Division Set-Up (Fictional Game)

[Klew1986]

So I am in the process of re-aligning my fictional game. I have expanded from 16 to 24 teams over a long stretch of time. I had been doing only 2 divisions per league, but with the two new teams to make it 24, I decided to move to 3 divisions of 4 teams per league. I would like your input on how to align the divisions.

Here is the current set-up:

Nixon League
East Division
Atlanta
Baltimore
Chicago
Cincinnati
Detroit
Philadelphia

West Division
Dallas
Oakland
San Diego
San Francisco
St. Louis
Washington


Roosevelt League
East Division
Boston
Cleveland
Milwaukee
New York
Pittsburgh
Tampa

West Division
Denver
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Minneapolis
Phoenix
Seattle

[Charlie Hough]

It's pretty straight forward. Here are my suggestions, and they would follow similar geographical alignments among the four major sports. There are a couple of possibilities for naming conventions.


NL

Atlantic/East
Atlanta
Baltimore
Philadelphia
Washington

Midwest/Central
Chicago
Detroit
Cincinnati
St. Louis

Pacific/West
Dallas
Oakland
San Diego
San Francisco


RL

Atlantic/East
Boston
New York
Pittsburgh
Tampa

Midwest/Central
Cleveland
Kansas City
Milwaukee
Minneapolis

Pacific/West
Denver
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Seattle

[bwburke94]

Nixon League
East Division
Baltimore
Detroit
Philadelphia
Washington (from West Division)

Central Division
Atlanta (from East Division)
Chicago (from East Division)
Cincinnati (from East Division)
St. Louis (from West Division)

West Division
Dallas
Oakland
San Diego
San Francisco


Roosevelt League
East Division
Boston
Cleveland
New York
Pittsburgh

Central Division
Kansas City (from West Division)
Milwaukee (from East Division)
Minneapolis (from West Division)
Tampa (from East Division)

West Division
Denver
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Seattle


In the Nixon League, I moved Atlanta instead of Detroit to maintain the "geographical rivalry" of sorts with Cincinnati.

In the Roosevelt League, it's fairly obvious why I put each team where. Tampa was moved to the Central to preserve the Cleveland-Pittsburgh rivalry - also, Tampa is further west than Cleveland, so this fits geographically.

[Papa3]

If you have any close calls in mind, I would take into account team performance and market size to better balance divisions and leagues.

[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....

[Papa3]

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.

[Questdog]

A close wildcard race is like a close contest for Miss Congeniality....who cares?.....other than the fans of the teams involved.....and since your OOTP teams have no fans, absolutely no one will care....

You have to have at least 8 teams in a division to maximize the pennant races.....6 teams will give you some really good 2 team races occasionally, but hardly ever 3 or 4 team races. And usually when it IS a 3 team race in a division, it's because they all are weak compared to the other division and who cares about who's gonna finish with 85 wins and the chance to get swamped by the good team in the playoffs?

10 team leagues have really grown on me lately. With two of them, you are almost guaranteed of having at least one of them come down to the wire nearly every season. 8 teams are fine, but then you can't play 162 game schedules. 32 teams in 4 8 team divisions is a good setup (you can play 162 game schedules), but since I follow all the teams very closely, it's just too big a league for me. Cutting that in half to 16 teams in 1 league with 2 divisions is a setup I have played a lot.

So my advice would be to choose one of the following options:
1) Just do away with the divisions an play 2 12 team leagues. They did this in the late 1800's and found that it was hard to get fans to show up for an 11th place vs. 12th place series in September. But we don't have to worry about that in OOTP, though you can't play 162 game schedules.

2) Contract to 20 teams and go to two 10 team leagues.

3) Expand to 32 teams, if you are up for it.

One other reason I like to not have any playoffs except the World Series is that OOTP keeps track of the post season stats, but not the World Series stats. So you never have any idea of who the all-time leaders in the Series are. With no playoffs, the post season stats ARE the World Series stats and you can keep track of the records.....

[Papa3]

Originally Posted by Questdog

1) Just do away with the divisions an play 2 12 team leagues. They did this in the late 1800's and found that it was hard to get fans to show up for an 11th place vs. 12th place series in September. But we don't have to worry about that in OOTP, though you can't play 162 game schedules.

Awesome, awesome stuff man! I truly appreciate it. But i do have one question. I'm not sure why a 162-game schedule isn't possible for the 12-team, 1-division setup. Is it because it needs to be weighted with intra and interdivisional play to come out evenly?

Also, I just realized that I think you're the guy I need to thank for my favorite mod, the names you did are absolutely wonderful and has made OOTP mimic real life perfectly. Fabulous work my friend. Oh, and I'm looking forward to finally seeing a "Kotler" in a game, you put it in there.

