Revisiting "Is Tom cheap?"

[PASabreFan]

There's a detailed and very interesting story in the News today about significant cuts in staffing in the team's scouting department and a dramatic change in how they scout: emphasizing video that is compiled and edited in house by "young assistants" over sending scouts on the road to see players with their own eyes, talk to their teammates and coaches, etc.

 

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060...?tbd1009001.asp

 

For me, the key quote is this:

 

"Tom Golisano took over as the owner and he cut not only the scouting department, but almost all the departments in the organization," (former director of amateur scouting) Benning said.

 

And the key questions are: Did Darcy have to change the scouting system as a result of Golisano's cuts or did Golisano ask Darcy if there was a better (not cheaper) way to scout, and Darcy said, yes, by emphasizing videos. Is this system better, not cheaper? That's the crux. I don't know the answer. I suspect I do.

 

I'm sure we'll hear from the "Tom is the owner and can spend his money any way he likes and he has a right to make a profit" people. But, my God, in this new NHL, you just can't cut corners in scouting. It's the lifeblood of the organEYEzation. Tom is a better and smarter businessman than that. Or so I thought.

[inkman]

I'll take a wait and see approach. The track record has been pretty solid at this point so we'll see. All those scouts did get them Artem Kriukov... :huh:

[LabattBlue]

There's a detailed and very interesting story in the News today about significant cuts in staffing in the team's scouting department and a dramatic change in how they scout: emphasizing video that is compiled and edited in house by "young assistants" over sending scouts on the road to see players with their own eyes, talk to their teammates and coaches, etc.

 

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060...?tbd1009001.asp

 

For me, the key quote is this:

 

"Tom Golisano took over as the owner and he cut not only the scouting department, but almost all the departments in the organization," (former director of amateur scouting) Benning said.

 

And the key questions are: Did Darcy have to change the scouting system as a result of Golisano's cuts or did Golisano ask Darcy if there was a better (not cheaper) way to scout, and Darcy said, yes, by emphasizing videos. Is this system better, not cheaper? That's the crux. I don't know the answer. I suspect I do.

 

I'm sure we'll hear from the "Tom is the owner and can spend his money any way he likes and he has a right to make a profit" people. But, my God, in this new NHL, you just can't cut corners in scouting. It's the lifeblood of the organEYEzation. Tom is a better and smarter businessman than that. Or so I thought.

If this means they let Benning, Luce and Martin all walk and are just adding their duties to existing employees, it sounds like he is being cheap. If the Sabres are going to be an organization that relies on building from within, this could really backfire on them.

 

Maybe Quinny feels he can scout at a high level in addition to designing hulking nets, blue ice, a slug logo and playing in alumni games that are designed for FORMER SABRE PLAYERS! <_<

 

 

PS Not to make a football comparison, but this sounds like the Cincinnati Bengals way of preparing for a draft.

[Sabresince70]

From everything I heard about, Tom was working for others who claimed having a paycheck business was only profitable if you did it for big business. He insisted that since there was more "small" businesses there would be a great profit there as well. They didn't believe him, he went off on his own, and appears he may have been correct. I think I'll wait and see the product that it produces before even beginning to start labelling someone. If both ways give the same results, wouldn't the less expensive one be the "better"?

 

In Stan Fischler's 1974 book on the Sabres (The Buffalo Sabres, Swashbucklers of the Ice) hementions how the Knox's sent people to Minn. and St. louis to see if a new arena (Minn.) or a refurbished one (St.L.) was the way to go.

 

Were they being "cheap" or good businessmen?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hockey season really needs to start... these el cheapo conversations are getting old.

[Bmwolf21]

Amen to that...you'd think they would have stopped when we started re-signing guys like mad and closing in on the salary cap. Guess the restaurants in town better start hiding the sugar packets again...

[BetweenThePipes00]

I think part of it IS "being cheap" (and by that I mean trying to cut costs ... not necessarily the same thing) but part of it is also trying a new thing and the old-school codgers feeling threatened. If you read Moneyball, all the baseball scouts hate the way Billy Beane goes about picking players too, but he is obviously successful at it.

Look, it may not work. If they watch a bunch of video and never see or talk to players in person and never talk to their coaches and teammates to get a feel for the whole package, I think it is a huge mistake and it will fail. But that's not necessarily what is happening. You could make the argument that there is no need to spend money to see EVERY player in person anymore because technology allows you to see many more players without traveling, and then you identify the ones you like enough to go see and talk to and actually "scout" in person. You're not drafting guys you don't know or have just seen on video, you are just using the video to weed out the guys who do not fit your system and spending your resources only on the guys you may actually draft. If you can watch video and find out there are no players playing in Chicoutimi you might want, why spend the money to travel there and come back with the same conclusion?

