[kq76]

Originally Posted by gmo

Of course any given particular situation could keep from having that choice, and it reminds me of the question of preference for 3-day weekend Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon if you have the classic Mon-Fri work week. In my head I say I prefer to look forward to the offday for the full week, then come back from offday to a short week, so Sat-Mon.

I think you're right. I think most people would probably want the pain earlier and to look forward to the free time later. Before posting I asked my wife and she immediately said, "later to have something to look forward to", but she said it so fast I didn't think she was bothering to think it through. But instead, I was over-thinking it.

Originally Posted by gmo

For this exact situation and with the ability to slide the middle series either way, in making a schedule this would be a open choice. It would probably come down to which way would provide more balance between the number of games played league-wide on those two potential offdays.

That was actually the impetus for the question. I've based my schedule making workbook largely off of your blogposts (thank you! I don't think I would have gotten far without them) and once I get to your point of deciding whom to advance a day and whom not to (I have a bunch of Thursdays with no games scheduled so I'm deciding which series before Thursday to advance a day) I developed a logic to it awhile ago, but now that I'm on version 3 I'm trying to see if it can be improved upon. But it seems the original logic, some of which I just settled on for fear of getting stuck at that time, actually might be the best after all. This is a quote from my notes:

"I'd say advance x-a first (an away team is coming home then staying home so they might as well use the off-day as a travel day), then s-a (the home team stays home 3 series in a row so they'll have a non-travel offday either way before or after), then, if necessary, x-x (an away team is coming home and then leaving again so moving them would eliminate their travel day), and try to leave s-x where they are (a home team is staying home then leaving so leave that offday for a travel day). So an a always comes first. If you can't make up your mind between 2 similar options, maybe look at whether the away team, from the series/row in question, is going home and, if it is, consider getting it home sooner by advancing that series."

The #-# code is just the result of a formula comparing what a team is doing over 3 rows/series with the middle row/series being the considered for being moved or not.

Originally Posted by gmo

When it comes to multi-series homestands, along these lines one of my guidelines is minimizing the number of offdays within the homestand to make the theoretical travel schedule more relaxed. In an example of an away series, *two* home series, then away series, then where there is a choice I would make a point to put any offday between the first away series and first home series or between the second home series and the second away series rather than between the home series.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I can't remember exactly how you built your schedule now, but the way I've done mine is if all series can be 3-game series, then fine, go with that. And then that means most of them (not including at the beginning and the ASB) first get schedule Mon-Wed and Fri-Sun and then I move the former around. So I'm not (yet?) comparing 4 series in a row, only at most 3. I think my logic is, essentially, trying to do the same as yours although it can't tell where that team is playing its 1st or 4th series.

I do, however, have the problem that I've found it pretty much necessary to schedule 27 weeks instead of 26 because of all the offdays and I figure it's probably a lot easier to move around series within 27 weeks than it would be 26. I imagine, however, that the next complication I might tackle is to make a good chunk of series 2-game series as that way teams could play a handful of 7-game weeks which could shave off a week of the schedule. I don't suppose you've found a different/better solution to that have you?

Originally Posted by gmo

It would be interesting to see a player survey covering the original question and the within-homestand offdays case. Opinions probably span the whole range. For the original I have no idea. For the within-homestand question, stereotyping a bit, I can imagine older guys with families preferring tighter travel schedule to give more time off at home and younger guys liking more cases with an offday for travel that allows for an evening free in the new town before game tomorrow.

Yeah, that's where my thinking was going, people would rather be at home most of the time, but only briefly in my life was I a party animal so I didn't see that angle. Of course, I'm pretty sure management, whom might have at least some say in schedule making, should prefer to be at home as much as possible to cut down on costs and possibility of players getting into trouble on the road.

Originally Posted by gmo

Sorry to go on further in different directions, but using the gametimes is something else I have moved toward doing for sort of maximizing time for travel. After offdays are already settled, if there is a situation where both teams (or potentially even just one team) play somewhere else tomorrow, make their game against each other today in the afternoon. I think that is more done in real MLB than my minimize offdays within homestands.

Yeah, I was thinking I might do that one day. I stuck with all Sunday games at 1:05 and all others at 7:05 as it didn't seem worth it at the time to alter them further. I did look at a couple of real schedules to see if I could spot a pattern for why some non-Sunday games started early and I remember it actually seemed somewhat random. I have to imagine I looked at whether the home team was leaving or not, but I'm sure I didn't consider whether the away team was playing the next day or not. Is that the only factor you've found?