The Experiment: If you build it, will they win?

As long-time readers will know, I'm a great admirer of the "Moneyball" strategy of acquiring undervalued players. At the time of Moneyball, most of these players (at least the ones successfully targeted by Billy Beane) fit into the high on-base percentage, low batting average category. There still are deals to be had on some of those players, but most major-league teams (except maybe the Kansas City Royals) have realized the importance of OBP, making it harder to exploit that particular market inefficiency. However, there are still inefficiencies out there, and some of them can be spotted with sabermetric research. This suggested an interesting train of thought to me. In the last experimental post, I took a look at how Madden users might fare against NFL coaches in play-calling and clock management. Now, I want to see if a baseball fan with a passing knowledge of sabermetrics like myself could put together a better lineup than experienced MLB general managers.

Imagine this hypothetical; it's the winter meetings of 2008, and Major League Baseball has allowed my team to compete as a National League expansion franchise, known as the Surrey Scorpions. They've allowed this only because I waved a massive stack of cash under Bud Selig's nose and he couldn't resist. We can now go ahead and put a roster together, subject to some conditions we'll discuss later. Constructing a roster is a time-consuming process, though, so we'll work on putting together our eight starting position players for now and look at pitching and depth down the road.

Now, it would be simple to just pick the players with the highest batting averages or home run totals, but looking at those stats alone overlooks other crucial elements of the game, such as walks and defence. At the end of the day, a major league team's goal is to win games, not batting titles or home run derbies, so we have to look a little deeper. Perhaps the best measure of a player's overall contributions to his team comes from FanGraphs' Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat. For positional players, it looks at how many wins their batting and fielding skills produce relative to a hypothetical "replacement player" (i.e., an easily attainable minor league callup), with position factored in (there's an excellent explanation of how this works by Jeff Aberle at Behind The Boxscore). This is useful for this kind of analysis because it takes almost everything into consideration and melts it all down to a simple stat expressed in terms of wins.

One popular misconception about sabermetrics is that they're firmly against the traditional ways of analyzing the game. Of course, as with most sabermetric stats, the names at the top are still mostly recognizable superstars. Here's a list of the top players at each (non-pitching, non-DH) position by WAR in 2009.*



*Players with higher WARs than those below them, but lower WARs than the top players at their position are included for the sake of completeness and marked with a *. Additionally, I treated the corner outfield positions as equivalent, as many players move between right field and left field over their careers, and who plays in which slot is usually determined by team need. I've ignored designated hitters to simplify this, so all lineups are eight-man. Salaries are taken from the "base salary" category at MLB Secrets.

And here's a list with just the top player at each position:



As you can see from the players included on that list, it would be completely unfeasible to assemble this team. Some of these guys are extremely expensive veterans, such as Matt Holliday, Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter. Others are emerging young stars who aren't making a ton yet, but certainly wouldn't be traded by their teams for anything less than a king's ransom; this category includes Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria.

That leaves us with two constraints to consider; cost and tradeability. First, let's take a look at cost. Obviously, finances play a huge role in building a successful MLB franchise. A team that generates a lot of revenue, such as the Red Sox or Yankees, has a much easier time going out and getting the top players via trades and free agency without worrying about their salaries. Money doesn't automatically equal success, though. As teams like the Mets and Mariners have shown over the past years, it's still quite possible to spend a lot of money without creating a good team. Tom Verducci did a great analysis of teams' payrolls, regular-season wins and postseason acheivements at Sports Illustrated earlier this month; I want to take that a step further by looking at how much various MLB teams spent on their everyday players and how many more wins that netted them than just fielding a full team of replacement players for an entire season. Aberle estimates a complete team of replacement players would win 49 games and cost $11.2 million, so you can figure that each WAR the starting position players can add would add a win for that team.

Thus, the ideal lineup shown above has a combined WAR of 56.9, which would mean that they would be expected to win 106 games with replacement-level pitching. With good or even average pitching, they'd probably set a wins record. However, even with a few cheap young stars on there, they still have a combined salary of $69.7 million. That's not completely ridiculous on its own, as the Yankees (who we'll discuss later), spent $114.1 million on their starting eight, but the tradability concerns with the young, cheap players mean that this lineup still couldn't be put together in real life, especially with an expansion team like the Scorpions. If it was, though, it would have an efficiency rating (WAR/cost) of 0.81, which is pretty good; we'll get to some existing franchises efficiency ratings below. At the other end of the spectrum, the starting eight for a team composed entirely of replacement players would cost $4.4 million, and by definition, have a combined WAR of zero and an efficiency rating of zero.

