3 teams tied for Wild Card

[thehatfield]

I had three teams tied for the one remaining Wild Card position after the last day of the regular season but only two teams played the one-game playoff for the spot. I tried to see if the game left out the team that has the worst record against the other clubs, but that wasn't the case as the team left out had a winning record against one of the teams in the playoff game. Anyone know what the tiebreak is there?

[Le Grande Orange]

OOTP sometimes just ignores one of the clubs involved in a three-way tie for one playoff spot. I thought it might have something to do with the position the club occupies in the standings as shown in OOTP's standings screen, but I don't think that's it.

[Morty Ruth]

Is this with the 2012-present 2 wild cards per league?

I just had a 3-way tie too, but it was a 1963 pre-division pennant race between Minnesota, Chicago and Detroit. The game handled it well, scheduling two one-game playoffs between the three. The assigned games were random (i.e., not based on records between the three teams), which is how I understand the AL would have handled it at the time.

I actually used the schedule editor to handle it according to NL rules, in which the team with the best record against the other two teams took home field advantage in the first game, against the second best team, then the winner of that game played the third place team.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Morty Ruth

I just had a 3-way tie too, but it was a 1963 pre-division pennant race between Minnesota, Chicago and Detroit. The game handled it well, scheduling two one-game playoffs between the three.

Sometimes it gets the basic procedure right. And sometimes it just ignores one of the clubs involved in the three-way tie. I can't tell why. Most of my testing in which three-way ties happened is with an MLB-like, three division winner and two wild card qualifier arrangement.

Just to make it more interesting, in a test league where I had the top four teams in each division making the playoffs, I had a three-way tie for the fourth and final playoff position. The basic process was correct, but weirdly the team losing the second game advanced rather than the winner.

[Cryomaniac]

More work really needs to be done on this for OOTP 16 imho. It is better than is used to be though.

[thehatfield]

Yes, mine was also with the MLB setup so there were 2 Wild Card spots per league, one of the spots in one league was already taken and three teams tied for the second spot. I'll just go with "they drew straws" or "coin flip" or whatever for storytelling purposes.

FYI - this is from MLB.com that I found last night:

If one game is needed to break a tie for a playoff berth between two teams, it will be played on the Monday after the scheduled end to the regular season, hosted by the team that won the season series against the other. That applies to determining a division championship whether or not the losing team would still qualify as a Wild Card.

Home-field advantage is determined first by head-to-head records, then by the higher winning percentage in intradivision games. If a further tiebreaker is needed, it's the best winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games.



Determining Home-Field Advantage in Two-Team Tiebreakers

1. Head-to-head winning percentage during the 2014 regular season.
2. Higher winning percentage in intradivision games.
3. Higher winning percentage in intraleague games.
4. Higher winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games.
5. Higher winning percentage in the last half plus one intraleague game, provided that such additional game was not between the two tied clubs. Continue to go back one intraleague game at a time until the tie has been broken.

Determining A, B, C Designations in Three-Team Tiebreakers

1. All Three Clubs Have Identical Records Against One Another

• Club with highest winning percentage among three tied clubs in intradivision games chooses its designation, followed by the team with the next highest winning percentage in intradivision games. If any two of the clubs have identical winning percentages, then then the two-Club tiebreak rules will break that tie. If all three Clubs have identical winning percentages, then;

• Club with the highest winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games chooses its designation, followed by the team with the next highest winning percentage in intraleague games. If any two of the clubs have identical winning percentages, then then the two-Club tiebreak rules will break that tie. If all three Clubs have identical winning percentages, then;

• Club with the highest winning percentage in the last half plus one intraleague game, provided that such additional game was not between any of the tied Clubs, chooses its designation, followed by the team with the next highest winning percentage in the last half plus one intraleague game. Continue to go back one intraleague game at a time until the tie has been broken.

2. Three Clubs Do Not Have Identical Records Against One Another

• If Club 1 has a better record against Clubs 2 and 3, and Club 2 has a better record against Club 3, then Club 1 chooses its designation, followed by Club 2.

• If Club 1 has a better record against Clubs 2 and 3, and Club 2 and 3 have identical records against one another, then Club 1 chooses its designation. Clubs 2 and 3 would follow the two-Club tiebreak rules to break their tie to pick the next designation.

• If Club 1 and 2 have identical records against one another, but each has a better record against Club 3, then Clubs 1 and 2 would follow the two-Club tiebreak rules to break their tie to pick the first designation.

• If Club 1 has a better record against Club 2, Club 2 has a better record against Club 3, and Club 3 has a better record against Club 1; OR Club 1 has a better record against Club 2, Club 2 and 3 have identical records against one another and Club 3 has a better record against Club 1; OR Club 1 and 2 have identical records against one another, Club 1 has a better record against Club 3 and Club 2 and 3 have identical records against one another, then:

a. The Clubs will be ranked by their overall winning percentage amongst the other Clubs combined. The Club with the highest overall winning percentage in that group chooses its designation, followed by the team with the next highest overall winning percentage.

b. If two of the Clubs have identical winning percentages, then they would follow the two-Club tiebreak rules to break their tie to pick their designation.

c. If all three teams have identical winning percentages, then the tiebreak rules above (No. 1) for three clubs having identical records against one another should be followed.

Three-Club Tie for One Wild Card Spot:
After Clubs have been assigned their A, B and C designations, Club A would host Club B. The winner of the game would then host Club C to determine the Wild Card Club.

