Four way tie for division and wildcard

[TLB1975]

In all my years I've never seen this happen all in one season. Pretty awesome. Looks like my playoff bound team will be resting a while!!

[madJ]

That is just crazy. I never had anything more crazy than a 3-way tie. But 2 independent 4-way ties in the same league in the same season is just too much to take for the average fan. I guess a lot of heart attacks occured among the fans of those 8 teams.

[hefalumps]

That's amazing! I got excited about a three-way tie for first and a two-way tie for the wild card in one of my leagues...

Can you please report back on the exact schedule that OOTP uses to break all these ties? It's such an unusual situation that I'm curious how it got handled and if it was done correctly.

Not that I'm sure what the correct way to settle this is... but LGO always seems to have the answer.

[TLB1975]

See screenshots below for what happened next. OOTP gave Boston the 2nd wildcard over Detroit (no playoff game). I'm guessing it was due to Boston's 5-2 record vs Detroit.

Oakland won the single elimination tournament for the AL West.

[saturn2187]

I'm more interested in the widespread mediocrity of the American League. Not a single team in the West over .500 and just about everyone else bunched up around .500?? That's a great deal of parity. Do you have a budget cap?

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by saturn2187

I'm more interested in the widespread mediocrity of the American League. Not a single team in the West over .500 and just about everyone else bunched up around .500?? That's a great deal of parity. Do you have a budget cap?

No budget cap. I've had some seasons similar to this year in the AI, just not as across the board mediocre.

FYI, the NL did win the world series and the AL west winner was swept in the division round. Not sure I could swallow a 79 win World series champion!!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by hefalumps

That's amazing! I got excited about a three-way tie for first and a two-way tie for the wild card in one of my leagues...

Can you please report back on the exact schedule that OOTP uses to break all these ties? It's such an unusual situation that I'm curious how it got handled and if it was done correctly.

Not that I'm sure what the correct way to settle this is... but LGO always seems to have the answer.

This situation is actually simpler than it might appear at first glance. Both are four-way ties for one playoff spot, and are independent of each other (that is, it doesn't involve a simultaneous tie for a division title and wild card spot, nor a tie for both wild card spots).

This is how it would have been resolved according to present MLB rules.

For the AL West Division tie, the four clubs (Houston, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Seattle) would be designated as A, B, C, and D based on their cumulative head-to-head records. The games played are then:

Day 1: C at D, B at A (losers eliminated; winners advance to day 2)
Day 2: C/D at B/A (loser eliminated; winner gets division title)

For the tie for the second wild card spot, the process is similar. The four clubs (Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, and Minnesota) are designated A, B, C, and D based on cumulative head-to-head records. The games played are then:

Day 1: C at D, B at A (losers eliminated; winners advance to day 2)
Day 2: C/D at B/A (loser eliminated; winner gets second wild card spot)

So what this means is that there would be two days of tie-breaking playoff games, with the first day seeing four games played in total (the TV networks would have fun trying to schedule all those in a way to maximize coverage) while the second day would see two games played.


(It's a guarantee OOTP won't do it this way at present. It insists, no matter what the tie situation within a league, of scheduling only one tie-breaking playoff game per day.)

[spleen1015]

This would be so much fun in real life.

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

This situation is actually simpler than it might appear at first glance. Both are four-way ties for one playoff spot, and are independent of each other (that is, it doesn't involve a simultaneous tie for a division title and wild card spot, nor a tie for both wild card spots).

This is how it would have been resolved according to present MLB rules.

For the AL West Division tie, the four clubs (Houston, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Seattle) would be designated as A, B, C, and D based on their cumulative head-to-head records. The games played are then:

Day 1: C at D, B at A (losers eliminated; winners advance to day 2)
Day 2: C/D at B/A (loser eliminated; winner gets division title)

For the tie for the second wild card spot, the process is similar. The four clubs (Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, and Minnesota) are designated A, B, C, and D based on cumulative head-to-head records. The games played are then:

Day 1: C at D, B at A (losers eliminated; winners advance to day 2)
Day 2: C/D at B/A (loser eliminated; winner gets second wild card spot)

So what this means is that there would be two days of tie-breaking playoff games, with the first day seeing four games played in total (the TV networks would have fun trying to schedule all those in a way to maximize coverage) while the second day would see two games played.


(It's a guarantee OOTP won't do it this way at present. It insists, no matter what the tie situation within a league, of scheduling only one tie-breaking playoff game per day.)