Now, let's discuss the tradability concerns. One of the problems with many attempts at this sort of hypothetical analysis is they involve taking over an existing team and making a few changes that the author would like to see. These simulations can be useful, but they're limited, because part of the team's success will naturally come from the pieces that are always in place. Also, many of these situations involve proposed trades, and the problem with these is that you can't guarantee that any trade will be accepted by the opposing general manager (no matter how reasonable it may seem). Controlling for these effects from pieces already in place is the main reason why our hypothetical involves starting a completely new team with Major League players. Sound familiar? That's right; this will be the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Team 2.0!

 

However, unlike Mr. Burns, we can't just go and grab all the best players out there (which is what the lineup above would be). There is a limit to Selig's generosity; he's refused to allow the Scorpions to partake in the draft for this year or sign anyone under contract to another franchise. Thus, we're limited to free agents. Here's a list of all the 2008-2009 free agents that we'll be working from. It's not particularly long or particularly good, but it's the best we've got.

Using this list, I've produced two potential batting lineups for the Scorpions. Here's the first one, which assumes that the team can afford a $100-110 million payroll for for the entire team (counting pitchers). Thus, this is the best available lineup in terms of WAR that can be constructed with solely free agents.



This lineup produces 24.5 wins above replacement, which is quite good, as we'll see later when we look at actual major league lineups. However, as you can see from the salary of $57.3 million and the Efficiency Rating of 42.8 per cent, it's not particularly good value for money. Most of that's thanks to the large salaries of Mark Teixeira ($20.6 million) and Kosuke Fukudome ($11.5 million). If we replace them with cheaper but less productive guys, we have a more efficient roster (and a more realistic one) that still produces very well. Here's what this looks like:



This lineup produces 18.9 wins above replacement for a cost of $26.2 million, giving it a much better efficiency rating of 72.1 per cent. Its cost is also quite reasonable, especially when you consider that it's generally more expensive to assemble teams out of free agents than in-house talent. As mentioned earlier, a complete team of replacement players would be estimated to produce 49 wins and cost $11.2 million. Thus, if we bring in these guys and keep our replacement pitchers and replacement bench players, we have a payroll of an incredibly cheap less than $37.4 million and a team that would be expected to win a respectable 68 games. For reference, that's similar to the Marlins' payroll last year and well below the 2009 payroll of every other team.

How do real batting lineups compare? I took a look at the WAR ratings and salaries of the (non-DH) positional starting lineups on 12 MLB teams to compare, including very successful teams like the Yankees, notedly efficient teams like the A's, big spenders like the Mets and noted sabermetrics disdainers like the Royals. WAR numbers are from Fangraphs, salaries are from MLB Secrets or Baseball Reference and the starting player at each position is from Baseball Reference's data, based on who started the most games for them last season. Here are the results.



And here are those ratings in a table:



Of the 12 teams analyzed, only three lineups (Yankees, Tigers and Dodgers) had higher total WARs than the efficient free agent lineup I proposed above, and all of those teams had a much lower efficiency rating than my lineup. Only the Yankees' lineup produced more total WAR than the best free agent lineup out there. The Marlins, Indians and Rangers were all more efficient than my efficient lineup, but produced fewer total WAR. When you consider the limited number of free agents available, the artificial restriction of not allowing trades or draft picks and the (generally) higher cost of signing, To me, that shows there are still undervalued players out there, which means that the central theme of Moneyball is still very much alive. However, the trick is still figuring out which players are going to do well each season. That's a subject for a future post.

(As always, feedback is welcomed, either in the comments below, via Twitter or Facebook, or by e-mail.)

The death of Moneyball, as a film and an idea?

Some interesting news came out this evening. Apparently, Columbia Pictures decided to cancel [Will Brinson, FanHouse] the upcoming movie of Michael Lewis' famed book Moneyball at the last minute, only a few days before shooting was set to start. It's rare to see that kind of cancellation so close to production on any film, but even more unusual when it's a big-ticket film involving the likes of Brad Pitt and director Steven Soderbergh. Apparently, the studio didn't like the direction Soderbergh was taking the project. There's a chance the film could still get picked up by someone else; we'll have to wait and see on that front.