Basically it is choosing to spend your money on the players you know have a chance to fit in rather than spending it to find out they never had a chance to fit in the first place.

Or, they could just be being cheap. We will find out.

[inkman]

Drafting in hockey is such a crapshoot anyway. Outside of the obvious "great talents" that go in the top 5 every year, nobody has a clue how any of these kids will turn out anyway.

[Taro T]

There's a detailed and very interesting story in the News today about significant cuts in staffing in the team's scouting department and a dramatic change in how they scout: emphasizing video that is compiled and edited in house by "young assistants" over sending scouts on the road to see players with their own eyes, talk to their teammates and coaches, etc.

 

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060...?tbd1009001.asp

 

For me, the key quote is this:

 

"Tom Golisano took over as the owner and he cut not only the scouting department, but almost all the departments in the organization," (former director of amateur scouting) Benning said.

 

And the key questions are: Did Darcy have to change the scouting system as a result of Golisano's cuts or did Golisano ask Darcy if there was a better (not cheaper) way to scout, and Darcy said, yes, by emphasizing videos. Is this system better, not cheaper? That's the crux. I don't know the answer. I suspect I do.

 

I'm sure we'll hear from the "Tom is the owner and can spend his money any way he likes and he has a right to make a profit" people. But, my God, in this new NHL, you just can't cut corners in scouting. It's the lifeblood of the organEYEzation. Tom is a better and smarter businessman than that. Or so I thought.

This article is essentially echoing concerns I've had since the heads of the scouting department left. I was not pleased to hear that the # of scouts has dropped by 1/3 since the lockout began.

 

My gut feel is that this switch to video scouting replacing in person scouting will not be successful but I will add a few other comments. (EDIT: If they are using video as a screening review as BtP suggests, it could be successful, but I still have concerns that it would cause the Sabres to miss more of the late round "gems" like Kotalik, Gaustad, and Miller.)

 

1. All innovators are ridiculed initially. I am impressed that Darcy continues forth in the face of the criticism (not saying that I agree with him nor that he will be proved right (although I sure hope he is proved correct)). Of course with the amount of criticism he has borne through his tenure, I'd be shocked if he didn't brush off the criticism.

 

2. The very preliminary results of the past 2 drafts APPEAR to be positive so far. Unfortunately, we are probably 3-4 years away from being able to judge whether or not they (and the current system) actually are positive. If the experiment is, in fact, unsuccessful I hope Tom and Larry and Darcy are willing to go back to a hybrid of this way and the old way or simply back to the old way, and quickly because by the time they are proven to be unsuccessful, the team will have dug itself a VERY big hole.

 

3. I understand why the team would look for a more efficient way to perform its scouting functions due to the nature of how revenues are distributed across and through the league. That said, IF the Sabres truly are onto something with the video scouting, I would prefer to see them IMPROVE the scouting department by keeping the total expenditures close to what they were in the old system, rather than MAINTAIN its quality by doing what it used to do at a cheaper price. The Sabres in Darcy's tenure have tended to hit on 2-3 NHL quality players each draft. If they could improve that to 4 NHL caliber players or keep it at 2-3 with 1 "stud" each year, the team would (almost regardless of how the FA's are handled) stay near the top of the food chain for the foreseeable future.

 

Considering how keeping young, talented players in the system will be key to keeping cost / player at a minimum and value / player $ at a maximum; I honestly see having the BEST scouting department in hockey as being as important, if not moreso longterm, as having the BEST team on ice in any particular season. The best team will not necessarily win the SC in a particular season. The best organization will have the most kicks at the can though.

[frisky]

I think it is interesting to finally get some kind of answers for why so many of their upper level people left in such a short period of time. And, that their were a number of people let go that didn't get mentioned in the news.

 

Although, I totally don't disagree with their approach and will reserve judgment to see how things pan out in the coming years, which is most likely in 2-4 years, I do have concern that they might not have experienced people to make good evaluation of the talent on video or otherwise. So, it may be a new way of doing things but if they don't have all the pieces to make it work well, then it's as good as useless. Eventually, I think that they will have to hire competent replacements that buy into their "wacky" idea.

 

Another thing that came to mind is that previously, it was said that Benning may have left because he wanted to do less travelling. It sounds like this video evaluation system does just that. So, from the article, it appears that it may have been more a difference in opinion to their method of doing things more "efficiently".

