Randomness, Fairness, and Excitment

[BKL]

I'd be interested in other's thoughts on this - baseball seems to be a sport where randomness plays a larger role than in some other sports. In other words, it seems more likely in baseball than in other sports were a mediocre but still decent team can make a run in the playoffs and possibly win it all. In football, hockey, and basketball it seems like the more dominating teams over the season are more likely to advance and win the championship.

So, this leads to the next issues, which is how to format a season and playoffs to allow for less randomness, more fairness to stronger teams, and yet still has excitement.

As an example, I tested a 2 league, 4 divisions per league, 4 team per division season. While the playoff hunt was exciting since a lot of teams where in the hunt with so many division, there was also a lot of random - and sometimes even less than .500 teams making it to the championship. This format seemed to "cheapen" the value of playoff championship.

The format I ultimately went with, and I'm pretty happy with results, is 2 leagues, 2 divisions per league, 6 teams per division. There is also a wildcard playoff. Best team in each league gets a "bye" and the other division winner gets home field advantage against the wildcard team. All series are best of 7. I noticed with this format is you almost always get the top 3 teams making a playoff birth.

I play out all my games so I only have 9 seasons finished so far. In those 9 season, the team with the best record in all of baseball won the championship 6 times. The 2nd best team won 1 time, and the wildcard team won 2 times. Of the 9 seasons and 18 potential teams to advance to the Championship, 11 teams of 18 spots were at the top of their league; 5 teams were 2nd best in their league, and 2 teams were 3rd best.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. The season is exciting with two divisions and a wildcard, yet the playoffs generally give a fair results.

I'd be interested in anyone else's experience and thoughts - and solutions - on this topic - randomness, fairness, and excitement.

Thanks!

[professor ape]

Less playoff teams is the top way to cut back on randomness. It puts more weight on the performance over the long regular season which because of the larger sample size, is a truer measure of a team's strength. If you want more than a few teams in the playoffs then giving the top teams a bye for a round will help as well. Once in the playoffs, going to a best-of-nine series favors the stronger team.

[risp2out]

Baseball's long season is anathema to playoffs, especially to wild cards. I get it that keeping teams in contention helps TV $ and ticket sales, but after 154 or 162 games, you ought to have a champion. The best format was 2 leagues, 8 teams a piece, and the World Series as a kind of bonus for winning the league. Not feasible in modern media world, but the season meant something.

[ForeverRoyalKC]

This is a reason I quit watching NFL football. I get SO tired of the same teams! I am a Chiefs fan, but dont care anymore because it seems like it's always the Patriots, Broncos and Bengals, Patriots, Broncos and Bengals. And this year, the Patriots have just as many national games televised as the champion Broncos. YAWN.

"Oh look...the Pats are in the AFC Championship." "Oh look, the Pats are in the AFC Championship." Oh look, the Patriots are...aw, skip it!"

Even when the Chiefs finally broke their playoff losing streak, only to end up at theeeee.....Patriots, I said "Well, the Chiefs had a good year."

And who's the one team that's analyzed, ad nauseum, every single year, again and again and again and again??.....the Cowboys! And it seems like the national tv games have the Cowboys, the Cowboys, the Cowboys.

I think the NFL should be the NFPCL. National Football Patriots Cowboys League.

Baseball seems to have more drama and more variety.

[TGH-Adfabre]

Lower the number of off days in the playoffs so that a 5 man rotation has to be used. One day off per series, one day off after the series. Depth plays a huge role in the regular season. Once the playoffs hit a 3-4 man rotation can be run if the off days are frequent.


Already mentioned: 9 game series.

[nebradska]

Originally Posted by BKL

SNIP

I have to disagree on almost every point. By virtue of a much longer season with more games and a lower percentage of teams making the playoffs, baseball is the major American sport with the least amount of "chance" influencing the results.

The MLB season has roughly twice as many games as the NBA and NHL while the NFL has a paltry 16. That gives more time for statistically anomalous wrinkles to be worked out.

Likewise, the MLB has only 30% of teams making the playoffs (and until very recently it was 26.67%) while the NFL has 12/32 (37.5%), while the NHL and the NBA have 16/30 (53%)! The NBA and NHL playoffs reduce variability in that ALL series are 7 games, while the NFL, of course, swings wildly the other direction with only a single game.

