Login

Memento Mori · 12-14-2021, 07:12 PM

For those unaware of the dashingly handsome defenceman, Jay Sink was drafted with the first overall pick in the Season 59 SHL Entry Draft by the Toronto North Stars. We know he loves his fans, but less importantly: was Jay Sink a bust?

First, let’s discuss what it means to call Jay Sink a bust. Or: how good does a number one overall pick have to be, not to be a bust? Because Jay Sink was not the best player in the S59 Draft. He was the best at loving his fans, definitely the most handsome and arguably the funniest prospect, but not the best one in hindsight. So let’s try and objectively assess Jay Sink’s career so far and determine whether or not he was worthy of that selection.

I’ll begin from a TPE perspective. As of the last update, Jay Sink has 1018 TPE. That’s good for 11th in the class, 82 behind the S59 leader Sven Svechnikov who has just reached 1100. Is that good? Svechnikov was taken fourth overall, and second through sixth on the leaderboard were drafted 6th, 7th, 17th, 13th, and 10th respectively. Seven through ten features an undrafted player followed by the players drafted 31st, 29th, and 24th. Jay Sink is not (quite) a top ten player in TPE from his class, but the majority of the first ten players selected don’t feature, and only one of the top five does. 57 players were selected in the draft, so it wasn’t a small class, and the dearth of cap space around the SHL saw many active users (including one of the top ten earners mentioned above) go undrafted. I don’t think being 11th with 1018 TPE is bad, but I feel compelled to justify it given my earning in other leagues. SHL is very much my third league. I purchased equipment in each of my first two seasons, and at draft time and for a while after I floated between #1 and #5 in the class in TPE. In either my third or fourth season I stopped buying it, between real life and ISFL GMing I didn’t feel I had time to grind for max equipment in SHL, and when WSBL began and I threw myself into that my money-making activities in SHL became quite minimal. I think it’s been at least a season or two since I missed a task, but that 28 TPE per season is causing more dedicated users to pull away from me (congrats to them). So far I’ve been consistent enough with tasks that I’m still ahead of the majority of the remaining active users in the class, we’ll see if that continues.

Second, my bank balance. Don’t look too closely at that. I’m writing this article because when I try and purchase weekly training I’m greeted with the following message: “Error
Not enough money for transaction. Your balance cannot go below $1,500,000 without a banker.” I don’t need a doctor to tell me that that’s not healthy. As I mentioned above with regards to equipment, my money-making activities have really dwindled in the last few seasons in SHL. My ISFL and WSBL articles have always been very analytical and often data-driven or directly related to the sim. I don’t own FHM and I know very little about hockey, which makes it hard to research and write the kind of articles I most enjoy. I don’t read character-based articles, but I love to read the cold, hard pieces that are directly relevant to the league and so I don’t enjoy writing character-based articles as much. I tried applying for a few jobs earlier in my SHL career but was unsuccessful, so I suppose I’ll need to force myself to write more of these in future. My bank balance is definitely the weakest element of Jay Sink’s overall value, and definitely impacts the judgement of the pick. With my bank balance about as bad as it legally can be, you’d have to say that this is an area where Sink fares poorly compared with his fellow S59 players.

Metrics like TPE and bank balance are relevant because they should translate into what really matters: performance in the sim. Jay Sink’s overall impact for the Stars has been limited, to say the least. Jay Sink was sent down to play for the Anchorage Armada in the SMJHL for the maximum number of seasons, playing there from S58 through to S61. Sink could’ve come up sooner, with him having more TPE than some of his then-teammates, but Toronto’s then-GM elected to call up another player instead. Such is the internal politics of sim leagues sometimes. S62 was Sink’s debut for the Stars, and the rookie finished with an incredible 12 points. I sorted by goals (from fewest to most) to see how many players scored fewer goals than Sink’s 2, and I’d like to extend my condolences to the four players (Sabarro Torretta, Matty Sandeen, Zayne Rotzbua and Renji Atake) who scored just one goal, and to Winnipeg defenceman Tinke Jutila who was the only outfield player in the SHL not to score a goal this season. I’m so sorry for drawing attention to this. Anyway, Jay averaged just 11 minutes and 26 seconds per game on the ice this season. This was the lowest mark in the entire league. I don’t get the impression that Sink was a horrible defender, taking away the puck 18 times (for a positive turnover differential) and registering a respectable number of blocks and hits, but no player is going to have a big impact on their team’s fortunes when they’re spending so much time on the bench. You can hardly claim that Jay Sink has been a positive contributor to the team so far, but just stepping (or skating) out onto the ice puts him ahead of a surprising number of his classmates. SHL is a grind, especially coming from a league when you were called up as a true rookie, and we’re still very early in Jay’s career. I don’t think the signs are necessarily worrying at this stage.

This is an uncomfortable thing to try and judge when talking about yourself, but a user’s locker room presence is another key factor to account for when assessing a player. I won’t attempt to assess my own value to a locker room, especially when I can’t compare it with others in the class who could’ve been selected in my place, but it’s worth recognising that we’re here for fun and that someone’s TPE, bank balance and on-ice performance isn’t everything.

So: was Jay Sink a bust? I’m going to lean no. Some of the doubts I heard in scouting about inherently not trusting cross-leaguers seem to apply to me, as I didn’t have the motivation to continue grinding for money after my first few months in the league, but I didn’t drift away or ghost like I’ve seen other users who remain active elsewhere do. When you’re drafting a player who won’t play for your team for 6+ months, there’s a huge element of luck (or faith) there, as you’re relying on their own motivation, and a combination of your SHL team and their SMJHL team to keep them active. There were top ten picks who never made it, and having hit 1k TPE a couple of updates ago puts me ahead of more users than you might have expected. Unless someone wants to give me some money under the table I’ll need to become more active here to keep this up and maybe that’s a concern, but this article was only about an hour of effort and will keep me ticking over for a few more weeks. I remember once seeing a similar discussion about former number one overall pick in the NFL, Mario Williams. He clearly wasn’t a traditional bust, but was not one of the best players at his position. Given the chance to re-do the pick, the Texans would surely have picked a different player. But they probably weren’t unhappy that the player they ended up with was Mario Williams, given the randomness of the draft and all the possible outcomes that would’ve been much worse. Jay Sink seems like a similar pick: could’ve been better, but could’ve been so much worse and was definitely better than a dice roll. If Jay Sink is the SHL’s answer to Mario Williams, I think I’m okay with that.

Code:
1406 words

***WannabeFinn*** · 12-14-2021, 07:57 PM

It’s a you a Mario

***bluesfan55*** · 12-15-2021, 10:05 AM

Jay Sink loves his fans therefore he is NOT a bust

ty to @High Stick King @EvilAllBran and @Ragnar for the sigs

Memento Mori · 12-15-2021, 11:46 AM

12-15-2021, 10:05 AMbluesfan55 Wrote: Jay Sink loves his fans therefore he is NOT a bust

Truth.

***luke*** · 12-15-2021, 12:23 PM

He could be. He’s no Esso though

Nhamlet · 12-15-2021, 01:07 PM

Yes

LordBirdman · 12-15-2021, 02:07 PM

After getting to share a LR with you in another league, I'd firmly argue that you are not a bust when considering your TPE standing combined with the great personality you add to a LR. You probably won't get to 2k TPE, but if you get to ~1700 TPE and stick around I would not consider that a bust. Perhaps not an optimized draft position, but certainly not a bust.

Opera_Phantom · 12-16-2021, 08:52 AM

Is Jay mementos player?

If so, he's a bust.

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us