 

For me, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Is it that necessity is the mother of invention (or innovation) in this case?

[nfreeman]

A few thoughts on this:

 

1. It's important to note that the most negative comment in the article -- ie that TG came in and cut the budget in every department -- came from Benning, who had just gotten canned.

 

2. How good of a job had the scouting dept. been doing? Let's take a look at recent draft history (1st & 2nd round picks, plus others that made it):

 

1994 -- Wayne Primeau, Curtis Brown

1995 -- McKee, Biron, Mark Dutiaume

1996 -- Erik Rasmussen, Cory Sarich

1997 -- Mika Noronen, Henrik Tallinder (and Max and Campbell later)

1998 -- Kalinin, Peters (and Kotalik later)

1999 -- Barrett Heisten, Milan Bartovic, Doug Janik (and Miller later)

2000 -- Artem Kriukov, Gerard Decaire (and Gaustad later)

2001 -- Novotny, Roy, Thorburn, Pominville

2002 -- Keith Ballard, Daniel Paille

2003 -- Vanek, Branislav Fabry (and Paetsch later)

2004 -- Drew Stafford, Michael Funk

 

Looking at the above, while I don't think you'd give the scouting/drafting an F, you certainly wouldn't give them an A (and probably not a B either).

 

3. It sounds, understandably, like there is a feeling of "we had such a great year and built such a great team because of these scouts, and now we're letting them go because we don't want to pay them? Why are we being so stupid and cheap and shortsighted?" But did the scouting staff really play such a big role in building this team? Here's the makeup of next year's team, with how they were acquired:

 

Miller -- draft

Marty -- draft (but probably to be replaced via trade or FA)

 

Tallinder -- draft

Lydman -- trade

Spacek -- FA

Campbell -- draft

Teppo -- FA

Kalinin -- draft

 

Briere -- trade

Hecht -- trade

Dumont -- trade (although his replacement will probably be a drafted player)

 

Connolly -- trade

Max -- draft

Kotalik -- draft

 

Drury -- trade

Roy -- draft

Vanek -- draft

 

Gaustad -- draft

Mair -- trade

Pominville -- draft

 

total: 11 draft, 9 trade/FA (these are subject to change based on outcomes of JP and Marty, but it's likely that both will leave and will be replaced by one from each category, so it's a wash).

 

Also note that if we were doing this for last year's team, we'd have to include Grier and Pyatt, so the totals would be 9 draft, 11 trade/FA.

 

4. Conclusion: the sky is not falling. TG/LQ/DR deserve the benefit of the doubt. If it becomes clear that the approach has diminished the quality of our amateur harvests, then they will deserve criticism, and plenty of it, since it is apparent that we will need to continue to infuse good, cheap, young talent into the lineup in order to stay in the hunt every year. But they have made enough of the right moves that I am inclined to allow some time to see whether their plan works before I open fire.

[LabattBlue]

A few thoughts on this:

 

1. It's important to note that the most negative comment in the article -- ie that TG came in and cut the budget in every department -- came from Benning, who had just gotten canned.

 

Ummmm...Benning didn't get "canned". He left on his own terms.

 

One unknown that could contribute this being an adequate solution...How good is the video that you are using for player evaluation and who is taking it. A lot of times when you scout a player in person, you can focus on that player whether he has the puck or not. If the video you are receiving is just following the entire play, you may lose some of the prespective on the players abilities.

[Taro T]

A few thoughts on this:

 

...

 

2. How good of a job had the scouting dept. been doing? Let's take a look at recent draft history (1st & 2nd round picks, plus others that made it):

 

1994 -- Wayne Primeau, Curtis Brown

1995 -- McKee, Biron, Mark Dutiaume

1996 -- Erik Rasmussen, Cory Sarich

1997 -- Mika Noronen, Henrik Tallinder (and Max and Campbell later)

1998 -- Kalinin, Peters (and Kotalik later)

1999 -- Barrett Heisten, Milan Bartovic, Doug Janik (and Miller later)

2000 -- Artem Kriukov, Gerard Decaire (and Gaustad later)

2001 -- Novotny, Roy, Thorburn, Pominville

2002 -- Keith Ballard, Daniel Paille

2003 -- Vanek, Branislav Fabry (and Paetsch later)

2004 -- Drew Stafford, Michael Funk

 

Looking at the above, while I don't think you'd give the scouting/drafting an F, you certainly wouldn't give them an A (and probably not a B either).

 

...

