Schedule request: 2 leagues, 4 divisions, 26 teams, with IL play

[Westheim]

I am looking for some help with a schedule, I have not been able to find anything that suits what I am looking for. Currently I am running a dynasty in a 2-league, 4-division style with 24 teams and with interleague play in OOTP 12 (should the latter even matter). I am looking towards expansion in the next few seasons, and for that I need a schedule with the following setup:

- 26 teams
- Subleague 1 has two divisions with six teams each
- Subleague 2 has two divisions with seven teams each
- 162 games total
- If possible 6 interleague series for each SL 2 team (can be less if it won’t work otherwise, but no less than four series)
- For SL 2 teams, 15-16 games against division rivals, and 6-9 games against teams in the other SL 2 division
- Can include 2-game series if necessary
- Season starts first week of April, ends late September/early October, All Star Game in early July (nothing out of the ordinary)
- If at all possible, no more than 20 straight games without an off day for any team

So far I have used a setup by gmo that has six interleague series for each team, paired into week-long affairs in May, June, and August. Teams have also played 18 games against division rivals and 9 games against teams in the other division. Gmo has no fitting schedule in the sticky thread, and I have not been able to uncover anything else so far, and I am too dumb to do it myself. -.-

If there’s anything unclear please go ahead and berate me for my inappropriately defined request.

Thanks for your help, your time, and so on.

[Westheim]

Nobody?

Not even a hint or pointer how to get going and to stop sucking and actually do it myself?

Aww.

[joefromchicago]

Sorry, I don't have anything. Since your set-up matches the major league alignment from 1977-92, what I'd suggest is that you take one of the schedules from those years, trim some of the games from the league schedule and add some inter-league contests in their place. That's what I would do in your situation.

[Westheim]

That was my first thought. But it won't work. The 1977-92 MLB had 14 teams in the AL, which is subleague 1. I want to have 14 teams in my team's subleague, and that is subleague 2. I can't come up with a way to make that work.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Westheim

That was my first thought. But it won't work. The 1977-92 MLB had 14 teams in the AL, which is subleague 1. I want to have 14 teams in my team's subleague, and that is subleague 2. I can't come up with a way to make that work.

That shouldn't be too difficult. Go into the schedule file and do a find-and-replace for all of the teams. You will want to make teams 1-14 into teams 13-26, and teams 15-26 into teams into teams 1-12. You can do this one of two ways:

• Replace them by number. So you will, e.g., find all the 1's and replace them with A1. The advantage is that this is quick. The problem is that you'll replace all of the 1's, including the game days, so you'll need to change those back manually; or
• Replace by phrase. That means doing a search for away="1" and home="1" and replace them with away="A1" and home="A1." It's two steps rather than one, but you won't have the manual clean-up as with the other method.

You'll want to replace the team numbers with an alpha-numeric code on the first pass-through. That's because you'll run into serious problems if you go straight from replacing one number with another number. For instance, if you want to change all the 1's to 15's, you'll end up with two sets of 15's. Then, when you want to change your 15's to 3's, you won't be able to distinguish between the original 15's and the 15's-that-used-to-be-1's. Once you're finished changing all the numbers into alpha-numeric codes, you can change all of the codes back into numbers, like so:


1 replaced by A1 replaced by 15
2 replaced by A2 replaced by 16
.....
26 replaced by B12 replaced by 12.


At the end of the process, the schedule will show that subleague 1 has twelve teams and subleague 2 has fourteen teams.

[bailey]

How about

7-team divisions

17 games against division opponents (17x6=102 games)
6 games against non-division opponents (6x7=42)
3 games against 1 other interleague division (3x6=18 games)

Total = 162

6-team divisions
21 games against division opponents (21x5=105 games)
6 games against non-division opponents (6x6=36 games)
3 games against 1 other interleague division (3x7=21 games)

Total = 162

To create a GMO style schedule for 162 games, you need to come as close as possible to the ideal 42 3-game series and 9 4-game series per team. The tricky part is how to divide up the in-division games as outside of the division are all obviously 3-game series.

For the 7-team division, 17 games divides into 4+4 and 3+3+3 as one possibility. That leaves you with, I believe, 12 4-game series and 38 3-game series. Probably some of the 4 game series need to be broken down into a few 2 game series. (It would be 4+2+2 3+3+3 against 3 of the division opponents and 4+4 3+3+3 against the other 3).

For the 6-team division 21 games divides into series of 4+4+3 and 4+3+3. That's 15 4-game series and only 34 3 game series. Way too many 4 game series, making it unlikely to achieve a 11-10 home and away without a lot of 2 game series.

[SandMan]

Nm

[SandMan]

Nm

[SandMan]

ILY_BGN_G162_SL1_D1_T6_D2_T6_SL2_D1_T7_D2_T7_c_T26-D70-N36-I56-D72-N42-I48.lsdl


Try this one. It may be one you can use....

[Westheim]

Editing interleague into an existing schedule without it is just impossible. I found that out by now.

Started a schedule from scratch in Excel, and while for two days of messing around everything went marginally well without too many tears, I have no hit the dead end.