This is a somewhat unfortunate move in my mind. Moneyball was a brilliant book, and one that truly revolutionized how many segments of people—from print journalists to television personalities to fans, bloggers, and even team executives—approached baseball. Its influence spread beyond baseball to other leagues, and it dramatically changed the sporting landscape. It encouraged unconventional thinking and analysis and played a key role in popularizing the sabermetrics movement. It's the main reason I labelled Lewis as the Elvis of the sports world a while back, and he fits the moniker much better than even Bill Simmons' candidate, Houston Rockets' general manager Daryl Morey. I wasn't sure that Moneyball would translate to the big screen all that well, but it would have been interesting to see in any case. There certainly aren't many sports movies being made these days, either, so losing one of the few high-profile ones known to be in development isn't a good sign for the sports film scene.

It's also somewhat apt, though. The film's currently in limbo. Its future with Columbia appears dead, but there may be other studios interested in giving it new life. In my mind, that same process has happened with Moneyball as a whole. At its heart, Moneyball described how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane and his staff couldn't afford to compete with the clubs with bigger budgets for the top free agents, so they had to find another way to win. They did so by spotting players who were productive, but undervalued, most notably players with relatively low batting averages and relatively high on-base percentages, and then acquiring those players cheaply.It's simple economics; if there's a limited supply of traditionally valued players and a significant demand, they'll be expensive, but if you can find players with close to as much value and lower demand for their services, you can achieve similar results.

Beane and his staff did very well with this philosophy, winning 90 or more games every year from 2000 to 2004 and 80 or more games from 1999 (the year after Beane succeeded Sandy Alderson as the A's full general manager) to 2006, despite minuscule payrolls, a lack of high draft picks and not many players traditionally thought of as top-end talent. Some have used the A's lack of playoff success during that period (they lost in the first round four times and in the American League Championship Series once) as a knock on the Moneyball approach, but that criticism is flawed; just making the playoffs in baseball is tough enough, for one thing, and short playoff series have a small enough sample size that even far better teams will still lose quite a lot of the time (as David Berri explains wonderfully here). In short, the Moneyball approach worked very well for the A's from 1999 to 2006.

Since then, however, things have gone downhill for Oakland. They suffered through losing seasons in 2007 and 2008, and appear likely to have another one this year. That's not an indictment of Beane, as he's still doing quite well with limited resources and the team has suffered its fair share of injuries and free agency departures over that period as well (see Swisher, Nick, a first-round draft pick covered in Moneyball who had significant success
with the A's, but left for the White Sox in 2008 and is now with the Yankees). It is a reflection that the Moneyball strategy no longer works in the form it once did.

It goes back to simple economics again. As the most basic example, before Moneyball came out in 2003, there was a significant supply of the high on-base percentage, lower batting average players favoured by Beane's approach and relatively little demand for them. After Moneyball, almost everyone from fans to team executives realized that these guys were worth more than they thought. Several guys with a background on the statistics side got jobs as major-league general managers (including Beane assistant J.P. Ricciardi, now the general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays), with many more being hired as assistant general managers and consultants; most of them quickly started adopting some of the strategies that had worked well for Beane. Even executives who don't seem to place a high value on OBP in practice give it at least lip service (see Moore, Dayton, who Joe Posnanski comments on here), resulting in significantly more demand for these kind of players. This increased demand means these players achieve a market value more suited to their skills, and thus can no longer be acquired cheaply. When everyone's doing it, it isn't an unconventional strategy any more. Thus, the idea of Moneyball along the specific terms expressed in the book is largely dead; the OBP approach in particular still has plenty of value and is a good idea for many teams, but it's no longer really a cheap way to win.

However, the larger idea behind Moneyball is very much alive and ticking despite the claims of some curmudgeons. The book's central thesis was that you can build an effective professional sports franchise cheaply by finding and exploiting market deficiencies, and that's still very true. In baseball, one way we've seen this lately is in teams' evaluations of players' defensive prowess, which used to be largely based on eyesight and spectacular, highlight-reel plays. Defensive statistics still have a way to go, but such statistics as Michael Lichtman's Ultimate Zone Rating (fully explained here, explained more simply here) and John Dewan's +/- system (explained here) allowed for a more detailed evaluation of players' fielding performances and gave some teams that picked up on them early the chance to sweep up undervalued defenders. I'm sure Beane and his fellow unconventional thinkers have plenty of other ideas in the works as well.