 

I still think that all drafts of the criminal era have to be considered in light of what kind of team the criminals appeared to want to assemble. I definitely draw a line comparing pre-Adelphia colapse to post-Adelphia collapse.

 

The criminals WANTED a team that had no star offensive players (at least none in their prime). They had a very well paid goalie and wanted to assemble a team that was built for playoff style hockey of their era (ie, low scoring). Why would they do that? Simple, because just as we are seeing in the "new" NHL, in the old NHL, guys who scored goals got big bucks. The criminals wanted nothing to do with that. Heck, even when they brought in a high priced forward (Gilmour), he was past his prime and they had his old team pick up a portion of his salary.

 

The few forwards that were selected with high picks were big guys with hands of stone. The kind that one would expect to be able to play a solid 2 way game but never open it up. And I'd never expect an arbitrator to force a team to open up its wallet for that kind of player.

 

Ummmm...Benning didn't get "canned". He left on his own terms.

 

One unknown that could contribute this being an adequate solution...How good is the video that you are using for player evaluation and who is taking it. A lot of times when you scout a player in person, you can focus on that player whether he has the puck or not. If the video you are receiving is just following the entire play, you may lose some of the prespective on the players abilities.

As BtP said earlier, IF they are simply using the video to do pre-evaluations, or more accurately using it to see how some younger guys they had their eyes on earlier continued their development, then going to video won't necessarily muck up the scouting. If it is simply a screening tool, it could be a useful one.

[uptick75]

PA Sabre Fan, if it smells cheap it probably is cheap. But the spindoctors are at it again, speaking about being innovative. I am sure the shills at WGR55 will share the Sabres sentiment. BTW, why cant they do both. Why can't they use the old way of scouting with this new innovative video, oh yeah it might cost more money.

[BetweenThePipes00]

PA Sabre Fan, if it smells cheap it probably is cheap. But the spindoctors are at it again, speaking about being innovative. I am sure the shills at WGR55 will share the Sabres sentiment. BTW, why cant they do both. Why can't they use the old way of scouting with this new innovative video, oh yeah it might cost more money.

 

So they should spend more money than they have to on something just so you won't say they are cheap? And then when the team loses millions (like it did for years before this one) and moves, will you blame them for mismanagement and running it into the ground?

 

When the on-ice product suffers and they turn over half the roster every season because they do not want to pay, then they deserve to be called cheap. When they set a team record for wins, increase payroll by as much as $10 million and bring back all but 3 or 4 guys, what are you really complaining about? if they can win 50 games every year while making money, God bless them. Why should they HAVE to lose money?

[Done]

I think part of it IS "being cheap" (and by that I mean trying to cut costs ... not necessarily the same thing) but part of it is also trying a new thing and the old-school codgers feeling threatened. If you read Moneyball, all the baseball scouts hate the way Billy Beane goes about picking players too, but he is obviously successful at it.

Look, it may not work. If they watch a bunch of video and never see or talk to players in person and never talk to their coaches and teammates to get a feel for the whole package, I think it is a huge mistake and it will fail. But that's not necessarily what is happening. You could make the argument that there is no need to spend money to see EVERY player in person anymore because technology allows you to see many more players without traveling, and then you identify the ones you like enough to go see and talk to and actually "scout" in person. You're not drafting guys you don't know or have just seen on video, you are just using the video to weed out the guys who do not fit your system and spending your resources only on the guys you may actually draft. If you can watch video and find out there are no players playing in Chicoutimi you might want, why spend the money to travel there and come back with the same conclusion?

Basically it is choosing to spend your money on the players you know have a chance to fit in rather than spending it to find out they never had a chance to fit in the first place.

Or, they could just be being cheap. We will find out.

 

You are bang on with your weeding out assesment.

 

Technology now allows you to see 20x the info in 1/20 the time. I "scout" for a living in a different sport, and thanks to the internet and other tech, what would be a 7 day trip and 8 hours a day to see every possible option, has turned into a 3 day trip and maybe 4 hours of groundwork. Now I may miss a few things by not being as thurough, but it is much more efficient to do it that way. Once you identify your short list, you can spend as much time as you want with those players to make sure you get it right. When it comes time to decide who to take or how much to pay them, you know exactally how you feel about those few that made it through the weeding out instead of a decent idea on a bunch of guys.

[PASabreFan]

Dave, I'm not sure if you're just trying to offer a clinical assessment of the Rigas Years or if you're taking shots at how they did business. Do you think he was cheap? Not committed to winning? Come on, spill the beans.

