How many playoff teams?

[DustyElbows]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Despite this discussion continuing, I expect the OP made a decision on playoff configuration long ago. Curious what it was. (Guessing one of the 8 per league configurations.

I think I'll go with the 8 teams per league, 4 wildcard version. While I certainly respect the traditional "division-winners only" format, I have only ever known baseball with wild cards and they don't bother me on a philosophical level.

[Brad K]

What kind of schedule are you using? (Regular season.)

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Brad K

I don't know. You've listed 16 team seasons that are way off out of a sample of what, over a thousand team seasons?

Have you read the articles yet? I've provided the links, so you can read them for yourself. If you think the math within them incorrect, feel free to post a rebuttal. (Be advised that Birnbaum and Palmer are no slouches when it comes to such things.)

Originally Posted by Brad K

What is the point?

The point is the whole "only X can demonstrate which is truly the better team" arguments are ultimately pointless. Only the regular season counts, only the playoffs count—it doesn't really matter because neither method is infallible.

Originally Posted by Brad K

Don't know that there's a correlation between more money and a better sport.

A professional endeavour will draw more talent that will an amateur one. A professional endeavour which can pay more than its professional competitor will draw more talent.

Originally Posted by Brad K

The purpose of having divisions is not to have an excuse to put more teams in the playoffs.

More teams in the playoffs is precisely why the two-division structure in each league was adopted in 1969.

MLB had already learned from its ten-team league years that ten teams fighting for one spot meant too many also-rans too early in the season which negatively impacted attendance, and hence revenue. (It had been an issue in the eight-team league years, but it had been considered tolerable.) Thus the idea to split into two divisions of six teams, which doubled the number of first-place positions available and doubled the number of pennant chases. It doubled the amount of potential excitement for fans,

The tricky part after that was coming up with a schedule format that was acceptable, since realigning into two divisions meant some clubs were going to relinquish some games against long-time foes. (This was the reason the Cubs and Cardinals ended up in the NL East Division rather than the West.) Eventually the 18-12 format was settled upon and deemed satisfactory. It also had the benefit of being an easy format to schedule (though the leagues would experiment with finding the right alternating pattern of divisional and interdivisional series to use).

Originally Posted by Brad K

The purpose is to provide a balanced scheduling situation when a league has grown to large for a balanced schedule involving all teams.

Having a balanced schedule with a divisional structure renders the divisions arbitrary and meaningless. Unless you mean entirely within-the-division scheduling, in which case those are more leagues than divisions.

Originally Posted by Brad K

So, properly handing this means...

1. Keeping divisions large enough so that the chance of strong or weak divisions are minimized.

Not just that, but having a good variety of opponents to play during the season. A larger variety means a more varied product to sell to customers rather than the same old three or four teams many times per season.

Originally Posted by Brad K

2. Keeping all the games a team plays within its own division . . .

If play is entirely within the division, then it really isn't a division anymore, it's effectively its own league.

Originally Posted by Brad K

. . . or if not, the majority in and all division teams facing the same opponents in balance outside the division.

That balancing gets more difficult the more divisions there are, and the larger each division is. The good options get narrowed very quickly.

Originally Posted by Brad K

3. Number of divisions must be a power of 2 so there are no wild cards.

See above.

[DustyElbows]

Originally Posted by Brad K

What kind of schedule are you using? (Regular season.)

I'll be using a 162-game schedule that is almost balanced within divisions. 13 games against teams in your division (except for one team that you only play 12 times), and 3 games against every other team in your league.

Still working on making this, have everything done except designating home/away, which is always a huge pain in the rear.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Don't know that there's a correlation between more money and a better sport. And if there is, now long will it last?

If industry management creates a system where clearly undeserving teams can often win, then I see interest declining because the value of being champion is less. OTOH, if, although its known the system is imperfect, its the best that can be arranged, then being champion is tarnished by intentional inclusion of impostors to the crown.

more resources, more likely to persist -- line of thought.

as far as spirit of competition on other factors, yeah... not so sure myself, either. as far as who is the 'champ'.. .i don't put any weight into somethign so superficial and meaningless, even so i want my teams to be champions, lol, but a great team is never a failure for not achieving that title, because the system makes it less likely for the best team to win.

sports and competition are fun activities... that's where it should end.

not existing means no fun from that activity possible..

