Your Ideas for a 32 team league alignment

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

It would be interesting to ponder a wild card system which somehow factored in the strength of each club's schedule when comparing overall records between divisions.

Why are the words "NCAA Selection Committee" moving inexorably to the front of my mind?

[Threnodas]

Actual league I'm working on:
60 teams: 2 subleagues, 2 divisions each, 15 teams/division
200 games: 14 x 10 (5A/5H) intradivision, 15 x 4 (7 x 4A, 7 x 4H, 1 x 2A/2H) interdivision, no interleague
I like a bigger league and a longer season, because who doesn't like more baseball? I also like the longer series (4/5 games) for fewer travel days.

Hypothetical league I would make with 32 teams:
32 teams: 2 divisions, 16 teams/division
200 games: 15 x 8 (4A/4H) intradivision, 16 x 5 (8 x 5A, 8 x 5H) interdivision
Same rationale as above.

Realistic league with 32 teams:
32 teams: 2 subleagues, 2 divisions each, 8 teams/division
162 games: 7 x 14 (7A/7H) intradivision, 8 x 8 (4A/4H) interdivision, no interleague ... or 8 x 4 interdivision, 8 x 4 interleague vs. one division, switch divisions each year
LGO is right that this has too many 4-game series and not enough 3-game series, so this doesn't respect the two series/week structure used today. But it's possible to make a schedule with these series that still puts all the off days on weekdays, not weekends, they just might not all be Monday/Thursday.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

Why are the words "NCAA Selection Committee" moving inexorably to the front of my mind?

I would hope for something more transparent and mathematically based. As it anyone could take the formula, drop it into Excel, plug in the data, and calculate the results for themselves.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

Actual league I'm working on:
60 teams: 2 subleagues, 2 divisions each, 15 teams/division
200 games: 14 x 10 (5A/5H) intradivision, 15 x 4 (7 x 4A, 7 x 4H, 1 x 2A/2H) interdivision, no interleague

My advice would be to stay away from divisions that have an odd number of teams, if possible. It complicates things, since you have to have at least one club playing outside its division every series. With an even number of teams in each division, you can have all clubs either playing division games or interdivision games, which makes scheduling a lot simpler.

10 games and 4 games as the total number of times an opponent is played is more difficult as well, since these are not divisible by three, and result in a lot of 2-game series if you do an even home-away split. You can use uneven home-away splits, however. Instead of splitting 10 games as 5-5, split it 6-4 or 4-6. The 6 can be broken down into two 3-game series. (But then, you have to make sure the total home-away split comes out right by alternating the splits against opponents.)

Originally Posted by Threnodas

Hypothetical league I would make with 32 teams:
32 teams: 2 divisions, 16 teams/division
200 games: 15 x 8 (4A/4H) intradivision, 16 x 5 (8 x 5A, 8 x 5H) interdivision
Same rationale as above.

See prior note about total number of games against an opponent that is not divisible by three. I would offer the following as alternatives:

Division (136 games): 14 teams played 9 times (split either 6-3 or 3-6); 1 team played 10 times (split 5-5)
Interdivision (64 games): 16 teams played 4 times each (either 4 at home or 4 away).
There's 62 series in total, which, at two series per week, equals a 31-week season (excluding any All-Star break). There'd be 2 two-game, 44 three-game, and 16 four-game series.

Division (152 games): 14 teams played 10 times (split either 6-4 or 4-6); 1 team played 12 times (split 6-6)
Interdivision (48 games): 16 teams played 3 times each (either 3 at home or 3 away).
There's 62 series in total, which, at two series per week, equals a 31-week season (excluding any All-Star break). There'd be 0 two-game, 48 three-game, and 14 four-game series.

[Threnodas]

All good ideas, LGO. Thanks!

I really enjoy the schedule-building puzzle, so I moved away from fitting into the current M-W/T-Th and F-Su structure. I still have series that start and end together league-wide, they just don't always start on the same days of the week each week, and might start/end on a weekend or span two weeks. I'm OK with 5-game series instead of playing 2 & 3, and I actually think longer series with less travel is a nod to realism for a longer season, with less travel costs for owners and less jet lag for players.

Having one team play outside the division when the rest of the division plays itself isn't too bad if the divisional games all happen in 15-series stretches, where each team plays a 14-series round robin and has 1 series as the odd team out, against the other division's odd team out. So, there's a 15-series intradivision block at the start, a 15-series intradivision block at the end, and the remaining interdivison games played in between (excluding the two series each team plays in the intradivision blocks).

It's still structured, just not the way MLB does it today. But I have spent untold hours thinking about fictional takes on the real MLB schedule as well, so I really do appreciate the input and hope others use your advice.

[ti6er]

Le Grande Orange, really appreciating the input you are providing in these posts. Brings a whole new perspective to the schematics of league formation. Very insightful and interesting.

