Tie-breakers

[oman19]

I have not been around much lately. Last I knew playoff tie-breakers needed some work. The only major flaw of an otherwise near perfect game. Just wondering if this was going to get addressed? Thanks Marcus, Andreas, and Co.

[Le Grande Orange]

Tie-breaking has been a long-standing concern. With MLB adding the second wild card qualifier in each league, it becomes even more important since now there are some unusual tie situations possible (e.g. three teams tied for two playoff spots). Last year during beta I posted up a rather detailed thread outlining the good and bad aspects of the game's tie-breaking, along with suggestions as to how certain tie scenarios should be resolved. In the end nothing came of it.

Don't know why that was. Maybe it was official disinterest, maybe it was because I didn't present the issue in the right manner, maybe it was deemed a low priority than other issues, maybe time ran out, maybe it was something else...

It'd sure be nice to see it get the polish it deserves. But I expect it has a poor cost/benefit ratio, I bet it'd take a lot of coding effort to do right for something which otherwise might be considered a 'little' detail.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Tie-Breakers have been improved in OOTP 13 already, not sure if any more work would make sense.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Tie-Breakers have been improved in OOTP 13 already, not sure if any more work would make sense.

Do three-team tie breakers now work how they do in real life, without us having to schedule more games manually? If not then I think doing that would make sense.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Tie-Breakers have been improved in OOTP 13 already, not sure if any more work would make sense.

If OOTP, for example, cannot properly resolve three teams tied for two playoff berths, as current MLB rules provide, then the game is falling short of what it should be doing.

I know tie-breaking is not a particularly 'glamorous' or 'sexy' area, but it needs to be done right for most tie scenarios (at least the ones MLB rules provide for at any rate).

[David Watts]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If OOTP, for example, cannot properly resolve three teams tied for two playoff berths, as current MLB rules provide, then the game is falling short of what it should be doing.

I know tie-breaking is not a particularly 'glamorous' or 'sexy' area, but it needs to be done right for most tie scenarios (at least the ones MLB rules provide for at any rate).

It also needs to work properly for 1 subleague 1 division leagues with no playoffs. When 2 teams tie there should be some form of playoff game, instead one has to do this manually. It's been forever since I played using this format, but in the past when 2 teams tied for second place, an unneeded playoff game would be scheduled. Not sure if this was ever corrected either.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If OOTP, for example, cannot properly resolve three teams tied for two playoff berths, as current MLB rules provide, then the game is falling short of what it should be doing.

I know tie-breaking is not a particularly 'glamorous' or 'sexy' area, but it needs to be done right for most tie scenarios (at least the ones MLB rules provide for at any rate).

If gamers invest a lot of time - managing, GM-ing, commissionering, and generally immersing - into a regular season and a tie results, it would sure be nice to see the ties handled appropriately.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by thehef

If gamers invest a lot of time - managing, GM-ing, commissionering, and generally immersing - into a regular season and a tie results, it would sure be nice to see the ties handled appropriately.

You could have a five-way tie and even the MLB doesn't have a way to resolve that one.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

If OOTP, for example, cannot properly resolve three teams tied for two playoff berths, as current MLB rules provide, then the game is falling short of what it should be doing.

I know tie-breaking is not a particularly 'glamorous' or 'sexy' area, but it needs to be done right for most tie scenarios (at least the ones MLB rules provide for at any rate).

This is the kind of thing that need to fixed either in 14 or 15.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

You could have a five-way tie and even the MLB doesn't have a way to resolve that one.

There is no official method, but there was one considered for the 1973 NL East race, and a theoretical one mentioned in an article about the playoff races from 2003, if I recall the year correctly.

[The Wolf]

Yes, but they never adopted one.

Q. What happens when all five teams in one division finish 81-81?

A. There's total panic in the commissioner's office!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Yes, but they never adopted one.

Not as a permanent fixture in the rules. But in 1973 the method was official enough that the game dates for a five-way tie-breaker were published in newspaper articles.

[bwburke94]

Not this again...