In hockey, guys like Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis have tried to apply a similar "Moneypuck" strategy for finding underrated players and have discussed in detail [Iain McIntyre, Vancouver Sun] how Beane inspired them, plus there's been a surge in new statistical analysis as exemplified by such sites as Gabriel Desjardins' Behind The Net. Basketball's also witnessed a statistical revolution and an increased application of unconventional insight, led by the likes of John Hollinger and the aforementioned David Berri. Even Lewis got in on the act this year with a tremendous piece on the Rockets' Shane Battier.

Statistical analysis have taken on a large role in football as well, as shown by the work of writers like KC Joyner (who I interviewed here) and Aaron Schatz; I still argue that there's room for much more unconventional thinking in the sport, though. Lewis also discussed some of the historical changes in the game wrought by unconventional analysis in his book The Blind Side (a few of which I analyzed over at The Good Point), which has already been made into a film scheduled to be released later this year.

These, and the numerous other examples out there, demonstrate that large numbers of people have caught on to the basic idea of exploiting market deficiencies to build a successful franchise. They'll likely take it in many different ways, and only some of them will pan out. However, this is proof that the principles behind Lewis' book linger on despite the specific examples perhaps petering out. Like the film, reports of the death of the ideas behind the book may have been greatly exaggerated, to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain. Moneyball is dead: long live Moneyball!

On bloggers, sabermetricians and the history of rock

All right, so this is going to be an unusual post. A while ago, Bill Simmons dubbed Houston Rockets' GM Daryl Morey "Dork Elvis" for his following among MIT grad students and basketball fans of a statistical bent. It got me thinking about comparisons between the rise of sabermetrics and sports blogs and the rise of rock and roll, and led to a great Twitter conversation with MC Bias and Craig Barker, which in turn inspired me to turn the idea into a post. I've already psychoanalyzed the blogosphere, so now it's time to turn it into rock format. Now, obviously all blogs aren't sabermetric-based and not all sabermetricians work on blogs, but the common thread between the two is that they were both ideas traditionally overlooked by the mainstream media that rapidly became popular and (somewhat) adopted by the mainstream. Thus, I've tried to combine the two a bit. My comparisons are below. Of course they're not going to be perfect matches, but I thought it would be fun to try. They're intended as compliments (except for Mariotti), so hopefully no one's too offended by what I've come up with. Add your own in the comments!

Bill James as Big Joe Turner: James is obviously the key figure at the heart of inventing sabermetrics (and inventing the term). The problem is that early rock and roll had a huge number of key players who could easily fit this role, including Louis Jordan and Muddy Waters. I went with Turner as the James analogue primarily thanks to his 1939 recording of "Roll Em Pete," a very early track with a lot of rock elements, and his 1954 hit "Shake, Rattle and Roll," which became one of the key early songs and was famously covered by Bill Haley and the Comets. You could make arguments for any number of figures in this role, though.

Michael Lewis as Elvis Presley: In my mind, Lewis is far closer to Simmons' "Dork Elvis" label than anyone else. Presley was the first real rock and roll star to gain mainstream acceptance and did a huge amount to popularize the work of musicians such as Waters and Turner; Lewis brought sabermetrics to the mainstream with Moneyball, certainly one of the most influential sports books ever written. He isn't known for ties to the blogosphere, but many key blogs got their start thanks to Moneyball, seeking to bring that kind of approach to sports. Lewis then wrote The Blind Side, which offered a different take on football and brought Michael Oher to national prominence. Of course, he's also well-known for his financial books and pieces for Vanity Fair, and Elvis was the first rock star to make the crossover into films successfully, so they both have versatility in common as well.

Bill Simmons as The Beatles: Yes, Simmons is just one man and the Beatles were a group, but this comparision fits very well apart from that. The Beatles made rock into a widespread cultural phenomenon; Simmons provided a similar service for sports blogs, especially after his move to ESPN (similar to the Beatles' 1964 conquest of America). Both have been criticized for being too mainstream and derivative at times, but they've also both brought their own innovations to the world; the Beatles with such hits as "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and the "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album and Simmons with reader engagement, massive mailbags, the "Levels of Losing" column, the "Ewing Theory" and the "Mount Rushmore of Sports" among others. He's not really on the sabermetrics side, but his influence on blogging remains considerable. NO ONE DENIES THIS!

