and It's hard to tell
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the difference between two per game and one and a quarter per game, but it can be a big difference. And so data
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sometimes flags stuff like that for us, but what did I see last night is mostly eye stuff.
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>> Shane, >> yeah, I guess I mean this is my way of getting I wanted to ask you about
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Brandon Busy. You're the go and obviously his his story this season, something that's been on our radar for a
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few weeks now. Um, how much of that like I I I kind of would like to hear a little bit about how you found
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slashdeveloped that talent because he seemingly came out of nowhere and what and also I I would like to hear kind of
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what we were just talking about like how much of it was kind of a I test versus a
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a data thing uh for and and how much that how easy it is to evaluate goalenders using data.
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>> Yeah. So, I mean, you know, just for the viewers who aren't aware or listeners,
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um, the Sig goalie who we claimed off of waiverss at the start of the year, he had never played an NHL game before. He
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got into our lineup and just started winning. Um, and you know, I wish I could claim that we had a super clever
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formula that told us, you know, our coaching staff. If we knew he was going to do this, we would have just signed
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him in the summer and planned on having him in the NHL all along. We wouldn't
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have let someone else sign him and hoped we could get him off waiverss. Um, so, you know, like obviously we've had some
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good fortune here. This is something that I'm not going to oversell and say we knew was coming. We did see him as
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somebody who deserved a chance, right? So, he he went to college. She was undrafted, played a few years in
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college, did really well, came out of college as a free agent. Um, we were interested in him at the time, but had
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kind of a full goalie depth chart. Um, and he went somewhere where he probably saw more opportunity for himself. Um,
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and then that team had a couple goalies emerge and didn't end up with opportunity for him. So, he was in the
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minor leagues for them for a couple years and did really well in the minor leagues. and um finally got to where he
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was an unrestricted free agent and could sign anywhere. He changed to a new team
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that still saw him as the number three goalie. So you carry two in the NHL. Your number three is normally a minor
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leaguer who you will call up when you need him. >> And because of his age and experience,
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he had to clear waiverss before he could be sent down. And we had somebody else as our number three goalie who we knew
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we might be at risk of losing on waiverss. he needed to clear waiverss, too. And so we picked up Brandon
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basically as an insurance policy to make sure we had someone. And then the confluence of events, first we were the
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only claim on him, so we got him even though a good record meant we didn't have high waiver priority. Second, we
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did in fact lose the other goalie on waivers. So we needed a third goalie. And third, a goalie who one of our top
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two found himself struggling to come back from an injury that we thought he would be back from and missed a bunch of
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time. And so all of a sudden, the guy who was sort of brought in as a backup plan to be an emergency goalie was now
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one of our top two goalies. And you know, the the goalie who was out ended up missing a lot of time. And it created
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opportunity for Brandon to get a bunch of games. And he fit in the locker room. He fit on the ice. He's a great kid and
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it's, you know, it's been good. And we signed him to a three-year extension a
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couple months ago. Can >> Let me ask a real follow because this is almost like um a a meta question about
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analytics in general. Like why was it that his minorly career, his college career, which all you're saying is all
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really good, um didn't lead to um a a playing job either first or second in a
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in a NHL team. Is it because, and this is my speculation, that goalie is just really hard to predict. Um, or is it
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that you just missed it? I mean, that those are the two possibilities, I guess. >> Yeah. I mean, there I mean, so we looked
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at his data and said he was someone who deserved a chance. Um, that's different
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from saying he's someone who I know is going to be good. And when you're
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filling out your top two goalies, you're looking for people who you have information on and confidence on. And
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there are a lot of people who have done well at college level and minor league level and look like they deserve a
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chance. And you don't really know how it's going to go until they get into
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games. The misfortune for him was that he spent three years as a backup as a sort of minor league emergency goalie
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and never happened to get into games. And most of the time there's an injury
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here or there, a trade, whatever, and you get 10, 20 games, and if they go well,
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now there's a market for you. You just never got that. >> So, just to summarize, it sounds very
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interesting. The It's very hard to know coming out of minor leagues and college
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who's going to be good. So, what people do smartly is see the ones who get a
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chance, use that information, and that dominates over a question mark person um who could be good or maybe not. And so
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you you you go with the people who have experience. And so you basically took a a chance on someone who could be good.
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You didn't know he wasn't good. Um and you just had a a high question mark.
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It's almost like drafting a college pitcher for baseball. You just don't
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really know until they face major league hitting or a high level minor league hitting. Um but you know more than say a
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high school pitcher. So that's a And and do you think that's more at the goalie
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position than at others or is that uh pretty typical across hockey? uh it's probably more a goalie than others
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because there's there are you know there are not as many spots for a goalie on
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your roster, right? So if you've got you know a forward who is in this situation,
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you've got 12 forwards in the NHL, one of them's getting hurt here and there,
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there's a lot of opportunities to get him a call up. It's more possible that a
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team could go through a year without any goalie injuries and never need that call
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up, >> right? If that happens two or three years in a row now this guy who really
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deserved a chance just hasn't gotten it yet where a forward you would have found
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chances somewhere in there. >> Can we take a moment to update us on the current wisdom around hockey I mean
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goalie performance in the playoffs. My sense as an outsider is that it matters a great deal. Um hot goalies tend to
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carry teams or at least they give a great advantage but I've never remembered the wisdom on is that
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predictive or not? or is it only descriptive after the fact? What's our best understanding of this right now
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just to make me, if nothing else, a more sophisticated consumer of playoff hockey
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this year? >> Yeah, so I think what you sort of hinted at is exactly right that a goalie can
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very easily single-handedly win a series or lose a series. And you know, obviously the better ones are a little
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more likely to be the winner than the loser, but the good ones lose series for you sometimes and the bad ones win
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series for you sometimes. It's just hard to predict. And what it comes down to
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is, you know, if a good goalie is going to stop 91% of the shots he sees and an average goalie is going to stop 90%,
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we're talking about a difference of one shot per 100. And you might only face
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150 shots in a series. And so just by random dumb luck, you know, a bad goalie might be at 93 or 94%, a good goalie
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might be at 87%. It just happens, you know, it's a small sample. >> Shame.