[redwa]

I have started a fictional league where there are 6 teams making the playoffs in each conference. The 2 divisional winners get byes. The current game is up to 40 seasons. It appears that when there is a tie for first it is decided by alphabetical order. The order starts with Z to A. I am starting to think that it is more than coincidence that the lower alphabetical team always wins the tie breaker. This addition to the game is great but needs to be reevaluated.

[bwburke94]

The five team tiebreaker for one spot would go like this:

Assign teams the rankings A, B, C, D, and E based on head-to-head results between the tied teams. The best team would be A and the worst team would be E.

If tied for the division title or the division title and one wild card spot:

Day 1: E @ D, C @ A
Day 2: B @ E/D winner
Day 3: C/A winner @ Day 2 winner

If tied for both wild card spots:

Same as above, but Day 3 would be the wild card playoff game. Home field would be determined by H2H record between the teams.

If tied for the division title and both wild card spots:
(Games in italics are play-in games for the wild card spots.)

Day 1: E @ D, C @ A
Day 2: B @ E/D winner
Day 3: C/A winner @ Day 2 winner
Day 4: C/A loser @ E/D loser, Day 2 loser @ Day 3 loser
Day 5: Wild card playoff game

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

The five team tiebreaker for one spot would go like this:

Assign teams the rankings A, B, C, D, and E based on head-to-head results between the tied teams. The best team would be A and the worst team would be E.

If tied for the division title or the division title and one wild card spot:

Day 1: E @ D, C @ A
Day 2: B @ E/D winner
Day 3: C/A winner @ Day 2 winner

If tied for both wild card spots:

Same as above, but Day 3 would be the wild card playoff game. Home field would be determined by H2H record between the teams.

If tied for the division title and both wild card spots:
(Games in italics are play-in games for the wild card spots.)

Day 1: E @ D, C @ A
Day 2: B @ E/D winner
Day 3: C/A winner @ Day 2 winner
Day 4: C/A loser @ E/D loser, Day 2 loser @ Day 3 loser
Day 5: Wild card playoff game

I doubt that latter one. Mostly because MLB has reworked the tie-breaking so that any combination of up to four teams tied can be resolved by no more than two days of tie-breaking games. And that's because with the addition of the Wild Card Game there simply isn't time in the post-season schedule for a protracted tie-breaking session. So I suspect even in the case of a five-club tie it wouldn't last more than two days, which means one team probably gets shortchanged. (That's actually the case already in the case of a three-way tie for a division title and one wild card spot.)

[oman19]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Tie-Breakers have been improved in OOTP 13 already, not sure if any more work would make sense.

Markus. Tie-breakers still arn't where they need to be I'm sad to say. When teams for the same seed it doesn't take the head to head record to break the tie like it should. Here is the Example I'm talking about. Here is a screenshot of my final standings. Note the Padres and Pirates tied for the #1 seed.



In this second picture it shows the head to head over record over the season. The Pirates are 5-4 vs the Padres so they should have the #1 seed.



In this final picture you can see the Pardes got the #1 seed. No idea how.




I've tried everything to make this right manually. I deleted all the games for this round and manually scheduled them but it doesn't register because the game doesn't recognize it as the right teams playing each other. I'm at a loss. If anyone has any idea how to work around this it would be much appreciated. Otherwise this really needs to be addressed. To play out 162 games then the results not be handled correctly when it's most important is almost game-killing to me.

[Le Grande Orange]

Preach it, brother!

[oman19]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Preach it, brother!

I'll keep the good fight up sir. Thank you. Sent a PM to Markus. Let's see if he has the time to get back to me.

With head to head record already being tracked it sure seems like it wouldn't be to much to get the program to look at that when there is a tie for seeding.

Man do I miss TonyM's playoff editor. Sure would like to see a version of that make it into the game.

[VanillaGorilla]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

Tie-Breakers have been improved in OOTP 13 already, not sure if any more work would make sense.

Considering that Markus receives more Thanks than God on the the 4th Thursday of November, when I see this post with 0 thanks it tells me that there is a unanimous dissent amongst the users from the quoted point of view.