Yesterday, it was announced that Avalanche defenseman, Tyson Barrie, had filed for salary arbitration. The ins and outs of what that exactly means can be found here, but it essentially indicates that the Avs’ camp and Barrie’s camp are very far apart on what his next contract should entail.
Naturally, this raises a question: what exactly is fair market value for Tyson Barrie?
Typically, the best way to find the answer is to look for comparable players. To do so, I searched for defensemen within four years of his age who played more than 150 NHL games and averaged 35-60 points a year. I also restricted the group to players whose current contract kicked in no more than three summers ago.
As you can see, Barrie is in with some very elite company. However, when you take the average of the contract values, $5.9 million AAV for around 6 years turns out to be right in the middle. Add in a little more for inflation, and a cap hit of $6 to $6.5 million over a six year term seems very reasonable for his caliber of player.
Unfortunately, if a deal can’t be reached before arbitration, the waters become much murkier. No other player on the list signed a second bridge contract, let alone one from a mediator. All were locked up for at least 4 years by their second and/or third NHL deals.
Either way, arbitration hearings are scheduled between July 20 and August 4, so the decision on Barrie’s future will be made within the month.
(numbers via Corsica and General Fanager)
0 Comments (7 conversations)
Sean
They could even be cool with the dollar figures and be miles apart with signing bonus and such like Ryan O’Reilly had.
I commented this on a Reddit post of this article. Figured I would share here and hopefully get some look into your thought process:
“I have some issues with this article. The BSN writer should not have included the 2013 contracts (maybe also not the 2014 ones too). The market for defensemen was different then than the current market. It’s also disingenuous to include stats from after the contracts were signed. It would be much easier to project Barrie’s production if we knew what his stats would be for the 3 years after signing his contract.
More importantly, the author excludes seasons before 2011-2012. Pietrangelo has 505 games played, not 409. She’s not counting 2008-2011 where Pietrangelo played 8, 9, and 79 games (96 total). Same goes for Shattenkirk where 72 games are missing (2010-2011 season). 48 for OEL, 40 for McDonagh 79 for Subban, 171 for Hedman.
I understand she’s trying to equalize the time frame between Barrie breaking into the league and the other guys, but that’s not fair. In 2011-2012, Barrie entered the NHL and played 10 games. Why should that season be included but Pietrangelo’s first two seasons aren’t? Isn’t it more important to consider where the player is in their development than the particular season? It’s not fair to compare Barrie to Hedman but exclude the first 32% of Hedman’s NHL career.”
A) I included the 2013 contracts because I determined that I needed at least 10 comps for an adequate sample size. I bumped the final number of $6 – 6.5 mil up to account for the fact that the market value has gone up in the past three years. I too would have liked to restrict the cohort further, but there just weren’t enough comps to do so accurately.
B) Yes, I did exclude seasons prior to 2011-12. The NHL style of play has shifted somewhat since 2007 when some of these players joined, so I decided to go apples to apples by looking only at a specific window of time. In some ways, it makes the fact that Barrie’s actually tied for 3rd in points/game (behind Karlsson & PK, tied with Hedman and Shattenkirk) that much more impressive. He’s hanging with the big dogs even with his development time included. Perhaps others would have done the study differently, but I found this to be the best way.
Andi…it’s a good sample size and comparison. When you add up Barrie’s offensive numbers from this year you shake down with a similar list. Karlsson gets left off this list because his point total is too hight…correct?
A better idea would have been to compare to players who recently resigned or signed an extention. Guys Like Krug and Faulk fit the type and talent of a Tyson Barrie more than comparing him to Subban and Pietrangelo. This day and age you need to look more at advanced stats than Point/game if you want a real understanding on how players are being valued.
Barrie skates beautifully…he uses that ability to get up ice and to never go into the corners or get back on D after trying to score, pad his stats and ask for a ridiculous contract. Most of the players on the list actually play defense. Is there a way to show all of the times Barrie’s lack of grit and defense led to the other team scoring easy goals or costing the avs a game? The outdoor stadium game comes to mind. There were many others last year.
I would enjoy seeing Barrie trying to defend guys like, MacKinnon, Landy or Martinsen…. or for him to take a hit from Johnson, Z or Cody…
Trade him now to a team in our division and let him play soft against the Avs. That will be fun to watch.
Skyg
PK Subban, Alex Pietrangelo, Victor Hedman, Aaron Ekblad…… Tyson Barrie? What?
There are not comparable players.
The quality of this content is below BSN’s norm. I’m sure you guys are busy with dev. camp but still, you are better than this.
Did ya, you know, read the article?
Skyg
Yes I did. In said article, the contracts for the players I listed above are incorporated into an average AAV meant to reflect what comparable players get paid. I commented that they aren’t comparable players. Do you disagree?
Just gonna toss this in there… because… yeah.
Bozak and a 2nd.
What happens when you throw out highest and lowest contracts (especially the highest, Suban’s)? I bet that average shrinks a bit…
Barrie has the lowest Corsi % on that list. His value should be about the lowest of any players on that list make. In fact if you want to look at comparable players you need to compare him to Krug, Faulk, Morgan Reilley and Goligoski and Vantenan. Barrie should get a long term deal in the range of $5 mil/season.