Wisniewski arbitration game

I want to get a better idea of what Wisniewski might be worth, but don't feel like doing any of the legwork. So I figure I could make you guys do it, and mask it as a game to encourage participation!

Discuss here some comparables for Wiz. Pretend you're his agent, or the team. Find some RFAs re-signed this offseason, the past offseason, or during the 07-08 or 08-09 seasons. List their contract terms and length, as well as their stats. Who was "more important to their teams?" Discuss why some are better comparables to Wisniewski or not.

-Detailed rules of arbitration are listed here http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?p=20312317
-Some possibly relevant stats for Wiz, all rankings are for defensemen only: 24 points (3rd, 1 better than Whitney). +9 (best on the team). 19:51 TOI (5th). 90 hits (tops on team, even though Pronger played more games. He was actually 3rd on the team behind only Getzlaf and Perry, although Festerling had 1 fewer hit in 8 fewer games). 60 blocked shots (4th). 14 takeaways (3rd). 89 shots (3rd). 15:33 ES TOI (5th), 2:16 SH TOI (6th), 2:01 PP TOI (5th)


PS: Hmm. Whitney was actually tied for 1st in PP TOI. More than Niedermayer.

if i were his agent id be bringing up dennis wideman as much as possible. he got a 4 year $15.75 mil deal to avoid arbitration last season (same age as Wiz is now). wideman had 85 pts in 223 games at that point. 30 something in the year before contract playing 20ish minutes a night.

the Wiz has 67 pts in 185 games and was playing similar minutes at seasons end.

Okay:

Tobias Enstrom. Signed a contract extension worth $3.75M per for 4 years.
2nd amongst defensemen with 32 points in 82 games (only 5 goals), and lead the team in +/- (+14).
Enstrom might be worth a bit more since he lead his defense corps in most TOI categories, but in terms of points and where he was in his career, I think it's pretty close.

Some initial work, listing defensemen from Wisniewski's draft (2002) who may or may not be comparables. Only guys signed as RFAs this or last season (ie not Bouw or Pitkanen). Also included are the offseason of year the contract takes effect and their stats the last full season before signing the contract. Babchuk played his previous season in the RSL/KHL, I listed his last NHL season.

name | year | GP | points | PPG | TOI | contract length | contract $
Wiz |09 |48 |24 |0.5|19.9|?|?
Pitkanen | 08 | 63 | 26 | 0.41 | 24.1 | 3 | 4
Ballard | 09 | 82 | 21 | 0.26 | 21.3 | 6 | 4.2
Eminger | 08 | 20 | 2 | 0.1 | 11.1 | 1 | 1.2
Grebeshkov | 08 | 71 | 18 | 0.25 | 16.9 | 1 | 1.5
Babchuk | 08 | 52 | 14 | 0.27 | 17.4 | 1 | 1
Daley | 08 | 82 | 24 | 0.29 | 19.8 | 3 | 2.3
Greene | 09 | 46 | 1 | 0.02 | 16.7 | 5 | 2.95
Gilbert | 08 | 82 | 33 | 0.4 | 22.2 | 6 | 4
Wideman | 08 | 81 | 36 | 0.44 | 25.2 | 4 | 3.94

Was just going to list Gilbert.

Some initial work, listing defensemen from Wisniewski's draft (2002) who may or may not be comparables. Only guys signed as RFAs this or last season (ie not Bouw or Pitkanen). Also included are the offseason of year the contract takes effect and their stats the last full season before signing the contract. Babchuk played his previous season in the RSL/KHL, I listed his last NHL season.

name | year | GP | points | PPG | TOI | contract length | contract $
Wiz |09 |48 |24 |0.5|19.9|?|?
Pitkanen | 08 | 63 | 26 | 0.41 | 24.1 | 3 | 4
Ballard | 09 | 82 | 21 | 0.26 | 21.3 | 6 | 4.2
Eminger | 08 | 20 | 2 | 0.1 | 11.1 | 1 | 1.2
Grebeshkov | 08 | 71 | 18 | 0.25 | 16.9 | 1 | 1.5
Babchuk | 08 | 52 | 14 | 0.27 | 17.4 | 1 | 1
Daley | 08 | 82 | 24 | 0.29 | 19.8 | 3 | 2.3
Greene | 09 | 46 | 1 | 0.02 | 16.7 | 5 | 2.95
Gilbert | 08 | 82 | 33 | 0.4 | 22.2 | 6 | 4
Wideman | 08 | 81 | 36 | 0.44 | 25.2 | 4 | 3.94

Interesting seeing that guys with over 20 mins in TOI earns more. I guess Daley is the guy most comparable to Wis on that list. Although, Wis much better points per game average on that list... Hmm.. I'm gessing $2.9mil.