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>> Kind of following up on that, not just specific to goalies, how random do you
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feel like the playoffs in hockey are? In baseball, I think it's a fairly well-held belief that the playoffs are
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quite random and at least in certain circles that it's almost not worth building a a team for the playoffs
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because of the randomness. Do you kind of feel like in hockey there's enough?
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Is is is it so random or or can you is there actually like strategy you can kind of do to build a team specifically
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for the playoffs? >> Yeah, I mean both things are true. the the game does change a little bit in the
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playoffs when everybody's a little bit more willing to be physical, playing a
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little bit harder. You know, over the course of 82 games, there are more lulls in energy than there are in a playoff
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series. And so that does change the game a little bit. You know, there's also
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probably a tendency of referees to try to stay out of the picture a little bit more and so they let a little bit more
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go and that so there is some stuff that changes. Um, a lot of that is kind of at
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the margins. Um, but you know, it's not zero. You know, to your question about
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how much randomness there is. I, you know, I the thing that is tricky for me is when people hear someone say there's
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a lot of randomness. They think you're saying, "Well, it's just dumb luck." And
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it's not. You know, the guy makes a great save. That's an actually great
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play. He didn't get lucky. He made a great save. luck is that he happened to
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make the save today when he might not have tomorrow, you know, and it's like
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sometimes you do it and sometimes you don't. That's not luck, but it's random.
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Um, and you know, it like that is a real thing, right? Teams, one of the things to your point about
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how random it is, in almost any given year, it is more likely that the best team in hockey will lose in round one
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than that they'll win the cup, >> right? So it's that gives you a sense of
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the sort of amount of randomness. That's definitely not true in basketball, right? So
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>> I I love I really love what you just said because we talk about that a lot.
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What we call as statistitians randomness isn't randomness. >> It operates mathematically
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as as if it is randomness. And it often gets in the way of us dealing with with team because if I were to talk to an NFL
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coach about a model that I have for deciding whether they should be going going for it on fourth down, they're
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going to say, "I don't care about your model. I'm going to ask the question,
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can I run the play that will work right now?" >> And for them, that's not a question of
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randomness, but for me, it absolutely is. >> And it's just almost like a philosophy
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among the statistitians versus the players. And you're you understand the distinction very clearly um which is
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really and that number about the about the um not making the going past it. But let me ask you a question specifically.
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How much does sort of line diversity matter at the playoff level uh as opposed to the season? So these are I'm
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I'm starting to learn a lot about hockey. Shane's are Canadian so he knows
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the most. Um I don't even know where Kate is relative to me but I've always
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been pretty low down on the the hockey knowledge um uh tree. Um, but I started to learn that about lines and and we
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actually went to if you see it. So, how much does it matter between the between your top line versus your second and
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even how many you have three? Um, and and does that make a distinction in the playoffs?
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>> Yeah. So, different people will view this differently and I don't think there
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is a clear right answer. Um, some people will say they want their team to have an
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identity where all four lines play the same way and they're going to wear you
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out doing it that way. Um, other people will say then you run into a team that can handle that style of play and you
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have nothing to fall back on. You know, I truthfully I think probably how good your team is matters more than any of
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that. You know, again, we're we're sort of fighting at the margins and um it
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does sometimes come down to whether a team is a good matchup for you or a tough matchup. That's that can depend on
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a lot of things, right? It can be, you know, your best defensive player happens to naturally play well against their
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best offensive player >> and then, you know, nothing else really matters because you already have that
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starting advantage for you. >> So, it it's hard to say really when it comes to that kind of stylistic thing,
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what is right or best. Um, you know, my personal view is accumulate as much talent as you can and we'll figure it
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out from there. Eric, let's talk about that a little bit more. I'm curious what
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you think your edge is against the NHL. You guys have been very strong performers for a number of years now. To
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the extent that you can articulate where that edge comes from, what do you think
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it is? What is it that Carolina's doing differently or better than other clubs
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are with that that helps explain your success? >> Yeah, so there's a couple things. One is
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the way we play. Um so our head coach has a philosophy of being sort of very aggressive pressuring all the time. Um
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it's hard to do and he is a very detail oriented coach. Um that he makes sure
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that everything behind that pressure is designed to cover it up. Right? So, if you took five guys on a pond and said,
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"We're going to pressure all over the ice," they would screw it up from time
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to time, cuz that happens. And you wouldn't have the discipline to cover, and it would be breakdown after
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breakdown, and it would be a mess. Um, we have a coach who is detail oriented enough to think through how you minimize
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the downside of that pressure. And, you know, of course, there's always going to
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be some downside. You can't avoid that. That's a trade-off. but his ability to
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get everybody playing the right way and make sure we're covering for each other
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makes it so that we can be really effective playing that way. And it's exhausting to play against us when
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you've got four lines that are playing really aggressively pressuring you just
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kind of never get a break on the other team. >> And so that's one part of it. Then what
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goes handinhand with that is we have a very deep roster. So there, I would say most of the best teams in the league
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have a couple of superstars who they got, you know, at the very top of the draft when the team stunk and you wait a
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few years until those guys hit their prime and now they just give you a starting point that makes everything
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easier. You've got, you know, those two guys to build around or three guys or
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however many it is >> and you can sort of be middling through the rest of the roster and still have a
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really good team. We don't really have that. Most of our best players are guys
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who came sort of later in the first round, second round, free agency, however it was. And so the way we make
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up for not having those guys at the top end is being really solid all the way down to the bottom of our lineup.