OOTP handled the AL west playoff correctly but I believe did not handle the 2nd wildcard playoff correctly. For that wildcard spot, OOTP played both playoff games on the same day but instead of the winners advancing, it used head-to-head as a tie breaker after the four wild-card teams were reduced to two.

[spleen1015]

Or alphabetical order. OOTP likes alphabetical order.

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

This would be so much fun in real life.

Just another example of what's wrong with OOTP as this could never happen in RL.

Oh and I'm using out of the box settings!!

[Padreman]

Breaking Down the Chaos of Potential 4-Way Tie for 2013 AL Wild Card | Bleacher Report

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majo...ing_procedures

[ThatSeventiesGuy]

Good thing the Rangers didn't manage to win two more non-divisional games, or you might have broken OOTP.

[Kronos]

Originally Posted by saturn2187

I'm more interested in the widespread mediocrity of the American League. Not a single team in the West over .500 and just about everyone else bunched up around .500?? That's a great deal of parity. Do you have a budget cap?

I'd edit the playoff seedings to leave all of the sub .500 teams out.

Losers

[TLB1975]

Originally Posted by Kronos

I'd edit the playoff seedings to leave all of the sub .500 teams out.

Losers

Why??

[Kronos]

Originally Posted by TLB1975

Why??

If you can't win at least 82 games over 162, you shouldn't be in the playoffs, at least in my leagues.

[bwburke94]

If you're interested, here's what happens if both ties have the same record.

For these purposes, the division teams are A/B/C/D, and the nondivision teams are E/F/G/H.

Division tiebreaker

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

Wild card tiebreaker

Day 2: B/A loser @ H, G @ F, D/C loser @ E
Day 3: B/A/H winner @ D/C/E winner, D/C/B/A loser @ G/F winner
Day 4: Winners of Day 3 games (only if only 1 WC spot up for grabs)

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

If you're interested, here's what happens if both ties have the same record.

For these purposes, the division teams are A/B/C/D, and the nondivision teams are E/F/G/H.

Division tiebreaker

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

Wild card tiebreaker

Day 2: B/A loser @ H, G @ F, D/C loser @ E
Day 3: B/A/H winner @ D/C/E winner, D/C/B/A loser @ G/F winner
Day 4: Winners of Day 3 games (only if only 1 WC spot up for grabs)

You mean a simultaneous four-way tie for the division title and for the last wild card spot? In reality, MLB has no rules to cover such a scenario. The most it specifies is a four-way tie for either one, two, or three playoff berths.

Something to note is that when MLB rewrote its tie-breaking rules when it added the second wild card spot is that structured the new procedures such that all the tie scenarios it covered would require no more than two days to resolve. What this means is that some tie scenarios would have been broken differently under the old rules.

For example, consider a three-way tie for a division title, with those clubs also being tied with a club outside the division for the wild card. Under the pre-2012 rules, there would have been a three-way tie-breaker held to determine the division winner. The two losing clubs would then have joined the team outside the division to play another three-way tie-breaker to determine the wild card. This would require a total of four days of extra play, two for each tie-breaking segment.

Under the new rules, the four tied clubs would be designated as A, B, C, and D, with the team outside the division automatically designated as D. The games would be:

Day 1: B at A, D at C

If D won its match, the winner of A/B would be declared the division winner and D the wild card. No further tie-breaking games would be played. If instead C won, then there would be a second day of tie-breaking:

Day 2: C at A/B

The winner of this game is declared the division winner and the loser the wild card.

[bwburke94]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Under the new rules, the four tied clubs would be designated as A, B, C, and D, with the team outside the division automatically designated as D. The games would be:

Day 1: B at A, D at C

If D won its match, the winner of A/B would be declared the division winner and D the wild card. No further tie-breaking games would be played. If instead C won, then there would be a second day of tie-breaking:

Day 2: C at A/B

The winner of this game is declared the division winner and the loser the wild card.

My intention was to cover eight teams with the same record, with four in the same division tied with a division title. This cannot be settled in fewer than four days.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by bwburke94

My intention was to cover eight teams with the same record, with four in the same division tied with a division title. This cannot be settled in fewer than four days.

It's pure speculation what MLB would do. I suspect what it would do, after consulting with the Players Association, would be to run the two four-team tie-breakers as entirely separate entities. That gets the ties resolved in two days and doesn't mess up the rest of the post-season schedule, which would be a pretty important factor as far as MLB and the TV networks are concerned.