Yikes. With the comparables presented so far (Gilbert, Wideman, and Enstrom), that's like 4 million dollars.

Although Wisniewski's 55.3 games/season average the past 3 seasons might help some.

Yikes. With the comparables presented so far (Gilbert, Wideman, and Enstrom), that's like 4 million dollars.

Although Wisniewski's 55.3 games/season average the past 3 seasons might help some.
Hopefully. Plus, Wisniewski's never been used as a go-to guy for any team thus far, being given some pretty plum minutes while the other defensive pairs soak up the shutdown duty.

Still, he's going to have an argument.

Hopefully. Plus, Wisniewski's never been used as a go-to guy for any team thus far, being given some pretty plum minutes while the other defensive pairs soak up the shutdown duty.

Still, he's going to have an argument.

This. Wisniewski never had an impact role on the Blackhawks D where he was a bottom pairing defenseman and barely that. He has been a key defenseman in his time with the Ducks, not a long time with other words. That should differ him from Pitkanen, Wideman and Enstrom...

How in the hell did Greene get that much and that long from Lombardi?

Even if you take his stats for the full season of 08-09 (he signed in October of this year), it looks odd. 19:44 TOI, 14 points in 82 games.

How in the hell did Greene get that much and that long from Lombardi?

Even if you take his stats for the full season of 08-09 (he signed in October of this year), it looks odd. 19:44 TOI, 14 points in 82 games.
It's Lombardi. He has no idea what people are worth. Overpay Greene, chase away O'Sullivan, Cammalieri, maybe Johnson. Sign Cloutier to an extension for no particular reason.

Brent Seabrook
Averaged 23:19 icetime (3:30pk, 2:18pp)
26 points in 82 games
Last season cap hit: 3.5mil (carrying onto 2011)

Tim Gleason
Averaged 20:39 icetime (2:47pk, 0:22pp)
12 points in 70 games
Last season cap hit: 2.75mil (carrying onto 2012)

Fedor Tyutin
Averaged 23:30 icetime (2:37pk, 3:47pp)
34 points in 82 games
Last season cap hit: 2.84375mil (carrying onto 2012)

Henrik Tallinder
Averaged 18:25 icetime (2:43pk, 0:03pp)
12 points in 66 games
Last season cap hit: 2.5625mil (carrying onto 2010)

Chris Campoli
Averaged 19:32 icetime (1:12pk, 2:24pp)
30 points in 76 games
Last season cap hit: 633k (carrying onto 2010)

Matt Carle
Averaged 21:23 icetime (0:57pk, 2:19pp)
26 points in 76 games
Last season cap hit: 3.4375mil (carrying onto 2012)

Matt Greene
Averaged 19:44 icetime (3:03pk, 0:08pp)
14 points in 81 games
Last season cap hit: 1.15mil
*signed 5-year extension that kicks in this fall with a cap hit of 2.950mil

Randy Jones
Averaged 19:07 icetime (2:18pk, 1:32pp)
8 points in 47 games (31 points in 71 games previous season)
Last season cap hit: 2.75mil (carrying onto 2010)

Bruno Gervais
Averaged 21:35 icetime (2:57pk, 1:11pp)
19 points in 69 games
Last season cap hit: 740k (carrying onto 2011)

Dan Giradi
Averaged 21:31 icetime (2:26pk, 2:18pp)
22 points in 82 games
Last season cap hit: 1.550mil (carrying onto 2010)

Alexander Edler (?)
Averaged 21:07 icetime (1:37pk, 3:28pp)
37 points in 80 games
Last season cap hit: 500k (entry-level deal)
*signed 4-year extension that kicks in this fall with a cap hit of 3.25mil/year


For fun and giggles the average between all these players is 2.45.
You can clearly see the division, I would suspect that Anaheim stakes out at the low 2s (maybe using Giradi and Daley as comparables) and Wisniewski asking for the low 3s (using contracts like Edler, Greene and Carle).

Barker signing for $3.08M helps Murrays case, he was above Wiz on the depth chart in Chicago and put up significantly better offensive numbers.

*excel math alert*

OK using the mentioned comparables (excluding some who were too many years ago like Tallinder), I tried to come up with a function to predict Wiz's salary.