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>> And a that means the bottom of our lineup, you know, is often better than
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the other teams bottom of the lineup and they can gain ground there for us. But B, when you couple that with a system
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that is high pressure all the time and you're rolling four lines and three D
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pairs that can all do it and are all putting you under stress all game long, it's a hard team to play against. And so
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that >> that combination of a roster that is built so that everyone can do it and a
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team that, you know, a coaching system that has guys playing in a very high pressure way. It just it makes us tough
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to play against. >> Related somewhat related question and going back to the playoff hockey
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plausibly being different. I'm curious how you've maintained your philosophy in
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the face of a narrative that says you got to build a roster differently in the playoffs. And especially given that you
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were knocked out two years in a row by the Panthers who follow that philosophy. And it's this it's this very general
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tension in sports between the narrative and the process. You guys have a process. Analytics oriented
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organizations like to focus on a process. Sometimes the narrative really stresses that process. If everyone's
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saying you guys got knocked out by the Panthers, they've got a team built for
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the playoffs. You've had to stand in the face of that and maintain your process.
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And you seem it seems that you have what has that been like? How is it that you've been able to maintain your
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philosophy and your process in the face of such a strong narrative? >> Yeah. I mean, so partly part of the
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answer is I think a lot of the narrative stuff is just, you know, not terribly grounded in reality, right? So, forget
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about our team or Florida's team and just ask someone what playoff hockey looks like. And they're going to say,
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you know, you can't rely on your power play being great because there aren't as
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many power there aren't as many penalties in the playoffs. They're going
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to say you can't rely on, you know, fancy rush offense because a lot of that
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tightens up when everybody's defending hard. You have to be willing to just put
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in deep and go forch check and create turnovers and get some chaos and you know things will work for you.
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That's exactly how we play. >> It's also exactly how Florida plays.
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Like >> they copied the way we were playing before they got good. And so it's, you
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know, like >> the difference is they have um they have some players who probably play a little
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bit more on the physical edge than our team does. And you know that creates a sense about
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the way they play that people don't have about us. But in terms of the style of
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play, we're doing exactly the same thing in terms of keeping the puck in their
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end, putting the pressure on, not relying on, you know, high octane superstars making plays through the
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neutral zone, not relying on getting power plays as our only way to score. Yeah, it is a very similar thing. And
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the other thing is the first time we played them, we out chanced them by a million
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>> and we got really good goalending at our end and they got goalending stopping 97%
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of the shots at their end and we lost four games by one goal. You know >> with I think two were in overtime and a
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third one the goal was with 30 seconds left in regulate. >> You know it was a very very close series
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where again you know that guy makes two fewer saves and we win the series. Okay. Excellent. But it just reminds me
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that Shane and I have a perennial like fantasy an analytics question from hockey that you might be able to answer
00:23:45
off the top of your head. Shane, you might help me here. We have a sense that players step it up espec hockey. We It's
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like it's like we start texting each other when that happens because it's
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like mustwatch TV because everything just goes up. We have so much motion tracking data now that should be an
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observable difference. Is that true? If we had the motion tracking from a regular season hockey game and a
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overtime playoff hockey game, would we see differences in how much exertion there is on the ice?
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>> Yeah. And if you want to make even more tangible, you could talk about like say
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the for check or something like that or or or or back check, what whatever. >> Yeah. So, I would say um the challenging
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thing about that is when you get to overtime, players start to get tired, right? So, third period of a tie game,
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the energy is way up there. By midway through the first overtime, it's falling
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off. And so when I tell you we out chanced Florida by a million in that series, it actually at the end of the
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series, it was only a thousand because we had one game that went into three or four overtimes and our guys just got
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worn out >> and we out chanced them through regulation of that game >> and first overtime, second overtime,
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third overtime. It was like, you know, we're playing this dump and chase game
00:25:01
where they're dumping it in and then going for a line change because they don't have the energy to forch check.
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And if every time you dump, you get the puck, you dump it in and go for a line change, it's hard to ever create
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offense. And so that one game wiped out a lot of our advantage for the series in
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terms of the scoring chances just because our guys, you know, couldn't keep the pressure up for seven periods
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in a row and, you know, hopefully they never have to, >> right? Okay. Okay. Very interesting.
00:25:27
That's good. That's a good rejoiner to the fantasy that we have. All right. I'
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I've got one I I consider it maybe the most important question for some of our
00:25:34
audience. Um and it goes to your background, Eric. FA famously, you have a PhD in chemistry. Famously, you have
00:25:43
27 patents. Famously, you worked in industry for 10 years before jumping over. And you started as a blogger and
00:25:49
then as a part-time as a consultant. And you've really worked your way up step by
00:25:53
step through the organization to your current position. We work with a lot of analysts. We have
00:25:59
students that come through here as analysts. And a lot of analysts have trouble building credibility in a sports
00:26:06
organization because they didn't grow up playing the game and they're they're
00:26:09
they're they have a different background. They talk differently. They look different.
00:26:14
>> I know this is hard to reflect on given that it's you you're talking about you.
