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I have thoughts and they are not as negative as some would have you to believe. Will go over in a bit. https://twitter.com/ScottBilleck/status/1351225060464480258
1) I'm happy for the guy. I've always liked his character/interviews. He's worked hard to get where he has. He's improved greatly as a prospect. He is already likely to hit above the average for his draft year analytical projections. Good for him.
2) It's not his fault the Jets made a bad probability pick selecting him. The problem wasn't him as a player, but the opportunity costs. The numbers suggested that players (without hindsight) like Girrard and DeBrincat succeed more often than players like Stanley.
3) Stanley wasn't doomed to miss. He wasn't a bad player who shouldn't be a prospect or not drafted. He was a bit of a low probability pick, but probability is not destiny.
Now to talk more about draft theory and what the situation surrounding Stanley was all about.
Now to talk more about draft theory and what the situation surrounding Stanley was all about.
4) Pre-Draft Stanley was a player that had a most diverse rankings in public and repoted private lists. I personally knew some teams that had him in 10-15 range, and some that literally took him off their list. I also knew Jets were interested. So I decided to write up on him.
5) My initial article could be summarized as an ode to one of @Thats_Offside pieces, suggesting that Stanley could end up a helpful player but it's more likely that the Jets would then be passing on a much more helpful player. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/06/19/jets-nation-draft-preview-logan-stanley-could-be-a-good-player-so-don-t-draft-him/
6) The initial criticism on that piece was two parts: why does scoring matter for a defender and maybe the Jets know he's better than his scoring numbers.
Five days later I wrote a piece in response to those critiques. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/06/24/draft-theory-and-thoughts-on-logan-stanley/
Five days later I wrote a piece in response to those critiques. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/06/24/draft-theory-and-thoughts-on-logan-stanley/
7) The big takeaway from the two pieces were that history suggested scouts/teams do indeed determin the non-scoring attributes that makes defenders better than others, but they overvalue those things and undervalue scoring more than they should.
8) Essentially, you could think of it as scouts generally draft high scoring d-men a round or two too late or low scoring d-men a round or two too early. Scouts are good at doing what they do, stratifying players within each attribute/skill. The issue is in aggregate.
9) My articles were mostly well percieved but I think some people got mixed up with probability vs destiny. So, to counter this I wrote up an article to highlight the good of Stanley. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/06/25/draft-2016-jets-hope-to-beat-the-odds-with-logan-stanley/
10) Later, to add to this, I highlighted some of the players who struggled to score in their draft season and still beat the odds. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/07/12/why-logan-stanley-could-be-a-good-player/
11) One interesting thing from this research is that it showed that most players that struggled to score in their draft year that made it did end up scoring relatively well later. This suggested that usage or variance was the reason the player didn't score, not talent/skill.
12) In other words, even if you don't score relatively well in junior or wherever, you still had to be good enough that you could score well if you were going to be good enough to make it to the next levels as a dman. Scoring matters as it tells something about the player.
13) Just before I left the public blogging career I did a catch up to see how Stanley progressed scoring-wise relative to those players I had highlighted. He had improved, but not by the same degree as most of the comps had. https://jetsnation.ca/2016/12/02/by-the-numbers-catching-up-with-logan-stanley/
14) IMO, Stanley has improved over the years, and is much better than the average player who was the same as him in their draft year would be. I do think there are issues in his game that may stop him from ever being a bonafide top4 but he could top out being a 3rd pairing dman.
15) What I do find interesting is I think many get Stanley wrong. People see his size and think defense and grit, but I think he's more of a poorman's Tyler Myers. He can play the puck out and shoot hard, but doesn't have the skating Myers had.
16) I also think that the development in Stanley has been overly role focused as a more defensive defender when his strengths, like his shot, should have been more of the focus of his development... but now we're moving into an area a bit out of my expertise without insider info.
17) In the end I wish Stanley well. He could still be a bonafide NHLer... But, I don't think he'll ever be what the Jets were hoping for on draft day. That's the past though. Learn from it, move on, do the best with what you got.