I decided to make a "value index" based on the % games played for all seasons after the lockout since the player got to the NHL (disclaimer, I think I counted most partial seasons of more than like 20 games but excluded cups of coffee... but I'm not sure as I may have changed part way through), the point per game average, and TOI of the final season before the contract (divided by 22 to get it around 1). My goal was to make each thing roughly equal, although multplying the PPG by 2 (assuming that a .5 PPG player was worth the full amount) actually worsened the fit. So in the end, a max player would probably get an index score of about 3.

Here's the scatter plot of this arbitrary index.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5601/defensesalarygraph.jpg (http://img339.imageshack.us/i/defensesalarygraph.jpg/)
The fit isn't so good. But it looks decent. Interestingly, the huge outlier you see at 3 million dollars for an index score of ~1.5 is Matt Greene, the Lombardi contract I was wondering about earlier. If you remove him, the fit goes up to ~.75, which wouldn't be a bad fit.

The other interesting point is that at an index score of 3 (roughly the maximum), the predicted salary is only 5.2. Not say 6.75 like a Niedermayer. I guess you could say that my model sucks, or you could say it's just the different pay scale of an UFA.

Now according to this (completely scientific ;)) equation, Wiz should get $2.65 million.

Thoughts? Suggestions on how I might make the model better? Did I just bore everyone to death?

Barker signing for $3.08M helps Murrays case, he was above Wiz on the depth chart in Chicago and put up significantly better offensive numbers.

Snark, sorry but this is a better model to compare him against. If I have some free time, I'll try to analyze your model a bit better.

I think Wiz going to arbitration was a bad move on his part. I think tops he can get is 2.5 million now.

However, maybe Murray is lowballing him, like a 1.5 or 1.8 million offer only and Wiz has no choice.

Murray didn't offer Beach a contract because he didn't want to insult him. He said he wanted to wait until he was willing to accept an offer under 3 million, which he knew wouldn't happen for a while.

Not Qualifying then re-signing Christensen is another low budget move.

Murray might be the lowball king.

I don't mean to be a stick in the mud or anything, but I think Wiz is a little overrated in this board. It might be because the last few memories I have of him are a couple of brain farts during the playoffs, especially in the Detroit series or it might have been because of the injury he got when the puck hit him and he wasn't playing too well.

On the bright side, he was pretty solid during the regular season.

*excel math alert*

OK using the mentioned comparables (excluding some who were too many years ago like Tallinder), I tried to come up with a function to predict Wiz's salary.

I decided to make a "value index" based on the % games played for all seasons after the lockout since the player got to the NHL (disclaimer, I think I counted most partial seasons of more than like 20 games but excluded cups of coffee... but I'm not sure as I may have changed part way through), the point per game average, and TOI of the final season before the contract (divided by 22 to get it around 1). My goal was to make each thing roughly equal, although multplying the PPG by 2 (assuming that a .5 PPG player was worth the full amount) actually worsened the fit. So in the end, a max player would probably get an index score of about 3.

Here's the scatter plot of this arbitrary index.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5601/defensesalarygraph.jpg (http://img339.imageshack.us/i/defensesalarygraph.jpg/)
The fit isn't so good. But it looks decent. Interestingly, the huge outlier you see at 3 million dollars for an index score of ~1.5 is Matt Greene, the Lombardi contract I was wondering about earlier. If you remove him, the fit goes up to ~.75, which wouldn't be a bad fit.

The other interesting point is that at an index score of 3 (roughly the maximum), the predicted salary is only 5.2. Not say 6.75 like a Niedermayer. I guess you could say that my model sucks, or you could say it's just the different pay scale of an UFA.

Now according to this (completely scientific ;)) equation, Wiz should get $2.65 million.

Thoughts? Suggestions on how I might make the model better? Did I just bore everyone to death?
Mind that's the average contract of all players of the same index's would expect to get, a CI will be a bit of a help :P

I'll do it in a bit...

EDIT: No I won't Minitab's being a bugger, and I've not to get data in a nice table. Too lazy to bother to fix them xD

Snark, sorry but this is a better model to compare him against. If I have some free time, I'll try to analyze your model a bit better.
Barker is in the list of comparables. I didn't weigh them in terms of appropriateness or anything. For example, things that I considered adding but didn't include: recentness of contract, increasing the importance of PPG (or just adjusting the weights period), number of seasons the player has played (ie the confidence you should have that it's a good player and not a fluke season), trying to adjust somehow for length of contract and UFA years given up, and making some kind of trend adjustment (ie giving a bonus or something to players who have improved).
Mind that's the average contract of all players of the same index's would expect to get, a CI will be a bit of a help :P

I'll do it in a bit...

EDIT: No I won't Minitab's being a bugger, and I've not to get data in a nice table. Too lazy to bother to fix them xD
Believe it or not, I've actually never taken a stats class, so I'm not sure exactly how to calculate a CI.