00:26:17
But what do you think you've done over your 10 years, over your 12 years, over
00:26:22
your 12 years with the Hurricanes to build the credibility where you could come in as such an outsider and and and
00:26:29
then get responsibility after responsibility until now you run the organization and the head coach is a
00:26:34
Hall of Fame player and plausibly a Hall of Fame coach eventually. It's like
00:26:39
you've you've got very strong folks in that building. What advice would you
00:26:43
give to others as they try to follow that kind of path? Yeah. So, I mean, in some real sense, I
00:26:50
was lucky. So, in 2014, there were five or six hockey teams that hired people out of the blogosphere to be sort of the
00:26:59
first analyst in the league. Um, and some of those teams, it was kind of owner driven. Um, somebody reading stuff
00:27:08
and saying, "Why aren't we doing this? Go hire someone." And the GM said,
00:27:12
"Fine, I'll hire someone." and gave the person a cubicle and ignored their
00:27:16
reports and went on their merry day. >> Um, I was lucky that the team that
00:27:22
reached out to me was a team where it was GM driven. It was, you know, a management group saying, I don't really
00:27:29
know if there's anything to this, but I don't want to miss the chance to get
00:27:33
better. So, let's bring someone in and see what we think. And so, you know, I
00:27:37
still, like you say, you have to build up credibility, but I had every opportunity to do that, right? So from
00:27:43
the outset, they were asking what I thought. They might not weigh it very heavily initially because I'm an
00:27:50
outsider. What do I know? But they at least asked, they paid attention. They remembered. And you know, each time what
00:27:57
you say sort of pans out, you build up a little bit more credibility if somebody's paying attention to it.
00:28:03
>> And they were. And gradually, you know, they brought me in because they wanted
00:28:07
to see if there were ways I could help. And over time, they came to believe there were.
00:28:14
You're speaking about an organizational culture that was open, not maybe more
00:28:18
than open, interested in an outside perspective. Are there other examples of what the organization was doing at that
00:28:24
time that showed that kind of openness? Were they were they looking for edges in
00:28:27
other ways as well? Were they unorthodox in other ways as well? >> Yeah. So, I mean, the that time was a
00:28:34
little complicated for the team. Our spending was near the bottom of the league and the team was in a deep
00:28:40
rebuild. Um, and so a lot of, you know, looking for an edge meant trying to accumulate future assets, not trying to
00:28:49
find ways to be better today. >> Okay. >> Um, and, you know, so it was a lot of it
00:28:55
was sort of making sure we were thinking about the draft the right way, making sure we were not missing chances to
00:29:03
collect uh, future assets that could help the team when we were ready to compete. um the management group at that
00:29:11
time. I would say this may be different from at least some teams is there was a strong ethos that you know again hall of
00:29:21
fame GM um believed he didn't get into this to try to squeak into the playoffs
00:29:28
as an eight seed. He got into this to win championships and so he was not interested in taking shortcuts at a
00:29:36
veteran free agent who might put us in contention for that bottom playoff spot. He wanted to build it the right way and
00:29:42
put together a core that could really contend. >> Um so there was an ownership group that
00:29:48
was prepared for that as long as spending was kept low during that time and a management group that really
00:29:55
thought about it that way. Um, and that was probably freeing compared to some markets where you would feel like we
00:30:02
can't do that. We have to compete. You know, whatever you do, you need to get
00:30:06
three wins better than you were last year. >> Right. Right. Right. Okay. We're we're
00:30:11
going to have to let you go, but Audi wants to jump in. Audi usually has great last questions.
00:30:15
>> Think of it as a last question. It partly is from my lack of knowledge. Um
00:30:19
so in every sport we always ask the question what is the biggest way that's analytics data analysis uh statistics
00:30:27
has impacted the way the game is either played strategically or player acquisition. And so the of course with B
00:30:34
with Moneyball with baseball the player acquisition is a big deal where you look
00:30:39
for under undervalued uh asset particularly on base and the way the game is played you don't worry so much
00:30:45
about strikeouts you bunt less you steal you know home runs that kind of thing and every sport kind of has that um and
00:30:52
in fact you can early on you could identify that the teams that were doing well were doing those things as opposed
00:30:57
to the other things. So my question is hockey um what are those if I were to say what are the you know the the
00:31:03
analytic contribution either strategically or or in asset evaluation that has changed the way we think of
00:31:11
hockey what would be like I would say on the strategy side a lot of it is either
00:31:17
behind the scenes where people aren't really seeing it or sort of minor stuff
00:31:21
at the margins like how early do you pull the goalie you know stuff like that there's a little bit of that um
00:31:30
on the roster side, I think the biggest shift, and it's one that's still in
00:31:35
progress, comes back to that point about there not being very many goals per year
00:31:39
and there being room for fluctuation. Um 10 years ago, 15 years ago, there were a
00:31:47
lot of contracts handed out because somebody's shooting percentage was higher than it had been in the previous
00:31:53
five years. >> And hey, it looks like he's figured it out. He's a 25 goalc scorer now. And if
00:32:00
he took kind of the same number of shots and kind of the same caliber shots, the
00:32:04
odds that he had figured out something new and was going to make them keep going in were not as high as people
00:32:10
thought. >> Um there's still always going to be a little bit of that pull, right? Because
00:32:15
>> when when they are successful, you know, it impacts the way you perceive each
00:32:20
shot. It impacts the way you perceive the way he's playing. like there's
00:32:25
always going to be some influence and maybe rightly so, but I think the sort of catastrophic mistake from 10 or 15
00:32:33
years ago has mostly been eliminated from the game today where, you know, people recognize, yeah, he had a great
00:32:40
year. I'm not ready to assume that's what he is forever now. >> Progression to the mean. They discovered
00:32:48
it. >> All right, we should let you go, Eric. Uh, thank you much for taking time. Uh,
00:32:55
great to talk with you and good luck with the rest of the regular season and the playoffs. We'll be pulling for you
00:33:00
and pulling for the Hurricanes. >> Yeah, thanks. It was fun. I'll talk to
00:33:03
you in 2038. >> That was We knew that was coming. Thank you, Eric. It was great.
00:33:09
>> Thank you. >> All right, that's been the first half of Wharton Moneyball. Come back and join us
00:33:13
after the break. Welcome back. Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to the second half of
00:33:20
this week's show. the second half of a full hour on sports analytics here on
00:33:25
the Wharton podcast network. Hey Massie hosting this week with my buddies Shane Jensen and Audi Winer. Brad Low is away.