 

Say what you want, his model did work on the ice. We did have one of the highest paid players in the game, a true superstar, and with a good supporting cast, we did come within a whisker -- some might say the toe of a skate -- from winning the Cup. Again, I'm not sure how the Adelphia scandal necessarily has to be brought into every assessment of the Rigas Years. Whether they were criminals or not, they were damned good years.

[BetweenThePipes00]

Dave, I'm not sure if you're just trying to offer a clinical assessment of the Rigas Years or if you're taking shots at how they did business. Do you think he was cheap? Not committed to winning? Come on, spill the beans.

Say what you want, his model did work on the ice. We did have one of the highest paid players in the game, a true superstar, and with a good supporting cast, we did come within a whisker -- some might say the toe of a skate -- from winning the Cup. Again, I'm not sure how the Adelphia scandal necessarily has to be brought into every assessment of the Rigas Years. Whether they were criminals or not, they were damned good years.

 

And all the while they were papering the house with free tickets and bleeding millions. We are lucky to still have a team as a result. There has to be a happy medium. You can't spend money you don't have to try to win, because eventually it bites you in the ass ... the Rigases are an example of this, and the Pens are an example of this. But I also don't want the Chicago or Boston model, which appears to be "We don't want to win, we just want to make money." Golisano appears to be looking for that middle ground, tryinig to win but being responsible about it. We'll see if it works and if that's what he is really doing, but it is too early to say.

 

(For those who don't know the story and wonder how the Pens are in such deep crap and have no arena, it's because their former owner handed out contracts like candy trying to keep the Cup years going in the mid '90s ... he was in over his head, and when the referendum was being prepared for the tax increase to build the Steelers and Pirates new stadiums, he had the option of jumping on board and linking a new arena to the bill. Instead he took millions in cash he could get immediately to renovate the Igloo because he needed to increase revenue immediately, not 3 or 4 years down the road. The result was some nice improvments but in the long run they are dying without the new arena. Why did I just type all that?)

[Taro T]

Dave, I'm not sure if you're just trying to offer a clinical assessment of the Rigas Years or if you're taking shots at how they did business. Do you think he was cheap? Not committed to winning? Come on, spill the beans.

 

Say what you want, his model did work on the ice. We did have one of the highest paid players in the game, a true superstar, and with a good supporting cast, we did come within a whisker -- some might say the toe of a skate -- from winning the Cup. Again, I'm not sure how the Adelphia scandal necessarily has to be brought into every assessment of the Rigas Years. Whether they were criminals or not, they were damned good years.

Primarily the former.

 

I also guess that I am defending, to a degree, Darcy and the scouting staff for the drafts they had in the mid/late 90's. People tend to slam Darcy and the scouts for not drafting a big gun during that period even when they had top picks, but I honestly believe that ownership didn't want a big gun. Remember also, that slamming ownership (which in this one particular case, I don't believe I did) is primarily slamming Timmy who actually ran the team and also was the prime mover behind the dirty deals at Adelphia. (Aside: as I have stated before, although John did do illegal things, I believe that he thought the high priced business degrees he got for Timmy and Mikey would buy him the advice that would keep him legal. Those 2 definitely were bad seeds. Whether they fell close to the tree is something that I won't get into a debate over in this forum.)

 

I think the criminals DID want to win, and I think they thought they had found an affordable (although oftentimes non-entertaining) way to do it. Namely, buy a really good goalie, provide solid defense in front of him (although I don't think the D was as good as people tend to think it was, the goalie was good enough to make them look solid), and put a bunch of no name, hard working guys up front. The formula almost worked in '99 (heck, we'll never know if it would have worked that year because they never got a chance to finish Game 6).

 

Also, had the team either signed Peca or gotten equal value for him in 2000-'01, I honestly believe the Sabres would have won the SC that year. Although no one outside the organization knew it at the time, the Adelphia wheels were falling off at that time. Had the Rigas' NOT been criminals with MAJOR cash flow issues, I also believe the team would have worked out a deal with Peca. They weren't and did, so it's all moot now.

[frisky]

With the draft being the crapshoot that it is, I think you might have to compare our scouting results and the players we drafted over the years compared with how other teams did in their drafts.

[LabattBlue]

This cost cutting move combined with the fact that we can only have 10-12 players(prospects) under contract to the Sabres in the minors because they are too CHEAP to supply an entire minor league team, makes me wonder how this team is going to be able to replenish from within.

 

Don't be misled on this one...This is no innovative revolutionary way to scout players. It is a cost cutting measure first and foremost, no matter which way you look at it. If you see it any other way, you need to take off the rose colored glasses.