I have set up subleague 2 so that every team plays 17 games against division rivals, 6 against interdivision teams, and a total of 18 games against teams in the other league. That leaves me with a total of 14 3-game sets against interdivision teams for every team, and 98 in total.

But well, I have 51 half-weeks to fill (26 weeks minus All Star Break). In any given half-week, either 1, 3, 5, or 7 interdivision matchups have to take place.

It is impossible to fill those 98 total series into 51 half-weeks. It is impossible.

Back to zero.

I'm such a fail.

[Ruwisc]

You could avoid having to have an odd number of interdivisional matchups in a half-week by moving some interleague series around. If there's one team in each division playing interleague for a half-week, then you don't have to have cross-divisional games in that half-week.

Or, you could always alter the number of games for each matchup. 17/6 does work out pretty cleanly, though.

[Westheim]

That may actually be true, however ... this is the first complex MLB-like schedule I try to throw together, and I tried to engage this with some kind of system to rotate certain teams against each other on a regular basis. Having interleague play all year throws that out of the window completely.

I just can*t do it, it is impossible.

[Westheim]

Last straw: if it doesn't work with an odd number of half weeks, you need an even number of half weeks, although that means I have to throw out everything I had minus interleague, tack another half week to the front of the schedule and start from zero.

Sounds awful. Will be awful. But everything I do is awful. I may not mind.

[Ruwisc]

I've got an outline done for this schedule in 52 half-weeks if you haven't finished - that is, I've assigned matchups for each half-week. I just need to assign home/away games and put the syntax together and it'll be good to go.

[Ruwisc]

I've got this schedule done, but only in my testing did I realize that I forgot to leave three days for the All-Star break. I'll edit it in to this post after I fix that.


EDIT: Here you go.

162-game schedule:

Subleague 1:

Two divisions of six teams each
18 games against two division opponents (9H/9A), and 17 against the other three (9H/8A or 8H/9A; same for all three). Total of either 45H/42A or 42H/45A.
9 games against each team in the other division (6H/3A or 3H/6A, total of 27H/27A)
3 games against each team from one interleague division (3H or 3A; total of 9H/12A or 12H/9A).

Subleague 2:

Two divisions of seven teams each
17 games against each division opponents (9H/8A or 8H/9A; total of 51H/51A).
6 games against each team in the other division (3H/3A; total of 21H/21A).
3 games against each team from one interleague division (3H or 3A; total of 9H/9A).

All interleague games are played in a five-week stretch that roughly makes up the month of June.

Season should begin on a Monday and end on a Wednesday. Most Thursdays will be off-days, but there will be a few Mondays and occasional Sundays off in the 14-team subleague - those will arise from having to plant 2-game series into the schedule.

I didn't set a start date, but the last Monday of March seems to work well with this one.

The only downside (and one I wish I would have spotted earlier) - there are a few instances of teams playing each other two series in a row, one in each city. I ran into some problems while assigning home/road games and had to switch some matchups on the fly, so I missed a couple of those. Notably, two pairs of teams play twice to begin the season (9&10, 24&26). I hope that's not a dealbreaker - it's not ideal.

[Westheim]

The issue with double matchups you mentioned raises the hair on my back, I have to admit.

I will have a look at this, though, it can't be any more hopeless than what I got.

[Westheim]

Nothing so far has really worked out here, and I have started from scratch again. So far I have whacked up a schedule for the 12-team league, and interleague, which I have largely carried over from my previous abortive attempts. (With the 14-team league, the fun is yet to come ...)

Also, everything I have is in Excel so far, and not in a text file ...

Ugh.

[thehip41]

What do you need help with Westheim?

I can give you pointers or help create a schedule with/for you.

[Westheim]

Well, my basic requirements are still the same as in the top post.

I tried with the 1977-1992 MLB schedule but failed to edit interleague into it without breaking it. I also tried to get the the doubled series removed from Ruwisc's pitch, but only made it worse and broke it.

I apparently was given the desire, but withheld the talent.

Didn't even try to come up with the 14-team league today, rather played out a week with my Raccoons (and got socked, badly). I might give it a go on Friday, when I have more time.

I also have never created an actual schedule file of this size from nothing. The only one I ever did from scratch was for a 10-team league with a short schedule...

[thehip41]

Doing some quick math and set up stuff: I come up with this as a possible configuration:

SL1:
Play 5 division teams 18 times 9H/9A = 90 games
Play 6 conference teams 9 times each 6/3 or 3/6 = 54 games
Play 6 interleague teams 3 times each, either 3/0 or 0/3 = 18 games

That's 162 games.

SL2:
Play 6 division teams 16 times each (8H/8A) = 96 games
Play 7 conference teams 7 times (4/3 or 3/4 this is 49 games, one of these matches ups will only be 6 games. Like 1v8 or 2v9, etc will be 3/3 ) 49-1=48 games
Play 6 interleague teams 3 times each (0/3 or 3/0) = 18 games

The conference and division matchups will work for H/A. I'll have to look at the interleague to see if I can get all 26 teams with 9h/9a