00:33:32
Bradlo will be back just off the horn with Eric Tolski uh general manager of the Carolina
00:33:38
Hurricanes, the high-flying top performing Carolina Hurricanes. Made the conference finals the last two years and
00:33:48
they're playing well again this year. Shane's been enamored of their um free
00:33:52
agent offseason signing in the in goal who is setting all kinds of records. So good fun. Good fun. Any reactions to the
00:34:00
Tulski conversation? >> Well, I loved it. Um I don't know that much of hockey, but he gave me an answer
00:34:05
to a question that I really appreciate which is something that I think is true is that I think the observation of
00:34:12
analytics to the naked eye when you watch the the sport is less than in the other sports. Like basketball looks very
00:34:19
different and you can point to analytics as causing the the the the collapsing of
00:34:24
the sport down to post ups and three-pointers. Football looks different, way more aggressive. U
00:34:30
baseball of course is different. People would say it's worse, but we can argue
00:34:34
that. Um >> yeah, I was going to say like it's it hasn't gotten around to ruining hockey
00:34:38
yet is what you're getting at. >> But you don't really notice it like I
00:34:40
mean if you watch hockey I don't people haven't said it it's a different game
00:34:43
now because analytics have changed it. And that's kind of what he said. We we
00:34:47
do muck around a little bit on the edges, but nothing in a not nothing in a really game-changing way. Although I
00:34:53
thought he might get there because one of the things that that in golf um that Mark Brody has taught us about analytics
00:34:59
is you just you just put you it's risk you just hit it as hard as you can. Um
00:35:04
instead of trying to be precise, it turns out that value is that aggression is worth it. And in soccer, the
00:35:09
aggression pressuring is worth it. And then he said that his team they they're
00:35:14
aggressive. They pressure. But he didn't say that's the way to do it. He said
00:35:17
that's the way that they do it. And that's a little bit different. Um to be clear, he credited Brenda uh at
00:35:24
least. But I think he did a lot of crediting other people in this whole interview. He credited the organization.
00:35:29
He credited management. He credited his coach. He was very humble in that way. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I feel like it always
00:35:34
like I mean let's say like basketball and hockey are you know the analog is they're both kind of continuous movement
00:35:41
uh kind of you you'd think that they Alex would hit them equally hard but you
00:35:46
know hockey has a way smaller sample size on kind of the outcome like in basketball you've got a process you want
00:35:53
to refine a move you've got like 50 times a game to try it out or something like that and and you get to see the
00:36:00
results because you actually have a high success rate on each one, right? Whereas
00:36:06
hockey, I think a lot of the analytics is towards kind of creating opportunities or kind of like
00:36:10
essentially latent aspects of the game that you know again justify the kind of process or whatever. I'm sure I'm sure
00:36:17
there's kind of internal data that companies are that sorry that uh teams are using to justify their process kind
00:36:24
of decisions but I mean if you just look at you know from the public's point of
00:36:28
view where it's just like goals and wins and stuff like that I think it's just
00:36:32
there's less kind of uh outcome to um to see that. So I I do think it's like less
00:36:38
apparent kind of I guess like you know it's harder to kind of see it's more
00:36:42
subtle to see the the changes in process perhaps that come from analyt any analytics applied to hockey.
00:36:49
>> Yeah. >> Shane you uh we're you've given us a few hockey notes. What what do you think's
00:36:54
most notable here as we hit kind of the stretch run of the regular season? What should we be thinking about? What are
00:37:00
you paying attention to? Well, I I just I I guess it's uh um I mean, we already talked a little bit in
00:37:07
the first half about the the Brandon Busy uh situation with that. So, I I think honestly it is mostly about I I
00:37:14
mean, we talked about this a little last week, what the Savers have been doing this season going out of nowhere
00:37:20
>> is is pretty uh pretty interesting. I feel like the East has really kind of
00:37:25
other than I guess Carolina is a main state, but I feel like the East at least in hockey has kind of been all over the
00:37:31
place. Like Florida's not even Florida's tank. They're this defending Stanley Cup
00:37:35
tank champions and they're basically tanking now for a top 10 pick. Um, yeah.
00:37:42
I just so essent you you know I guess the playoff we talked a little bit with Eric about how
00:37:49
random the playoffs are and I've kind of I baked that into my expectations. The
00:37:53
regular season has looked a little bit more random to me this year at least in the East.
00:37:59
>> Yeah, the East looks a little weaker, right? And so a team like Carolina that
00:38:03
is strong and has been strong has a little easier path to the finals coming out.
00:38:08
>> True. Yes, that's right. I think Carolina is the only team in the east I
00:38:11
would put with any of the say top two or three teams in the west. I mean the stars and the avalanche are really kind
00:38:17
of head and shoulders above above uh everybody except for I think Carolina. >> So you know let me ask a question
00:38:24
because I didn't really understand the role of stars in hockey. Um and he described specifically that the the
00:38:29
Hurricanes do not have it's not a star driven team. >> Yeah. >> Right. And they're just de and balance.