[Le Grande Orange]

I can confirm that OOTP does not use those performance criteria to award the home field in tie-breaking playoff games. As far as I can tell OOTP either uses alphabetical order or team ID number order to assign the home field.

(On a related note OOTP also does not use performance criteria to resolve seeding ties for post-season match-up purposes.)

[spitfire]

It seems as though this issue has been discussed to death for years with no solutions from "on high". LGO in particular has done a fine job of banging the drum and trying to get this fixed. It would sure be nice if Markus could find a way to get the game to follow the correct procedures, or at least provide an easy way for the user to override the game's playoff selections/scheduling in order to manually get it right when necessary. For a game that claims to be "the world's best baseball simulation game", it seems downright silly that the program would have the losing team in a playoff advance instead of the winner or would ignore a club that should be involved in a playoff. Whatever internal logic the program is using to resolve ties in the standings, it just ain't workin'.

[darkcloud4579]

The autologic is stupid. But the remedy is just to manually schedule the games and that's worked as an option for years.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

The autologic is stupid. But the remedy is just to manually schedule the games and that's worked as an option for years.

And if someone is simming the whole season or multiple seasons they won't have that chance.

[Morty Ruth]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I can confirm that OOTP does not use those performance criteria to award the home field in tie-breaking playoff games. As far as I can tell OOTP either uses alphabetical order or team ID number order to assign the home field.

(On a related note OOTP also does not use performance criteria to resolve seeding ties for post-season match-up purposes.)

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I can confirm that OOTP does not use those performance criteria to award the home field in tie-breaking playoff games. As far as I can tell OOTP either uses alphabetical order or team ID number order to assign the home field.

(On a related note OOTP also does not use performance criteria to resolve seeding ties for post-season match-up purposes.)

Sorry to hear that, certainly -- I was hoping that the assignment of A, B, and C club status in a 3-way tie was based on real league rules, especially since that seemed to be the case in my 1963 season replay (based, I should say, on my reading of Le Grande Orange's well-presented research on this forum over the years). It is not, however, a tremendous trial to delete the auto-assigned playoffs, and schedule them as one wishes -- unless, as LGO points out, one is speed simming.

Obviously this is something that could be added to the rules that are adjusted on a season-by-season basis in historical leagues, and something that could be added to the league setup options. Given that it is a fairly rare occurrence, that it is easy enough to fix with the schedule editor, that tie breaking series are an issue dating back to OOTP's early days, and that developer time is precious, it is understandable that it has not made it to the fix list yet. Maybe next year!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Morty Ruth

Sorry to hear that, certainly -- I was hoping that the assignment of A, B, and C club status in a 3-way tie was based on real league rules, especially since that seemed to be the case in my 1963 season replay...

Well, technically, the real process that would have been used back then would have required a club to have lost twice in a modified round-robin-style playoff.

In terms of current procedures, the three-way tie process uses a more convoluted method to determine home field than does the two-way or four-way ties. In the former, it's the head-to-head record; in the latter, it's the aggregate head-to-head record. But for three-way ties it uses the club head-to-head results but in season series terms. Basically, whether a club won, lost, or tied (split) the season series against each of the other two teams involved in the tie.

These are various possibilities of season series 'records' for which MLB sets out the order that clubs would then pick their tie-breaking designations. For 'records' not covered, or in the case of all the clubs having 1-1 records in their season series, then the next step is to use the aggregate head-to-head record winning percentage. The club with the best record picks first, the second-best picks second, and the third club gets whatever designation is left. The schedule of tie-breaking games in all cases is:

Day 1: B at A
Day 2: C at A/B

I expect most clubs would elect to be 'C' under this arrangement since they'd get a day off and only need to win once in order to win the tie-breaker (albeit having to play that one game on the road). 'A' seems the next-best choice; it needs to win twice to advance but at least both games are at home.

[Morty Ruth]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Well, technically, the real process that would have been used back then would have required a club to have lost twice in a modified round-robin-style playoff.

In terms of current procedures, the three-way tie process uses a more convoluted method to determine home field than does the two-way or four-way ties. In the former, it's the head-to-head record; in the latter, it's the aggregate head-to-head record. But for three-way ties it uses the club head-to-head results but in season series terms. Basically, whether a club won, lost, or tied (split) the season series against each of the other two teams involved in the tie.

These are various possibilities of season series 'records' for which MLB sets out the order that clubs would then pick their tie-breaking designations. For 'records' not covered, or in the case of all the clubs having 1-1 records in their season series, then the next step is to use the aggregate head-to-head record winning percentage. The club with the best record picks first, the second-best picks second, and the third club gets whatever designation is left. The schedule of tie-breaking games in all cases is:

Day 1: B at A
Day 2: C at A/B

I expect most clubs would elect to be 'C' under this arrangement since they'd get a day off and only need to win once in order to win the tie-breaker (albeit having to play that one game on the road). 'A' seems the next-best choice; it needs to win twice to advance but at least both games are at home.

Yes, after posting the other day, I went back to some of your old writings on the topics, and saw that I hadn't read as carefully as I would have liked. Thank you for the clarification.

As an aside, in the same 1963 historical league I mentioned, I had a postseason amateur draft, and picking first as the dismal Phillies, I had a choice between Rusty Staub, Luis Tiant, Phil Niekro, etc. I went with Tiant, hoping Staub would last another round, but alas, he's a Red Sock.