Lastly, record alone does not necessarily accurately reflect which team is the best. Strength of schedule can play a role (more relevant in sports with shorter seasons) as can whether the schedule is balanced or unbalanced--in the first case, why have divisions at all? and in the second, lesser teams in weaker divisions can and do win more than better teams facing tougher competition.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by BKL

I'd be interested in other's thoughts on this - baseball seems to be a sport where randomness plays a larger role than in some other sports. In other words, it seems more likely in baseball than in other sports were a mediocre but still decent team can make a run in the playoffs and possibly win it all. In football, hockey, and basketball it seems like the more dominating teams over the season are more likely to advance and win the championship.

So, this leads to the next issues, which is how to format a season and playoffs to allow for less randomness, more fairness to stronger teams, and yet still has excitement.

As an example, I tested a 2 league, 4 divisions per league, 4 team per division season. While the playoff hunt was exciting since a lot of teams where in the hunt with so many division, there was also a lot of random - and sometimes even less than .500 teams making it to the championship. This format seemed to "cheapen" the value of playoff championship.

The format I ultimately went with, and I'm pretty happy with results, is 2 leagues, 2 divisions per league, 6 teams per division. There is also a wildcard playoff. Best team in each league gets a "bye" and the other division winner gets home field advantage against the wildcard team. All series are best of 7. I noticed with this format is you almost always get the top 3 teams making a playoff birth.

I play out all my games so I only have 9 seasons finished so far. In those 9 season, the team with the best record in all of baseball won the championship 6 times. The 2nd best team won 1 time, and the wildcard team won 2 times. Of the 9 seasons and 18 potential teams to advance to the Championship, 11 teams of 18 spots were at the top of their league; 5 teams were 2nd best in their league, and 2 teams were 3rd best.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. The season is exciting with two divisions and a wildcard, yet the playoffs generally give a fair results.

I'd be interested in anyone else's experience and thoughts - and solutions - on this topic - randomness, fairness, and excitement.

Thanks!

i am not so sure that it has significantly more (read: enough to make a difference for the point you are trying to make) randomness. you'd have to look at volatility.

the NFL is definitely the most volatile with a 16-game schedule from the stand point of one team's record, but the league-wide statistical results for a season are probably fairly consistent though, just like baseball i'd bet. this question can depend on perspective. i would think in this context of your OP, it's more about results of teams making or not making the playoffs - wins/losses.

as i re-read, i think you meant less randomness based on your example, because an undeserving team making the playoffs they need a lot of fortuitous (which could be somethine detrimental happening to the competition) random things to occur. if it happens more often, then there is more randomness (not in reference to # of teams that make their respective playoffs - that would need to be considered in order to compare between leagues)

i definitely agree on the cheapening of playoffs when too many teams get in. i usually shoot for 1/4th to 1/3rd of the teams making it - the playoff format affects this decision... i don't want bye weeks in teh playoffs. i think it's silly when a ~half or more of the league makes it, like hockey or most fantasy football leagues. for reference: 28teams (14/14), a balanced schedule, no divisions and 4 teams from each subleague make the playoffs. i rarely see a team below .520-.540 as the last team in. i don't think i've ever seen a .500 or worse team make it in more years than i care to mention over a few reincarnations.

"So, this leads to the next issues, which is how to format a season and playoffs to allow for less randomness, more fairness to stronger teams, and yet still has excitement. "

It depends on some personal preferences. interleague, balanced, dh rules the same, etc etc... how far do you want to go to have the most even set of rules for all teams to follow and reduce the influence of factors that aren't on the field.

the most extreme way would be a balanced schedule and equal rules in both leagues. also, the field factors would have to be normalized.

do you want one team benefiting from fly balls to left field being home runs for 81 games and others in that subleague only benefitting from it for a handful of games?

if the goal is to have the most deserving teams making the playoffs as much as the game of baseball as it is played on teh field allows, then you need to make sure it's 100% equal from the start. they need to play each other all the same amount of times. they need the same rules the same schedules as far as days off (nothing we can do about injuries / weather).

*we can stop rainouts, but logically it isn't reasonable... same with injuries. those options should be in the game as they are now, in case that's not understood.

divisions just cause a possibility for random schedule-related things to influence results. even if you have a balanced schedule and they are mostly asthetic... but not quite, unless you customize your playoffs to make sure playoffs teams are chosen by wins, not a division lead. these are for TV and spectators... an effort to increase fanaticism / rivalries etc., and nothing to do with rewarding the best based on an equal playing field.

so work back from there on the things you still want to keep, and you will have the environment tailored to your wishes that will provide the most even playing field for all teams and to allow just hte randomness between the lines affect the outcome of the regular season.

lots of reasons to do things differently, and impossible to predict for each person. what we feel or prefer doesn't change facts. some things are so small they may only occur 1/10,000 years... at what point do we see negligible returns? that's a matter of opinion in many cases.

as far as excitement, i'd assume it's nearly the same chance each season to have X number of teams in a tight competition at the end of the year.. the only way to increase that is to purposefully hamstring the leading teams or something.