00:38:36
Um how common is that? I mean is that >> well I mean >> highly unusual or I mean how much of
00:38:41
like in basketball you think if you don't have a star or two or at least one
00:38:45
where you going and >> well you're not Yeah that's why there's
00:38:48
five teams in basketball actually going for it at any given year you know right uh in hockey the stars I think are
00:38:55
spread around a little bit more but I mean some of the big like like I mean Edmonton is obviously the case of of
00:39:00
what I think Eric was describing of you know they've got a couple good player
00:39:05
like superstars But it's not a depth team and it's, you know, it's not it's
00:39:11
kind of it's it's a very uneven team in terms of like, you know, line diversity,
00:39:16
I guess, as we talked about. And so that's anam, you know, that's kind of an
00:39:19
example in the other direction. I and I I think again Eric talked about as a team building thing. The way the the way
00:39:26
that has to happen, the way an Edmonton can happen is you need to be terrible for several seasons to get like a few
00:39:33
number one picks. and and that's that's essentially what Edmonton was terrible
00:39:36
for like a decade and accumulated the kind of like superstar talent, but in hockey most teams don't want to be
00:39:43
terrible for that long and it's even chancey then to get that superstar talent. So I think most teams try and do
00:39:51
more what Carolina does. I mean to again as Eric described I think what Carolina
00:39:57
can make their specific combination work because of kind of the gravitas and process of their coach and and and
00:40:04
various other elements that I think are unique to them. >> Right. I think it is a it's a it's a it
00:40:10
I don't think there are many teams that are as philosophically depth oriented as
00:40:14
Carolina is and partly because it does match so well with the preferred strategy of the coach. Um, but I mean,
00:40:22
you know, you usually hear teams, at least fan bases. I know less about the front offices, but the fan bases lament
00:40:27
not having the stars and when are they going to get the stars and what's the
00:40:30
strategy for getting the stars? >> If I was a Hurricanes fan, a really deep
00:40:33
hurricanes star, I'd be like, "Fine, build the deep tea. Just add a star on
00:40:37
top of it if you got a chance. Why not?" >> And that's one of the critiques of these
00:40:40
guys and they and it was one of the critiques of the of the of the deadline this year. They were quiet at the
00:40:45
deadline. They didn't make a push for that extra that extra star. Um, so we'll
00:40:49
see. We'll see how it plays out. All right. Um before OD's going to leave
00:40:53
here just momentarily. Odd. Anything on baseball? You guys are kicking off the season. Your season starts tomorrow.
00:40:59
>> The day this show goes up. >> It does. Not every team is playing tomorrow. Um
00:41:03
>> No, it's Yeah, I mean it's the Yankees and Giants are playing tomorrow and then
00:41:07
the mo most teams start it off on Thursday, I guess. >> Well, there's my night. There you go. Or
00:41:11
is it the They're playing in the afternoon. So, um >> Oh, they're playing each other. They're
00:41:14
doing inner division on on day one. >> Yeah. really inner league play on day
00:41:20
one. That's >> Yeah, it's all over the schedule now. I I think that I think the Red Sox are
00:41:24
starting out against the Reds. So, I think uh yeah, >> I guess that's a way of that's fun. If
00:41:29
you're going to give one game, you'd give a game to both leagues, I suppose.
00:41:32
Huh. >> I don't have don't have much to say about it. Could wait till the game get
00:41:35
season gets started. Looks like the Yankees don't have a major catastrophe in spring training, so that's good. Um
00:41:41
we'll we'll we'll wait till the season rolls out. But next week, just a plug,
00:41:44
we have a baseball historian coming to talk on our show, a professor of history who specializes in modern urban history,
00:41:52
has written a new book on baseball, so we can and he's got a chapter on analytics, but we can ask it in general
00:41:58
any of our any questions. Um, so that's next week. Professor D, >> bring your bring your uh tweed jackets
00:42:04
and your pipes, fellow. >> Yes, absolutely. And although I have to say uh I didn't realize it but but he's
00:42:11
maybe we'll talk about it next week. He's a crazy fan. Usually professors to
00:42:15
have a a standoffish attitude towards this the subject that they're actually
00:42:19
researching but he's a nut crazy fan. >> Wow. I try and maintain my impartiality.
00:42:24
Yeah. But I mean everybody's got their own thing. >> Yeah. And Eric and I really do that with
00:42:28
the Yankees every time. >> Oh yeah. No, I mean unbiased. Unbiased. Cover all cover all parts of the country
00:42:34
equally. How how do the forecast for let's just pick the most obvious team Dodgers compare to historical top teams?
00:42:42
How how high is this projection these for this team? Dodgers so high up there. >> I haven't done it analytically, but the
00:42:50
projections seem whack like like really out of out of out of handle. I mean I guess it's been a while since we've had
00:42:56
like a repeat champion. Maybe people's I I don't know. It's people are going
00:43:00
crazy over but like you know I think I had them Pakakota had them at like you know something like 105 like we again
00:43:07
projections above 100 wins. >> Well that's crazy fan graphs which is generally as smart as you get when it
00:43:13
comes to simulating and regressing to the mean. >> They have them at at it's got to be
00:43:19
historically high 96. >> That's rid Yeah. >> 96 is historically high. What do you
00:43:24
think the >> I've seen probabil like basically probabilities of like almost guaranteeing playoffs for
00:43:31
them? >> Yeah, so playoff percentage is undoubtedly extremely high. I mean, look
00:43:36
at the playoff odds graph. Um I'm sure it's, you know, ridiculous, but um um
00:43:41
>> I mean I again I think we I'm though I actually kind of do like the you know
00:43:45
obviously some of the team players specific players on the Dodgers are some of my play favorite players in baseball.
00:43:51
I kind of feel like I I I I feel like we I'm I'm I'm cheering against him this
00:43:55
year because I I do think like if the Dodgers win it all again this year, it's almost guaranteed like the drum
00:44:01
beats for kind of a lockout and like all this kind of stuff. I I I think, you know, we've got a collective bargaining
00:44:07
uh negotiation coming up next off season. I feel like just for for my own kind of optimism for how that ne salary
00:44:16
negotiation goes, the best case scenario is not the Dodgers winning it all again. Right.
