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Old 04-12-2017, 10:37 AM   #1
collegesportsfanms
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Join Date: Jan 2004
2011 massive MLB Tournament

As if I didn't have enough projects going, I'm adding 1 more to the mix (I'm going to be dead by the time I'm 40 just because I have so many computer and video and board game projects going on all at once!)

I am using the DICE baseball board game to do a 2011 MLB tournament. DICE baseball is part of the gen1400 gaming series, and they have a great website, as well as being part of Delphi forums. George, the creator of the gen1400 gaming series, stays plenty busy but is a great guy to buy stuff from. Unfortunately, the Gen1400 forums just don't see a lot of action anymore, so even though I will still be putting this up on those forums, I will also be putting it up here where there are many more viewers.

So this is how it's going to work. I've grouped the 30 teams into 5 groups, 6 teams each, using a random dice roller. 1 team from each division (for the purposes of making it even, I just put Houston in the AL West a couple seasons early) and each group will have a division winner from the real 2011 MLB standings, 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place, 5th place. That means that 1 group will have 2 division winners and so on. Once the groups are decided, they will be individually seeded by record among the 6 teams in the group. I already have the groups figured out, and for the most part things held true to course, but there are a couple groups where the 3rd place team had a better record than the 2nd place team, and so on. Each team will play each other team in their group twice, once home and once away, making 10 games for each team in each group. The top 3 teams in each group, along with the best 4th place team will advance to the 16 team championship bracket, and the other 14 teams will go to the consolation bracket which will be triple elimination (I'll explain why later).

I will announce the groups later, but for now, I need to cover some ground rules:

Rosters and Players With Multiple Cards (Teams)

Everybody that had 1 IP or 1 AB for a major league team got a card, even if that's really all he had is 1 AB or 1 IP, so as you can imagine some of the rosters are quite large. Of course, you've always got some players that played with multiple teams, and the same is true for the 2011 MLB season. Several players played with 2 different teams, and a couple players played with 3 different teams. I didn't find anybody that played with 4 or more MLB teams in the same season. So the way I did this, the fairest way I could think of is this: Doesn't matter if a player played with 1 team from April to May, then another team for the rest of the season. That would have taken entirely too long to try to calculate so what I've done is this.

The team that the player started the season with, in this tournament, he'll play the first 5 games of group play with that team. Then the team he finished the season with will get him for the last 5 games of group play and all of bracket play. For instance, as an example, say a player started the season with Kansas City, and got traded to Atlanta midway through the season and finished in Atlanta. In this tournament, he'll be on the KC roster for the first 5 games, and the Atlanta roster for the last 5 games of group play and all of bracket play, until his team is eliminated.. Now for those couple players that played with 3 different teams, the first team gets him for the first 5 games of group play, 2nd team gets him for Games 6,7,8 of group play, and the 3rd team gets him for Games 9,10 of group play, plus all of bracket play, until his team is eliminated.

Playing Time- Position Players

The ground rules for this are as follows: Each player must start 1 game of group play, and no player can start more than 3 consecutive games of group play. The max a player can play in group play is 8 games. To calculate this, I simply took the number of appearances for a player and divided it by 162, and then of course multiplied it by 10, then rounded up or down, to get the number of games each player would start. If a player would have started 9 or 10 games, I maxed it out at 8. There are several players for each team that have to start in 8 games of group play, so the format for them will be: playing Games 1-3, sitting game 4, playing games 5-7, sitting game 8, and playing games 9-10. That means teams could have some very funky line-ups in Games 4 and 8.

Now, what constitutes credit for a start? For position players, it is simply 1 official AB plus 1 full inning in the field defensively. That means that if a players first AB is a walk, hit by pitch, sacrifice, he must bat again to get credit for the start. For the DH (I forgot to mention, DH rule applies in every single game), he must have 2 official ABs.

With this set-up, by doing the math, 9 times 10 equals 90, so every team has 90 starts to get credit for. In doing the figures, pretty much no team had exactly 90. Most teams were actually over 90, and a few teams were under 90. Those teams that are over 90, their hands are a little more tied. Those teams that are under 90, well, they get the freedom of starting whoever they want in game 10 (except for those players that were maxed out at 8 starts) as long as everybody on the roster has gotten their minimum # of starts in.

For those players that play for multiple teams, they max out at 4 starts per team. They would either play games 1-2, 4-5 and sit game 3, or play games 6-7, 9-10 and sit game 8, depending on when they are with the team.

Playing Time for Pitchers

Each team has a set starting rotation of anywhere from 6-10 starters. A couple teams had a lot of players who were only starting pitchers, so they might be going with a 9 or 10 man rotation in the tournament. Others didn't have that luxury and had to go with a smaller rotation. Most teams have at least 1 or 2 pitchers that both started and relieved in the 2011 season that will be coming out of the bullpen, simply because I wanted to try and get every team 1 or 2 long relievers in the pen.

I am following the rest rules that apply in DICE baseball, and am going to try and get each relief pitcher 1 appearance in group play, even if it means he only pitches to 1 batter. My goal is to make sure every reliever gets an appearance before any relief pitcher gets a 2nd appearance. This way it randomizes things and I can't just bring in 1 pitcher to dominate out of the bullpen.

Because I know somebody is going to ask, I'm going to briefly explain the bracket situation. Nothing will change for pitchers, they will stick with the scheduled rotation and I will still try to make sure no relief pitcher has 2 more appearances than another pitcher. For position players, the minimum starts will be reset to 1 for each player. As I mentioned, with some teams, they have players that will not get all their required starts in group play, so it'll be a plus 1 for them. As an example, there is 1 team that has 99 starts scheduled for group play. Obviously, 9 players will not get their required starts in for group play. That means they will have to start twice in bracket play. I hope that makes sense as I couldn't figure out a better way to explain it.

Now, since most teams have a position player roster of over 20 players, that means it would take a minimum of 3 games for everybody to get their required starts in bracket play. Hence the reason the consolation bracket will be triple elimination, to give everybody a chance to get their starts. For the championship bracket, the First Round and Quarterfinals will be best of 5, with the semifinals and championship series being best of 7. The min # of starts will reset after every single round, so for those teams that keep advancing, they MUST find a way to get every player a start in every series.

Whew! Now that I've wrote a book covering the rules of this tournament, now I'm ready to take questions, comments, concerns, etc.

Aside from that, I will reveal the groups tonight. The first round of Group A will be completed tonight and I'll report on that as well.

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