[David Watts]

Still I wonder who'll stop the rain?

[Cobby]

Here's a thought I had. Mind you, I'm not actually advocating for this, just throwing it out there. But I think it does fit the bill for giving a strong advantage to the winner of the regular season endurance contest yet still providing some post-season excitement.

This probably works best if the divisions are fairly large; or no divisions at all. Say we have an 8-team division. The 8th place team would play the 7th place team - one game. The winner plays the 6th place team. And so forth on up the ladder. These games all take place on consecutive days at the home park of the higher placed team. When it finally gets up to the first place team there's a best of seven series to determine the champion.

So for the last place team to make it, in an 8 team division, they'd have to win 6 games in a row all in different cities on consecutive days and then beat the well-rested first place team in a best of seven series. Not too likely, but imagine the excitement if a team got lucky and started climbing that ladder.

One possibility too would be to give a further advantage to the regular season winner - maybe they only get eliminated after losing 4 games but the challenger gets eliminated after losing 3....

[nebradska]

Originally Posted by Cobby

SNIP

Except for your last part, I think you can easily set up that playoff format with OOTP.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by David Watts

Still I wonder who'll stop the rain?

well, milli vanilli blamed it on the rain...but that was long after CCR was asking "who". so, they must have figured it out... 1 of them is still alive right?

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by BKL

I'd be interested in other's thoughts on this - baseball seems to be a sport where randomness plays a larger role than in some other sports. In other words, it seems more likely in baseball than in other sports were a mediocre but still decent team can make a run in the playoffs and possibly win it all.

Because of the length of the season, there are very few accidents of luck in baseball. While there have been notable instances of division winners with mediocre records, they are the exception not the norm.

Baseball is no different from the other sports in that once the playoffs start, all bets are off. Teams with better records often, and for a variety of reasons, lose to teams with records not as good. There are also big upsets in every sport, but if you dig down into what happened in the game(s), why the upset happened becomes clear and if there was luck involved it's because the winning team made their luck.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by ForeverRoyalKC

And who's the one team that's analyzed, ad nauseum, every single year, again and again and again and again??.....the Cowboys! And it seems like the national tv games have the Cowboys, the Cowboys, the Cowboys.

I think the NFL should be the NFPCL. National Football Patriots Cowboys League.

Baseball seems to have more drama and more variety.

That's true nowadays. But it certainly wasn't necessarily the case in the past. Consider: the New York Yankees won the AL pennant 15 out of 18 years (1947-64), winning 10 of 15 World Series.

Originally Posted by Cobby

This probably works best if the divisions are fairly large; or no divisions at all. Say we have an 8-team division. The 8th place team would play the 7th place team - one game. The winner plays the 6th place team. And so forth on up the ladder. These games all take place on consecutive days at the home park of the higher placed team. When it finally gets up to the first place team there's a best of seven series to determine the champion.

Sounds like the KBO playoff format, which currently is:

1st round: 5th vs. 4th, best-of-3, with the 4th place club starting the series with a 1 win advantage
2nd round: winner of 1st round vs. 3rd place, best-of-5
3rd round: winner of 2nd round vs. 2nd place, best-of-5
4th round: winner of 3rd round vs. 1st place, best-of-7

[Curve Ball Dave]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

That's true nowadays. But it certainly wasn't necessarily the case in the past. Consider: the New York Yankees won the AL pennant 15 out of 18 years (1947-64), winning 10 of 15 World Series.

Or the 1970s NL when the Dodgers, Reds, Pirates, and Phillies pretty much dominated their respective divisions.

[Trebro]

I think the issue is that people are too tied into Regular Season Champ MUST be the best in the playoffs, too.

It's what I think I might like best about English football--the idea that the regular season is just that, and that the playoffs--the Cups--are treated as their own thing.

For my OOTP stuff, I usually eschew small divisions and I always go with a balanced schedule.

[Elektranaut]

Yes indeed when the Football League was founded in 1888 the 12 founder members agreed to a 22 game season each side playing the others twice,one home game and one away,2 points for a win,1 for a draw,team with the most points is the champion....no play offs.These days it is 3 points for a win but otherwise the system endures.Instead of play off football there has been The FA cup played since 1872 ,a sudden death knock out competition which is entirely separate from the League.To complicate matters The Football League introduced it's own knock out tournament in the early 60's called confusingly The Football League Cup!
Now we have the European Champions League which is not a League and features teams who are not league champions.