00:44:22
>> Okay. So, hold on. Let me make sure >> because this is the big issue is going
00:44:26
to be a salary cap and the the owners and the teams are going to resist it and you're saying
00:44:32
>> players are going to resist it. Major >> That's right. Owners are pushing,
00:44:35
players are going to resist. If the Dodgers win, it's going to be more fuel for the salary cap side because they've
00:44:42
been so outspending everybody. And and Shane, you're revealing a bias against a
00:44:46
salary cap because you don't want that. You're saying you don't want the Dodgers
00:44:49
to win because it would increase the chance. It would increase the ammunition for the salary cap people. Now, normally
00:44:54
I'm for the players, but in this case, I don't know, man. I mean, >> well, I I'll give you a little little
00:45:01
fact. So, Bruce Oh, yeah. Okay. He sat next to me. Well, I'll just to finish this simple
00:45:08
point and before I actually head out to my class, um he before he was the head of the union, he said, "If I'm
00:45:14
representing the union, they'll be a salary crap over my dead body." So, you
00:45:19
know that they're going to fight this tooth and nail. It's what And it's it's
00:45:24
in some sense an odd um thing for the players to support because it's great for the top, but pretty bad for the
00:45:31
median. >> Yeah. Why don't why don't why don't they say why would they would trade the cap
00:45:37
for a higher share would they not like you >> maybe they would and we'll see how that
00:45:40
plays out because you got to get teams that have who are not spending spending and that's
00:45:45
>> yeah that's that was what I was going to say is the problem is not the cat like
00:45:49
the problem with baseball is not the five or so teams that are really trying to win it all it's the 10 or so teams
00:45:56
that aren't trying at all to win >> ever >> and just kind of taking in revenue
00:46:01
sharing so it's like, you know, it's more about the floor than it is about
00:46:05
the ceiling. I mean, the Dodgers are maybe testing that by I mean, they're being kind of uh ostentatious, I guess,
00:46:11
for lack of a better term right now. But, you know, no more I don't think any
00:46:16
more relatively ostentatious than what the Yankees were doing in the early 2000s when baseball was at its peak, by
00:46:23
the way. Um, at least in my my mind. >> Shane, Shane, why are you against the
00:46:28
salary cap? because you're Red Sox fan and they spend pretty freely or or what
00:46:32
is there? >> No, no, no, no. It's I think it's more off I think it's a distraction. I I mean
00:46:37
I think it's very obvious. Um, you know, there it's it's again it's penalizing
00:46:44
the teams that are trying to win to the to to to the benefit of teams under the opaces of fairness, but really
00:46:54
to benefit to to essentially continue to carry all these teams that are not doing
00:46:59
anything, >> right? >> Because they pay this enormous luxury tax. Dodgers are at, you know, whatever
00:47:04
hundreds of millions of dollars they're paying. huge num amount of money goes to
00:47:08
the other team because of the ledger tax. So the pirates can just sort of rake in money with revenue sharing and
00:47:13
whatever deals they have, not spend it on anyone and and just never compete and never lose.
00:47:19
>> It feels but it feels like you you can't you can't say you can say you're anti-
00:47:22
salary cap, but really that doesn't mean you're pro the current structure. You
00:47:27
want some structural changes. We probably going to have to >> take this head on and move multiple
00:47:32
levers in order to get a deal done. It feels like restructuring is better than what we have right now.
00:47:38
>> Yes, I would argue. And but I it come hell or high water, I want to make sure
00:47:42
there's no strike. That is just the worst. >> Oh, that's going to happen. What I'm
00:47:45
hearing is that's going to happen because both sides feel so strong. >> Lockout. It'll lead to a more creative
00:47:51
>> for the sport. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I mean I I and again I I
00:47:57
>> I think a returning to our original thing, I think a lockout um I think a a
00:48:02
lockout is more likely um if uh if the Dodgers win it all again. >> Yeah, I I agree. But I I I don't play
00:48:13
stoppages are terrible, but I don't see a way out of this. I think we need to
00:48:17
restructure and you're not going to restructure without a stoppage. And so if we need a little more ammunition to
00:48:23
get the stop edge, so be it. I hate to pull for the favorites this year. Um, I can't quite get there. What if another
00:48:30
high salary cap team, a high spending team did it? Would that be helpful? Maybe it wouldn't be as helpful as the
00:48:36
Dodgers, but the >> Again, I think like it's a weird Yeah, I mean, no, it wouldn't be because at
00:48:41
least there'd be variety or something. I I don't I don't know. But again, it's
00:48:45
like the teams that spend more should win. I I mean I I don't think it's like,
00:48:51
you know, it's >> But again, I I don't I don't question that. I
00:48:56
>> is a sympathetic party in this the the the poor owners of like, you know, the
00:49:01
the the impoverished owners of the Cincinnati Reds that just can't compete aren't aren't aren't enough of the
00:49:07
billionaire level that they can't compete with the billionaires in New York.
00:49:10
>> I don't know. I it's it's >> I don't I I don't care because of poor
00:49:15
owners, but I do care about poor fan bases and the lack of competition, the lack of interest, and how much of the
00:49:20
league is kind of irrelevant from day one. Look at the number of teams whose playoff probabilities are like 2% or
00:49:27
less. It's it's like half. It's literally half of the league. That doesn't feel healthy. And I'm not saying
00:49:34
>> is it really? I mean, again, back that's not that can't be right.
00:49:39
It's it is very close to right. We looked at this a couple of weeks ago. It's very close to right that there are
00:49:44
>> half the teams have no chance or like less than 5% >> more than what are we 30.