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by DustyElbows

I'll be using a 162-game schedule that is almost balanced within divisions. 13 games against teams in your division (except for one team that you only play 12 times), and 3 games against every other team in your league.

Still working on making this, have everything done except designating home/away, which is always a huge pain in the rear.

10-team division is conducive to a balanced schedul... (10-1)*18=.162. 28 is another # that works with balanced and 162g. just look up factors of 162 and add 1 to it and those are the # of teams that can be used in a balanced schedule for 162g (same division or not)

obviously any config with odd # of divisions can't do an ASG without a custom schedule to pair the 2 split 5-man divisions against each other -- they'd have half interleague games and half in-division in order to have an ASG with equal number of teams on each side.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I recently did a mini-study about luck in terms of actual wins against their Pythagorean wins. What was interesting to me was how the luck observed in the league is much lower than what you would expect through true random chance.

Based on random luck you would expect to see 52% of teams within four wins of their Pythagorean wins. Over the last ten years we have seen 72% fall in that range. Over the same period you would expect to see 30 teams with a variance of more than ten wins off of their Pythagorean wins. There have only been five.

Overall, through random chance the average team would have a variance of 5.07 between their actual wins and Pythagorean wins. Over the last ten years the average “luck” has been 3.21.

it's close.. .it's also relying on human interpretation and guessing in some aspects that aren't 100% deduced from hard numbers. in addition using historical data that is oranges to other bits of data being apples etc.. (players are physically different as well as strategies employed.. the game now cannot be summed with early 1900's for example. it's an average 2 largely different games, if you do)

the foundation with which the prediction was built is lacking integrity. it's the best we have to work with... (loosely best)

plus normal volatility of looking at a smaller sample size and comparing to a larger average... is it within expected error range? then, RL is backing it up if that's the case, even if slightly off.

[r0nster]

besides the fact of wild card nonsense... what I don't understand is why you guys love the wild card so much I mean with the configuration of the divisions of the original post had shown is great to have division winners play each other as they EARNED that right to play as they were the BEST in the division. You can call me old fashioned but to me EARNING the right to play is what gets you in. I hate the silly argument that has been going about for decades awww the team finished 1 GB from division they should get in even though they 2nd best. In real life when MLB starts to lose money again they will increase number of wild card teams again. then the season be pointless as more and more teams get into playoffs much like basketball and hockey even NCAA the playoffs are done by popularity polls and media dictating who plays who. REAL champions EARN their way to being Champs.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by r0nster

besides the fact of wild card nonsense... what I don't understand is why you guys love the wild card so much I mean with the configuration of the divisions of the original post had shown is great to have division winners play each other as they EARNED that right to play as they were the BEST in the division.

A wild card qualifier earned its right to its particular type of berth by virtue of being better than all the other non-division winning clubs. It's not as if a team doesn't have to win games in order to gain a wild card spot.

Originally Posted by r0nster

In real life when MLB starts to lose money again they will increase number of wild card teams again.

I highly doubt it. The schedule is already as full as it can get, so there really isn't any more room. And there is no way they're going to trim regular season games in order to make more time available for additional playoff games.

The number of playoff qualifiers has, in fact, been stable across the major pro sports leagues for many years now.

The NHL has been using 16 qualifiers for 40 seasons; the NBA has had 16 playoff teams for 36 seasons; the NFL has had 12 post-season participants for 29 seasons. The one exception is MLB, but it's mild: it has had 10 playoff teams for 7 years now; prior to that, it had 8 qualifiers for 18 seasons; and before that, it had 4 playoff teams for 25 years. Thus, over 53 seasons, MLB made two changes to the number of playoff teams.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by r0nster

I hate the silly argument that has been going about for decades awww the team finished 1 GB from division they should get in even though they 2nd best.

I really think you're misunderstanding the argument. It doesn't necessarily stem from a team being so close to making the playoffs, it stems from them getting held back by having to face that better team more often than the other divisions.

See, if the schedule were completely balanced, with every team playing every other team the same number of times, then wildcards become relatively pointless. The best teams will win their division, straight up (though it also makes divisions pointless, as well). But that's not how schedules work in modern-day sports. You play your division rivals far more often than the other teams. Which means two teams with identical records might not actually be so identical - one had to win 90 games against a really tough division, while the other had a relative cakewalk and still only managed 90 wins. Wildcards help ensure that the cakewalk team doesn't flat-out exclude the other, probably better, team from the playoffs entirely.