While I've got your attention, maybe you can help me with that too. I put the blank nicknames file in but I'm still getting those awful nicknames so I have to play in commish mode so I can delete the nicknames that keep popping up. In advance, I thank you for helping with this too.

[Elektranaut]

For me the purity of the old 2 division set-up between the NL and AL was a thing of beauty and should have been left alone.They should have 4 divisions of eight teams each.What's the point of playing 162 games which don't decide anything,...by current MLB logic they should reduce regular season games and include ALL mlb teams in a two month play-off schedule,with the world series decided on a 1 game winner take all final,and play it in Japan or Venezuela or somewhere like that.My currrent league has 2 divisions of 8,just finished a pennant race with 4 teams seperated by 1 game on the final day....that's what its all about!

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Papa3

Awesome, awesome stuff man! I truly appreciate it. But i do have one question. I'm not sure why a 162-game schedule isn't possible for the 12-team, 1-division setup. Is it because it needs to be weighted with intra and interdivisional play to come out evenly?

When all teams play in one division, you should have balanced schedules to insure that all teams are playing the same teams the same amount as everybody else. Otherwise, some teams get a slight advantage by playing weaker teams more often than other teams. With a 12 team league, this means 154 games (14 games against each opponent). The next highest total allowed in a balanced schedule would be 176 games (16 vs. every other team). You could make up the 8 games with inter-league play, but this would unbalance the schedule. Not a huge deal, but I don't like teams getting any kind of advantage, however slight.

Originally Posted by Papa3

Also, I just realized that I think you're the guy I need to thank for my favorite mod, the names you did are absolutely wonderful and has made OOTP mimic real life perfectly. Fabulous work my friend. Oh, and I'm looking forward to finally seeing a "Kotler" in a game, you put it in there.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Papa3

While I've got your attention, maybe you can help me with that too. I put the blank nicknames file in but I'm still getting those awful nicknames so I have to play in commish mode so I can delete the nicknames that keep popping up. In advance, I thank you for helping with this too.

You have to have the blank nickname file in place BEFORE you create the league. Once the league is created, the game does not read the name files anymore. Re-importing the name files does not work because it only adds the names from the new file and does not remove any names that are already in the game.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Questdog

When all teams play in one division, you should have balanced schedules to insure that all teams are playing the same teams the same amount as everybody else ... Not a huge deal, but I don't like teams getting any kind of advantage, however slight.

In that case, should all clubs play in parks with identical dimensions? They would have to, as parks of different dimensions might offer one home club more of an advantage than another.

[Papa3]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

In that case, should all clubs play in parks with identical dimensions? They would have to, as parks of different dimensions might offer one home club more of an advantage than another.

He's referring to advantages in terms of playing stronger/weaker opponents. Park factors are an advantage/disadvantage that every team has to deal with evenly since both teams play the same game in the same park.

But if I play an extra series against a bottom-dweller and the team chasing has their extra series against a division leader, those extra games are unfair for the team chasing me.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

In that case, should all clubs play in parks with identical dimensions? They would have to, as parks of different dimensions might offer one home club more of an advantage than another.

There has never been a study that concludes that a teams' park grants them any advantage at all over the long haul......everyone has a home field advantage and no one has ever shown that a certain park is more advantageous than another......

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Questdog

There has never been a study that concludes that a teams' park grants them any advantage at all over the long haul...

By that same logic has there ever been a study showing one or two extra games against one opponent as opposed to another has granted an advantage over the long haul?

(I'd point out as well that, back in the 16-team era, while the schedule originally called for 22 games against each opponent, the reality was that there were differences in the number actually played due to postponements. Nor was the home-away split against individual opponents, as well as for a club overall, equal either due to postponements.)

Originally Posted by Questdog

..everyone has a home field advantage and no one has ever shown that a certain park is more advantageous than another......

If so then shouldn't every club do about as well at home? The records from each season indicate there can be considerable differences.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

By that same logic has there ever been a study showing one or two extra games against one opponent as opposed to another has granted an advantage over the long haul?

(I'd point out as well that, back in the 16-team era, while the schedule originally called for 22 games against each opponent, the reality was that there were differences in the number actually played due to postponements. Nor was the home-away split against individual opponents, as well as for a club overall, equal either due to postponements.)

Love ya, LGO, but this ain't your best post.

You don't NEED a study to know that an unbalanced schedule is not fair. And just because baseball actually ever did something does not make it fair by default......They used to not let black men play, and that surely was not fair......

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If so then shouldn't every club do about as well at home? The records from each season indicate there can be considerable differences.

So you are seriously telling me that you believe the difference in won-lost records at home by the various clubs are mostly due to their park and how they have taken advantage of it's quirks?

[bwburke94]

This has gotten severely off topic due to Questdog's ranting about league sizes...