00:49:47
>> Well, but that was using those probabilities that gave like like 40% odds the Dodgers. I mean those are whack
00:49:53
probabilities. But I I I I'll concede your more general point that that that
00:49:58
there is structural issue to the the league. um a a disparity um of a disparity of talent between
00:50:06
teams that is partly driven by a disparity um in spending and and that that you know some aspect needs to be
00:50:14
corrected. I just think the salary cap unless it you know if they instituted I would be not in favor of a salary cap
00:50:21
instituted without a commiserate salary floor. >> Yeah. No, this is I I I'm not saying
00:50:27
let's just cap it and be done. I'm saying reorganize or restructure it al
00:50:31
together. >> Shane, real quickly before we go away, can we just have any words on March
00:50:38
Madness? We're we're through the opening weekend. Um, so 16 teams get to play,
00:50:45
get to It's always fun when you're pulling for a team when you get that second weekend. It's It's great to make
00:50:49
the tournament, but it makes a big difference just to get another week, another four or five days of enjoying
00:50:53
it, kind of reing in the experience. Um, and so 16 teams are getting that. It is
00:50:58
jockey jockey chalk jock. We were worried about this last year. Now we have two seasons in a year.
00:51:03
>> So it's NIL and transfers. NIL and transfers have really changed the game.
00:51:08
This is I forget by what measure, but in 97 years of the tournament, there had been two in which it's something like in
00:51:16
the NF in the in football it would be the group of five in which no group of five teams had made the Sweet 16. Two
00:51:23
years out of 97 and those are the last two years. like no no no Cinderellas progress essentially the Longhorns are
00:51:31
ran as a 11 seed but they're hardly qualifying as a Cinderella SEC middle of
00:51:36
the pack SEC team. Um, so something >> and I mean I guess it's sort of like I
00:51:42
mean I I think obviously what you're talking about is some of the structural
00:51:45
changes in the sport that has maybe led to are we seeing I I guess more of a disparity between teams now or more of a
00:51:52
predictive thing because it could also be that we're getting better at seating
00:51:56
team like just the acts of seating teams. the concentration of talent. All all >> it's really all it's all about the
00:52:02
concentration. >> All the mid- major talent that used to be there and now moves, they migrate up.
00:52:07
They get identified and migrated up. And so the top hundred, you know, mid- major
00:52:11
players, they would have almost all still been with their mid- major teams in the past
00:52:17
and that and you know, a guy one guy on a basketball team can make a big difference. Maybe 80 of those guys have
00:52:22
been migrated up um above that level. Now, would that then make the later rounds more R because I mean obviously
00:52:29
that means like if you're if if the talent's kind of moving up the hierarchy.
00:52:33
>> Yeah. >> You'd see then it would be certainly the the the result would be chalk in these
00:52:38
early rounds like a you know a one a one versus a 16 is like even more uh of a mismatch than it used to be. But then
00:52:47
that does probably mean the ones that certain unless unless it really is like an exponential like increase in up the
00:52:53
hierarchy like you'd presumably they would we we'd now be now that we're kind
00:52:58
of down to like whatever the level is >> whether it's a sweet 16 or elite eight
00:53:03
then it's there's no chalk to it after that point. I don't I don't know. I
00:53:08
don't >> It's a It's a It's an empirical question, but you're right. It's not
00:53:12
obvious. If it's just that >> all the talent from the mid- majors popped up above that level and got
00:53:19
randomly distributed, then we'd expect more competition, more uncertainty in
00:53:25
the second half of the tournament. But if it's just the case that everybody kind of moved up the escalator so that
00:53:30
even the very top teams, the elite teams got gained additional separation as well, then we might not see that
00:53:39
increased uncertainty and leveling out you're talking about. Um, what would be
00:53:43
your hypothesis? Do you think it's got a compressed, right? That that what's left
00:53:49
in the tournament has to be more compressed than what was left in the average historical term. No, I mean
00:53:53
honestly it's it's making me think like what it's I mean if if you kind of cast
00:53:57
the entire 64 team tournament is like okay there's not 64 teams of real like
00:54:03
like like that's that's our sample size for determining this this like this kind
00:54:09
of concentration and now you know the point the round at which it becomes basically random is the number of teams
00:54:16
worth of worth of talent you have in the system >> essentially right >> that's right that's Um, that's right.
00:54:23
That's right. And that would suggest and we we we know we know it's more it's
00:54:27
it's more than 64 teams or less than 64 teams. We know it's probably less than
00:54:32
16, but now who knows how many it kind of concentrates around. And you know, you probably have the same technical
00:54:40
dynamic in football, but of course they don't do nearly the broad enough playoff
00:54:43
structure where you'd be able to explore. >> Also the talent individual players can't
00:54:49
change. >> Yeah, I guess. Right. That's right. It's also the team how much any one player
00:54:54
influences a team outcome is different too. But the we here's a simple version
00:54:58
of the question like at the top here's a simple version of the question at the
00:55:01
very top among the top two three teams are they any more separated from the next six or eight than they were
00:55:09
historically is that is that separation you just take the take the elite eight >> is that separation more or less than it
00:55:15
has been historically and I think that's an open question it's not obvious this
00:55:19
next round the round of 16 has to be more competitive than it was historically and that's the way if you
00:55:25
remember the the typical tournament dynamics with, you know, crazy first weekend and then boring second weekend.
00:55:29
>> Yeah, that's right. That's right. All all our Cinderella's like uh the shoe
00:55:33
falls off the Cinderellas usually when once again. >> That's right. Too much disparity. Too
00:55:36
much disparity. >> Um All right. Well, good fun. We've got uh we've got games again Thursday and
00:55:42
Friday. Good fun. Um why don't we let it go there, Shane? for the whole crew, for
00:55:47
St. Jensen here through the full show, for Audi Winer who just had to slip away and run to the classroom, for Eric
00:55:53
Bradlo in absentia, for Dion Simpkins who makes this whole thing go, for Mir Serena, our producer, for Deep Patel,
00:56:00
the boss lady. Appreciate you guys listening. Come back and join us next time. Between now and then, enjoy your
00:56:06
sports.