Basically, if you're upset at the inclusion of wildcards, you should actually be upset at the division format in general (which is a perfectly fine stance to take, of course, even if I don't agree with it). Wildcards were put in place to help make an imbalanced schedule a bit more fair.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Wildcards were put in place to help make an imbalanced schedule a bit more fair.

The wild cards are there because there are three divisions. The blame (if one wants to ascribe such) for the concept belongs to the NFL, which was the first to implement the idea in 1970. It took MLB awhile, but it did finally adopt the idea itself.

For the record, the AL used a (nearly) balanced schedule from 1979-2000 while the NL used a (nearly) balanced schedule from 1993-2000.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by DustyElbows

I'll be using a 162-game schedule that is almost balanced within divisions. 13 games against teams in your division (except for one team that you only play 12 times), and 3 games against every other team in your league.

Still working on making this, have everything done except designating home/away, which is always a huge pain in the rear.

Makes the season kind of long. Are you holding the world series at a warm weather or domed site? <G>

Due to the length of the playoffs and division size, your setup is well suited to a 154 game season with no play outside the division. Ready made schedules even!!!!

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The wild cards are there because there are three divisions. The blame (if one wants to ascribe such) for the concept belongs to the NFL, which was the first to implement the idea in 1970. It took MLB awhile, but it did finally adopt the idea itself.

Agree with your reason - three divisions - for there being wild cards. However, concerning blame, there's no reason to believe that without the NFL baseball wouldn't have come up with this goofy stuff on its own.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

I really think you're misunderstanding the argument. It doesn't necessarily stem from a team being so close to making the playoffs, it stems from them getting held back by having to face that better team more often than the other divisions..

That's an explanation (actually both are) developed after the fact to divert attention from the stupidity of three divisions.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by r0nster

besides the fact of wild card nonsense... what I don't understand is why you guys love the wild card so much I mean with the configuration of the divisions of the original post had shown is great to have division winners play each other as they EARNED that right to play as they were the BEST in the division. You can call me old fashioned but to me EARNING the right to play is what gets you in.

They like it because they like it. Even THEY don't know why. Note the way the argument is going now... a 162 game regular season doesn't always determine the best team so its OK to have extra teams in the playoffs (that make it even LESS likely the best team will win.)

And the prior argument about wanting to see the best teams play. How does that work when the best teams get bye!!!! (Guffaw)

I suspect wanting inferior teams in the playoffs is somehow related to the attitude of wanting to see aged cripples still "in the game" via the DH.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Agree with your reason - three divisions - for there being wild cards. However, concerning blame, there's no reason to believe that without the NFL baseball wouldn't have come up with this goofy stuff on its own.

Perhaps. But I don't think baseball is known for its originality in league-level ideas.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Brad K

That's an explanation (actually both are) developed after the fact to divert attention from the stupidity of three divisions.

Definitely not arguing that.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Perhaps. But I don't think baseball is known for its originality in league-level ideas.

It doesn't happen often but have faith! After all, this is the organization that gave us the DH, so its shown potential. Now that they've figured out how to keep worn out poistion players in the game, they're going to work next to keep the old pitchers in the game. Leading idea so far is to let them pitch from 55 feet.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Brad K

It doesn't happen often but have faith! After all, this is the organization that gave us the DH, so its shown potential. Now that they've figured out how to keep worn out poistion players in the game, they're going to work next to keep the old pitchers in the game. Leading idea so far is to let them pitch from 55 feet.

The idea of a DH goes at least as far back as 1906, which is when Connie Mack was suggesting it. In the 1920s the NL president pushed for adopting the idea. (Personally, I don't mind the DH, because I find the sight of pitchers trying to hit painful.)

Interleague play proposals similarly go back a long way; it was first proposed in the 1930s. Commissioner Frick wanted interleague play for the 1963 season; he even had a schedule drawn up for it.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The DH was first proposed by the NL way back in the 1920s, if I recall correctly. Only it was the AL of the time that opposed the idea.

If that's the case then there is a correlation between wanting goofy rules and being the weaker league.