Quote:
Originally Posted by Questdog
I would suggest you not go to 4 team divisions. In real life, more divisions means more team in the playoffs means more teams making money, but dilutes the regular season pennant races. The more teams playing a single division means more opportunities for at least two of the teams having similar records heading down the stretch which means more pennant races.
In my lifetime there has never been a more exciting pennant race than the 1967 American League. Heading into September there were 4 teams within a game and a half of each other. It was neck and neck the whole month and going into the final day of the season, three teams were separated by only a half of a game. They had 10 teams all in one division.
Pennant races for the chance to go to the World Series are a LOT more exciting than races for the final wild card spot.....
And even if you don't have wild card teams in your setup, the odds of you having a close race for the division title will be much less and the chance to have a 4 team scramble for the title will be next to nil....
|
You know, I tend to agree with you but the past two seasons have me rethinking my (and your) strategy. I have 24 teams in 2 leagues with 2 divisions apiece. I love those races you're talking about and I hate diluted talent in the playoffs.
As far as I'm concerned, if you won 88 games and sneak in via the last wildcard spot, you're not worth having in the fight for the championship to begin with.
That said, I took over the league's worst team by far after a 15 year sim for history. By year 3, I finished in second place and just lost the World Series the following year. That's all well and good, but the pennant races sucked in both my 6-team division and league wide.
Last year, I finished about 8 games out so the nobody in my division had anything to play for with a week and a half to go.
Fast forward to this past year. Every pennant race was decided with over a week still to play. The division winners in one league won by 18 games and 16 games. In my league, a team won by 6 games and I won by 2 games. My last 3 games were against the team chasing me. Sounds exciting, right? Wrong, unfortunately. I lost my last 4 and the other team won their last 6 to make it look close. If I had wildcards, there would have been some sweet races. In one league, after the teams that won their respective divisions by a combined 34 games, three teams were within five games of each other. With 10 games to play, they were all separated by just two games. That would have been a nifty wildcard race.
In my league, three teams finished 7 games apart for what could have been a wildcard race. With ten games to play, the three were separated by 3 games, two of them were tied for what could have been a 4th and final wildcard spot.
Oh, what could have been. This truly has me thinking expansion for the first time and adding a wildcard. I plan on giving it at least another year though. If you have any advice so I don't have to go wildcard though, please do share. I hate the wildcard idea, but I also hate not seeing a single pennant race.