But I have included my excel file so people can try to tweak my model or make their own model with my already-tabulated data.

Bob Murray had this to say about the Wiz negotiations.

http://ducks.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=436577

Wiz has got some interesting numbers and he’s got some comparables. Brian [Burke] went off on the Edmonton offer sheet [in 2007 to Dustin Penner] and what people didn’t realize, and Brian was so right on this, is that now we’re seeing what the other effect of these offer sheets is. Guys are coming out of their first couple of contracts, when they have arbitration rights, you’re seeing those built-up numbers. As a result, you have people thinking that they are worth a lot of money before they have proven they are worth a lot of money. With Wiz, I’m not going to jump and give him a lot of money and a lot of terms until I am damn sure he can prove what he can be. We’re probably going to end up at arbitration and arbitrations are ugly, but that’s where we are headed right now.

Bob Murray had this to say about the Wiz negotiations.

http://ducks.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=436577
Also said he's definitely going for another defenseman. Murray is a mofo on the ball. Or he's a fanboy like us and we're totally screwed. Either way, he's totally vibing with this message board.

Snark, sorry but this is a better model to compare him against. If I have some free time, I'll try to analyze your model a bit better.

I think Wiz going to arbitration was a bad move on his part. I think tops he can get is 2.5 million now.

However, maybe Murray is lowballing him, like a 1.5 or 1.8 million offer only and Wiz has no choice.

Murray didn't offer Beach a contract because he didn't want to insult him. He said he wanted to wait until he was willing to accept an offer under 3 million, which he knew wouldn't happen for a while.

Not Qualifying then re-signing Christensen is another low budget move.

Murray might be the lowball king.
After looking a little more at Barker, here is how his index rating went. His not playing much in the previous seasons hurt him in terms of games played %. He still rates higher than Wisniewski, but not as much as you would expect. Wisniewski scored less per game than Barker over the past few seasons. But Wis played more per game this last season than Barker.

So in the end, Barker actually scored a little lower than Wisniewski in the composite rankings. The model predicts that Barker would get 2.50 million (compared to Wiz's predicted 2.65).

I guess it does show what's missing from the model though. Perhaps more weight needs to go to points, and more to recent performance. Although Barker being a tad high could also be a result of him being a semi-UFA, where the Blackhawks had to pay a premium to get him singed now before someone rules he's a UFA.

Also said he's definitely going for another defenseman. Murray is a mofo on the ball. Or he's a fanboy like us and we're totally screwed. Either way, he's totally vibing with this message board.
Hmm. It does make me worry a little bit. Fans are stupid. If we all like his moves this might not be a good sign.

Numbers aside, his right knee is held together by hopes and dreams. Two ACL tears and an MCL sprain in the last 18 months should whittle his salary down significantly at an arbitration hearing.

Though based on numbers, I don't think he should be making more than Greg Zanon or Joel Ward, who signed modest contracts on good 08-09 seasons.

Believe it or not, I've actually never taken a stats class, so I'm not sure exactly how to calculate a CI.

But I have included my excel file so people can try to tweak my model or make their own model with my already-tabulated data.

To get the CI, you basically plug numbers into a formula and it'll give the plot. Same with the prediction interval. On the off chance you you want it, I've uploaded it. The PI is the same, except there's "1+" in brackets in route before the 1/n.


New
Obs Fit SE Fit 95% CI 95% PI
1 2.645 0.166 (2.292, 2.998) (1.116, 4.173)

Basically, from the index used, we'd predict that Wiz'll get a contract betweet 1.116m and 4.173m and be right 95% of the tine. Which is a large range in context, so the model is of little use in this situation. But there's a greater chance that the value will be within the middle of the range than at the extreme values.

Hmm. It does make me worry a little bit. Fans are stupid. If we all like his moves this might not be a good sign.

I've avoided having a sig until now, but you've swayed me.

Also, nice work on the spreadsheet. I think the key weighted stats for comparable defensemen would be ice time first, points second.

Now according to this (completely scientific ;)) equation, Wiz should get $2.65 million.
Final score: 2.75 million. Not too bad, actually. [/selfpat]

If I were just going at it by my gut, I would have said ~2.5 million. I guess it was good that Lombardi is stupid and moved my curve up (non-Greene prediction was 2.53 million). The comparables listed by you guys seemed to indicate a tad over 3.

edit: Just wanted to add that I'm actually surprised the model was that close. I just had some free time and wanted to see if I could whip up something real fast. I didn't expect it to be anywhere near a line, or to be anywhere near Wisniewski's contract.