Will Leitch, A.J. Daulerio, Rick Chandler and the rest of the Deadspin cast as The Rolling Stones: This is one of the best fits in my mind. Leitch and the Deadspin crew made their impact after Simmons, but they've brought similar influence to the world of sports blogs from a very different direction. Like the Rolling Stones, they've generally brought a edgier take than the Beatles and Simmons but have found plenty of success in doing so. In another similar vein, they've at times clashed with Simmons but generally have a good relationship and appreciate each others' contributions.

The Kissing Suzy Kolber cast as The Who: Like The Who, KSK takes the rebellion of The Rolling Stones/Deadspin to a whole new level. For The Who, that resulted in smashing instruments on stage and destroying hotel rooms off it; with KSK, that results in posts about MayonnAIDS. The Who have settled down a bit with age, though, whereas KSK remains as outrageous as ever.

The Fire Joe Morgan cast as Jimi Hendrix: Much like Hendrix, FJM took a little while to take off but soon grew into one of the most important blogs around. Also like Hendrix, FJM brought plenty of new innovation to the old theme of criticizing announcers/media types and went out suddenly at the height of its popularity. They picked up the sabermetric legacy from James and Lewis and did a huge amount to popularize the movement.

The Baseball Prospectus cast as David Bowie: Bowie picked up the legacy of Elvis and the Beatles and ran in a very different direction with it than the majority of bands, producing material from a wide variety of genres in the process. Baseball Prospectus did the same thing in the blog world, going for the hardcore sabermetric approach but in a variety of styles. Both approaches only appeal to a certain segment of the populace, but have proven very influential and spawned tons of followers in the process.

SB Nation as Atlantic Records: Atlantic Records played a huge role in the rise of rock music, signing many of the top artists (such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and AC/DC) and giving them the marketing support to get to the top. They've become one of the biggest record labels in the world, but they started small, with only a few key artists such as John Coltrane and The Coasters. Similarly, SB Nation grew out of Athletics Nation, a key blog in terms of both sabermetrics and blogging innovation but with a limited focus. Now, they're one of the largest and most respected blogging collectives on the Internet and seem likely to continue that dominance for a while.

Joe Posnanski as Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan took rock to a new audience, followers of folk music, but he also brought folk influences to a rock audience in a way few others could match. Joe Posnanski is the perfect example of this cross-pollination; he brings a mix of mainstream media and blogging influences and appeals to both crowds in the process. He's also mixed sabermetrics and traditional analysis more effectively than almost anyone else and gained a huge following in the process. Moreover, Dylan had huge influence on future generations of songwriters, and Posnanski has tremendous influence on current aspiring writers. Both remain highly popular today, and deservingly so. I'm sure Posnanski would prefer to be Bruce Springsteen, but I think this one fits better.

J.E. Skeets as The Clash: There are a number of reasons for this one. First, innovation; both took elements of what had gone before but created something new in the particular way they melded them. Like Posnanski, Skeets melds some mainstream techniques with his blogging, but is far more on the edgy blogging side; similarly, The Clash took some mainstream elements from pop and rock but subverted them into a punk style. Both Skeets and The Clash have had incredible influence on those who have followed them, and both also enjoy a tremendous amount of mainstream acceptance.

Henry Abbott as The Beach Boys: Abbott reminds me of the Beach Boys because both found ways to innovate within previous forms. The Beach Boys were much closer to traditional pop in style than most of the other early rock groups, but still refined the genre and took it to unexpected places, gaining a legion of followers in the process. Similarly, Abbott's writing is closer to a traditional journalism form than most of the other blogs on this list, but he's still carrying out tons of innovation into what that can be and refining the medium in the process. The Beach Boys were hugely influential for both pop and rock acts; similarly, Abbott's work has inspired and informed the work of both mainstream journalists and bloggers.

Mike Florio as AC/DC: Both Florio and AC/DC do one thing and do it well. In Florio's case, that's consistent, detailed and opiniated coverage of the NFL. In AC/DC's case, that's churning out great riffs and a string of hard rock hits for years on end. Both have their detractors, but have found considerable success within their niche.

AOL FanHouse as Geffen Records: Both FanHouse and Geffen have collected tremendous amounts of talent over the years, Geffen with everyone from Aerosmith to Nirvana and FanHouse with everyone from Michael David Smith to Kevin Blackistone. Moreover, in both cases, some very talented artists/writers have gotten lost in the shuffle while the hype goes to the big names on their rosters. Both have additionally courted controversial talent, such as Guns N' Roses and The Game in the case of Geffen and Jay Mariotti in the case of FanHouse.