I hope it wouldn't be too much of an ask for you to conjure up an ideal league structure for 2 sub-leagues and 4 divisions (ideally around 40 teams).

[Threnodas]

Originally Posted by ti6er

I hope it wouldn't be too much of an ask for you to conjure up an ideal league structure for 2 sub-leagues and 4 divisions (ideally around 40 teams).

If I may ...

Without interleague:
40 teams: 2 sub-leagues, 4 divisions each, 5 teams/division
162 games: 4 x 18 (9A/9H) intradivision, 15 x 6 (3A/3H) interdivision

If you want the real distribution of series lengths, one intradivision matchup could be 10A/8H and another 8A/10H, played as 442/44 and 44/442. Or you could play all 3-game series, which is clean and simple but not strictly realistic.

With interleague:
40 teams: 2 sub-leagues, 4 divisions each, 5 teams/division
162 games: 4 x 13 (2 x 7A/6H, 2 x 6A/7H) intradivision, 15 x 6 (3A/3H) interdivision, 5 x 4 (2 x 4A, 2 x 4H, 1 x 2A/2H) interleague vs. one division

This already has the right distribution of series lengths, it's just not easy to schedule for all the reasons LGO gave. Have you checked the schedules forum? A custom schedule for the league you want might already exist.

[ti6er]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

If I may ...

Have you checked the schedules forum? A custom schedule for the league you want might already exist.

Greatly appreciate this answer. I'm pretty new to OOTP and this forum itself, thank you for the direction.

[daves]

Two Leagues with no divisions. No interleague play during season. Top 6 teams in each league make the playoffs.

Besides travel and division awards, divisions are kind of useless in baseball. Bring back the pennant chases.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

I really enjoy the schedule-building puzzle, so I moved away from fitting into the current M-W/T-Th and F-Su structure. I still have series that start and end together league-wide, they just don't always start on the same days of the week each week, and might start/end on a weekend or span two weeks. I'm OK with 5-game series instead of playing 2 & 3, and I actually think longer series with less travel is a nod to realism for a longer season, with less travel costs for owners and less jet lag for players.

If you want to try something different, there's the schedule style used by the PCL in its earlier days: week-long series. Clubs would play single games against the same opponent Tuesday through Saturday, a doubleheader Sunday, and then have Monday off for travel to the next city. Thus clubs played seven games per week. Of course, now you have to work out the schedule format as multiples of seven...though you could drop the Sunday doubleheader for some opponents, giving you some sixes to work with...

Originally Posted by daves

Two Leagues with no divisions. No interleague play during season. Top 6 teams in each league make the playoffs.

Besides travel and division awards, divisions are kind of useless in baseball. Bring back the pennant chases.

There isn't really much of a pennant race when the top six clubs are making the playoffs...

[bwburke94]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

There isn't really much of a pennant race when the top six clubs are making the playoffs...

It's basically the NBA regular season, but with twice the games.

[MBarrett]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If you want to try something different, there's the schedule style used by the PCL in its earlier days: week-long series. Clubs would play single games against the same opponent Tuesday through Saturday, a doubleheader Sunday, and then have Monday off for travel to the next city. Thus clubs played seven games per week. Of course, now you have to work out the schedule format as multiples of seven...though you could drop the Sunday doubleheader for some opponents, giving you some sixes to work with...

Now this is how you create a rivalry, a true hatred for the other team. You have to see those guys every day for a week, you're already sick of them. All it takes is one knockdown or one bat-flip and the rest of that series turns into an all-out battle royal.

[Cryomaniac]

I've always liked the idea of longer than 162 schedules, but I've on ly ever sparing used them. IIRC the max length of a season before OOTP doesn't do the off season tasks properly is 290 days, so 200+ game seasons are possible, although not exactly realistic.

[Threnodas]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

IIRC the max length of a season before OOTP doesn't do the off season tasks properly is 290 days, so 200+ game seasons are possible, although not exactly realistic.

Do you remember what this is based on? The worst my year-round season can get would be to start spring training on February 1, regular season from March 1 to September 30, and (long) playoffs through Nov. 21 or so, before Thanksgiving, which only leaves 71 days of off-season. This schedule flies in the face of realism, but if the game breaks with such a long schedule, I would have no choice but to respect that constraint.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

There isn't really much of a pennant race when the top six clubs are making the playoffs...

Good point. Maybe 4 teams or less in the playoffs. With no divisions only the best 4 records in each league make it in. No weak division record teams make it in.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Threnodas

Do you remember what this is based on? The worst my year-round season can get would be to start spring training on February 1, regular season from March 1 to September 30, and (long) playoffs through Nov. 21 or so, before Thanksgiving, which only leaves 71 days of off-season. This schedule flies in the face of realism, but if the game breaks with such a long schedule, I would have no choice but to respect that constraint.

It may have been fixed, it was a few versions ago. You might be able to find it if you search the forums for it. Or you might not because the search function is dire.