Manager expectations in a league with no playoffs

[voxpoptart]

I run a fictional Australian League of two 10-team leagues where, as in the 1960s, the only "postseason" is a championship best-of-seven (the Marsupial Cup) between the team in each league with the best regular-season record. That's been fine for me -- we just won the Cup in the second year of play -- but I'm seeing a lot of the most successful managers getting fired.

* Wagga Wagga won the Eastern League pennant (97-65), then tied for second (88-74), and fired its manager.
* Melbourne finished fourth (88-74), tied for second (88-74), and fired its manager.
* Exmouth finished fifth in the Western League (83-79), then third (95-67), and fired its manager.

In your experience, is this how the game behaves even in a full-playoffs setting? Or is this a programming failure where managers are being punished for not making a "playoffs" that don't exist?

[ra7c7er]

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

I run a fictional Australian League of two 10-team leagues where, as in the 1960s, the only "postseason" is a championship best-of-seven (the Marsupial Cup) between the team in each league with the best regular-season record. That's been fine for me -- we just won the Cup in the second year of play -- but I'm seeing a lot of the most successful managers getting fired.

* Wagga Wagga won the Eastern League pennant (97-65), then tied for second (88-74), and fired its manager.
* Melbourne finished fourth (88-74), tied for second (88-74), and fired its manager.
* Exmouth finished fifth in the Western League (83-79), then third (95-67), and fired its manager.

In your experience, is this how the game behaves even in a full-playoffs setting? Or is this a programming failure where managers are being punished for not making a "playoffs" that don't exist?

It's pretty normal. If you're owner is demanding and wants you to get to the playoffs that will happen. Regardless of how many or how few teams make the playoffs.

Wagga Wagga sounds like it might have just tripped the "it doesn't matter what you do you're being let go button" so to speak.

[BIG17EASY]

To me, that sounds like managers being punished for not making the playoffs. The game is most likely treating that series between the two top teams as the playoffs. There should be something written into the code (if possible) to limit the prevalence of the "make the playoffs" demand when only a very small percentage of teams make the playoffs.

[Padreman]

Love Australia. I have a 12 team Australian League and 12 team Canadian league i have them play each other in the Commonwealth Series

[voxpoptart]

Thanks, BIG17EASY. That's my idea, compactly stated. And cool, Padreman, I approve.

Originally Posted by ra7c7er

It's pretty normal. If you're owner is demanding and wants you to get to the playoffs that will happen.

Ra7c7er: The question is, would it seem usual for three of the six most-winning teams to fire their manager if, say, Exmouth had won its division, and Wagga Wagga and Melbourne had met in the wild card game?

If that would be normal, I disagree with the design philosophy but there's nothing to try to change. But if not -- and I'm guessing not -- than it's a programming flaw I can ask the design team to fix. In a world where 90% of the teams miss the "playoffs", missing the playoffs should only rarely be a thing to be fired over.

[jaysdailydose]

I'm looking for quality yearly data on the amount of managers fired, but I'm having trouble finding data on Google... I am looking, though.

I'm going to guess that if you went back 10-30 years and compared how many managers are fired per year in your league versus how many are fired in real life, I would wager the %'s would be pretty close (I know you have only a 20-team setup!)

It would take doing the data, but there are definitely situations where a team would fire their manager (even with a quality record such as the one you have depicted) for not at least reaching the World Series (the same as you reaching the playoffs in your universe.)

I'm not saying that the numbers may not be inflated -- they very well may be, but I would have to see more data on both situations to really say for sure. If anyone knows of a place where we could see manager firings per season, that would be a great data set to have here.

[jaysdailydose]

For instance, when Jim Leyland retired after the 2013 campaign, many in Detroit feel that he might have been relieved of his duties anyway after missing the World Series. No one truly knows if he was forced out or not... they made it look very good, that Jim wanted to be done -- but Smokes is still around the team on a daily basis, so its not like he packed it in to go smoke his Marlboro Reds on the golf course or out fishing every day.

His record would have definitely been on the level of your fired managers -- and he didn't make it to the World Series... just a real-life instance that may give you some pause.

[ra7c7er]

Originally Posted by voxpoptart

Thanks, BIG17EASY. That's my idea, compactly stated. And cool, Padreman, I approve.



Ra7c7er: The question is, would it seem usual for three of the six most-winning teams to fire their manager if, say, Exmouth had won its division, and Wagga Wagga and Melbourne had met in the wild card game?

If that would be normal, I disagree with the design philosophy but there's nothing to try to change. But if not -- and I'm guessing not -- than it's a programming flaw I can ask the design team to fix. In a world where 90% of the teams miss the "playoffs", missing the playoffs should only rarely be a thing to be fired over.

No I don't think they would have been fired if they made the playoffs with a typical owner. But without knowing your league I can't say.

I don't think it's a design flaw. The game is setup by default for a MLB type league and when you change settings the game acts differently. I hardly consider this a design flaw or bug. I play completely custom worlds nearly exclusively and I am often running up against what the computer wants to do.

Going back to you're original post you do have a playoffs it's the one game series. So if you're owner wants you to make the playoffs you better be one of the best two teams.

The game is pretty good with owners and firing managers even when in non-standard leagues so I'd venture to guess their is a reason why those managers got fired. It really could be any number of reasons.

Their were/are better managers in the personnel pool
They didn't meet owner goals
Owner is just a demanding curmudgeon (I've been fired tons of times from a demanding owner after having great seasons)
etc.

The first one is the biggest IMO especially when starting a new save. Since the game will often create better FA personnel then what is put on teams. In my save I have 48 teams now and in the first 3 years I'll see more personnel turnover then any three year period after.

[voxpoptart]

Originally Posted by jaysdailydose

When Jim Leyland retired after the 2013 campaign, many in Detroit feel that he might have been relieved of his duties anyway after missing the World Series.

He had failed to make the World Series in nine years of trying. The managers I mentioned failed to make the World Series in *two* years of trying. Three of the six teams with the best records fired their managers after year two (50%). Four of the other fourteen (29%) did. I'm with you, Jay, that this discussion would be better with real-life data, and there probably are years where something like that happens. But I bet it's unusual, especially with the "only had two years of trying" qualification.

Ra7c7er suggests this will stop after a couple more seasons, in which case, cool, it's not really an issue. But I don't agree that "it's not a design flaw" if it does continue. Sure, OOTP's default is the modern day majors, but it's designed for historical simulation too, and I've picked, in this particular instance, a real MLB league structure. 95-67 is an extremely good season; 97-65 followed by 88-74 is an extremely good pair of seasons. I don't see why even the default AI can't be programmed to notice.