James Mirtle as Rush: There's more to this than just my considerable fandom for both. Rush took a specific area of music, progressive rock, and quickly made themselves into arguably the most successful band in that realm. Similarly, Mirtle took an underserved area of the blogosphere (hockey) and soon established himself as one of the foremost authorities on the subject, becoming SB Nation's chief hockey guru in the process. Much like Rush's style and genre doesn't appeal to everyone, Mirtle's chosen sport and often analytical style of writing also have their detractors. However, both have proven highly influential. Both also have longevity and consistency of output going for them; Rush have been together since 1974 and churning out material for most of that time, while Mirtle's been producing quality hockey coverage for years despite a demanding day job at The Globe and Mail. Both are also starting to gain mainstream recognition, but aren't quite at the top yet; Rush are huge internationally and are legendary in circles of musicians (particularly for drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, renowned amongst drummers around the world) but still haven't cracked the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whereas Mirtle's become a hockey authority internationally and has lately been given more prominent roles in the Globe's hockey coverage, but still gets lesser billing at the paper behind the likes of Eric Duhatschek and Allan Maki (both incredibly talented and respected writers in their own right, but far less well-known in the blogosphere and among American hockey fans). Also, Mirtle and Rush have lent their status to other sites, bands and shows; Mirtle as a co-founder of The CIS Blog (where I write) and the paper's CIS football guy, and Rush with Bob and Doug McKenzie, the Trailer Park Boys and The Big Dirty Band, among others. Finally, both are proudly Canadian and among the country's best in their field.

Duane Rollins as Guns N' Roses: Only parts of this one apply, as Duane hasn't hit many of the crazy points of Guns N' Roses so far. What made me think of this one was the meteoric rise to prominence; Duane's been well-known in Canadian soccer circles for a long time, but launched The 24th Minute (where I'm one of his co-writers) less than a year ago and it's quickly become one of the go-to sites for North American soccer fans. The feuds also come into it; just as there are tons of people out to get Guns N' Roses, there are plenty of those like Bill Archer who appear to bear considerable hatred for Duane. I think that's at least partly because Duane's a very opinionated type who isn't shy about saying what he thinks, much like Axl Rose (except without the crazy). Riots also happen around both, although I'd argue that those are Axl's fault and not Duane's. Finally, there's the brilliance. Even those who hate Guns N' Roses usually admit they've got plenty of talent (or at least did before Axl fired everyone); similarly, even Duane's detractors have to admire how he's turned himself into one of the most prominent soccer personalities in Canada (and in North America to an extent). Let's just hope he doesn't pull an Axl and fire me for this post!

Jay Mariotti as The Game: Yes, not rock and not really a blogger either, but both have become more notorious for their feuds than for their work, which makes this comparision fit in my mind. Plus, The Game's with Geffen and Mariotti's with FanHouse, so that matches my earlier analogue, and I'm not a fan of either.

Jason Davis as John Cougar Mellencamp: There's something quintessentially American about both of these guys. Mellencamp's songs such as "Jack and Diane", "Small Town" and "R.O.C.K. In The USA" really capture a certain side of the American experience, whereas Davis provides a great view of American soccer. Both are probably a little underrecognized for the successes they've had as well.

Neate Sager as The Tragically Hip: First and foremost, both have prominent Kingston ties. They also both have considerable national influence and have inspired and helped many younger Canadian artists and writers, including myself (in Neate's case). Their work isn't for everyone, but both bring considerable talent to the table and have received substantial acclaim for it.

The Rookies as Broken Social Scene: Both have huge rosters of talented artists and writers, many with their own side projects. Both have also been around for a relatively short time compared to many of the musicians and bloggers on this list, but have already accomplished a lot in that time frame. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store for both.

Andy Hutchins as Kevin Drew: This obviously makes sense considering their key roles in the founding of The Rookies and Broken Social Scene respectively, but the comparison's deeper than that as well. Both have a rather ecletic, independent approach to their art, and have found a lot of success with it. Again, both styles don't appeal to everyone, but they're appreciated by many and have done a lot, and both will likely remain influential in the coming future.

Obviously, this is a very incomplete listing and just my thoughts. Add your own analogies and thoughts on mine in the comments below!