Playoff Expansion Vote

[Young Drachma]

According to the poll, we will be expanding the playoffs in 1980. The question remains is whether we'll be splitting the leagues into two divisions or if we'll simply add a wild card to each league for the 2nd place team to make the playoffs.

The LCS and the Classic will revert to a best-of-seven, as they were from 1961-1963.

[gstelmack]

The wildcard just takes away from the whole reason to win the regular season in my mind. So I'd rather see the division approach taken, and you must win your division.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

The wildcard just takes away from the whole reason to win the regular season in my mind. So I'd rather see the division approach taken, and you must win your division.

Having seen it done the wild card way for the first three years, I tend to agree with this..even if I feel like the division structure is a little inorganic. I do think it'll spice things up to some degree AND division championship banners never hurt.

[Alan T]

How would the divisions be split up? I don't really like either of these options (I know people are tired of me saying that probably), but how the decision to split up divisions would make a difference to me in which I choose probably.

Was the plan to do one of the following?

Geographically - Leads to unbalanced divisions
Alphabetically - Leads to unbalanced divisions
Based on previous season's records - Could end up with a primary AI heavy division
Based on a previous 5 seasons's average records - Could end up with a primary AI heavy division

Or was there some other plan in place?

[graygoose12]

If we are going to do divisions, I think geographically is the best way to go. Hopefully by then we have more owners filled.

You are always going to have unbalanced divisions in cycles. Obviously if we do divisions geographically Alan and I will be in the same division. Right now that seems unbalanced, but in six or seven years I know my team will not be this good.

So if we are going to divisions, lets set them now. That's part of the intrigue of divisions in my opinion.

[Young Drachma]

No plan, yet. It would be determined by the vote. Geographic is likely to be my first inclination, but with no more than one AI team in a particular division ever. I hadn't spent a lot of time with it yet

If someone has a "fairer" way to suggest it, it can be discussed here, but honestly..I don't think it's a big deal in the sense that, perceptual strength of teams, etc., is one of those things that goes in waves. We'd try to do it to ensure that each was balanced "fairly"

That said, we can just avoid that if we end up with the single-table with the wild card getting the title. We can call that a division title too, because it technically is. The Wild Card standings. We could call it the "Commissioner's Division" title for teams that win it and the team that win the regular season title could get a banner for that. (Republic Division/Continental Division)

Just throwing out ideas...

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by graygoose12

If we are going to do divisions, I think geographically is the best way to go. Hopefully by then we have more owners filled.

You are always going to have unbalanced divisions in cycles. Obviously if we do divisions geographically Alan and I will be in the same division. Right now that seems unbalanced, but in six or seven years I know my team will not be this good.

So if we are going to divisions, lets set them now. That's part of the intrigue of divisions in my opinion.

Good call. I'm open to seeing division alignment proposals from folks. I'm not going to propose one, I'll just leave that to the peanut gallery to propose and the board to ultimately approve.

[graygoose12]

There is no need for me to apologize, and I didn't want to start a thread, but I somewhat sorry for any drama that I started over the past few weeks bringing up certain things. At the same time I am not sorry because my intentions are for the good of the league, and I am not going to just sit back if I see things happening unfairly. Ok that's all I am going to say. Thanks guys.

[Alan T]

Having been born in Atlanta and lived my first 21 years in Atlanta before I moved in the mid-90s, I can tell you all kinds of problems that Geographic divisions cause.

I'll draw up my proposed "Geographic divisions" in a bit to see what you all think, but since we have a policy of letting owners move around teams, you'll quickly end up with a scenerio of the Atlanta Braves in the NL West as I lived with most of my life

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by graygoose12

There is no need for me to apologize, and I didn't want to start a thread, but I somewhat sorry for any drama that I started over the past few weeks bringing up certain things. At the same time I am not sorry because my intentions are for the good of the league, and I am not going to just sit back if I see things happening unfairly. Ok that's all I am going to say. Thanks guys.

I don't think you or Chief or anyone should feel sorry. I think people should bring up things that are bothering them or they think is a problem.

I just think some of the things that were broken or busted was due to way too much tinkering years ago, and we're paying the reaper now. I think backing off on the changes and the tinkering has helped things settle down. This year's VL problem is as gstelmack said, not a 1973 problem, it was our version of Social security.. a problem that reared its head a few seasons ago but we postponed dealing with until this generation.

I really deep down fear that swapping up divisions or wildcards or such will introduce a new level of issues for us to sort through due to who knows what suprises OOTP will have.. so if we're dead set on doing that, I'd prefer we limit other changes as much as possible leading up to that.

[graygoose12]

Well we can end that policy if we go to divisions. Anyways it does not matter about the actual locations of the teams since we don't worry about travel or anything. But I think it would be a good place to start. I would like to see what divisions you come up with though. I am assuming you are going to keep teams in their current league correct?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by graygoose12

There is no need for me to apologize, and I didn't want to start a thread, but I somewhat sorry for any drama that I started over the past few weeks bringing up certain things. At the same time I am not sorry because my intentions are for the good of the league, and I am not going to just sit back if I see things happening unfairly. Ok that's all I am going to say. Thanks guys.

You have nothing to apologize about. It's all water under the bridge now...we'll be ten seasons ahead of now before we know it and we'll just refer to this period as the "tumult period" of FOOL.

The other thing to keep in mind is, the blips that other league have all of the time, we have too -- fewer, I'd say -- but because each week a season, the stakes are higher. It's like school board politics.

But given this league -- and I say this a lot, but it's no less true -- was a fleeting idea that I never thought would work, much less last almost 15 seasons, the fact that we've made it this far is a major accomplishment.

I'm done now.

[Commo_Soldier]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Geographic is likely to be my first inclination, but with no more than one AI team in a particular division ever.

This would be my main concern for having it be divisions rather than a wild card. I just would hate to see divisions possibly getting switched every second or third year because we loose one owner in a division bringing the total to 2 AI teams.

[Young Drachma]

Nevermind that.

[Alan T]

This is the best I can do:

RL East:

Boston 89-70
Columbus 80-74
Ann Arbor 75-79
Hartford 69-85

RL West:

Colorado 90-69
Quad City 85-69
Compton 67-87
El Paso 66-88


CL North:

Baltimore 91-63
Brooklyn 82-72
Toronto 64-90
New York 59-95


CL South:

Atlanta 97-57
Valdosta 90-64
Rio Grande 74-80
Texas 59-95

[Young Drachma]

Those divisions, Alan, seem reasonable and fair to me. And really competitive. Each has 3 teams that have a Classic title, appearance or have been close. The RL East is especially nice, because those teams are the most jilted of any in our league.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Those divisions, Alan, seem reasonable and fair to me. And really competitive. Each has 3 teams that have a Classic title, appearance or have been close. The RL East is especially nice, because those teams are the most jilted of any in our league.

Well I think if they are drawn up that way, the CL South is going to be a disaster to try to win.. talk about competition. I was just trying to figure out the best geographical alignment, and the records just happened to work out that way.

[Young Drachma]

None of these divisions looks like a cakewalk to me.

[graygoose12]

But like I said divisions would be seven years down the road. Alan will likely be going for his ninth out of ten league championships, and who knows where other teams will be. I like the divisions, and think we should use these if we are going to go to divisions.

[Alan T]

The average win-loss records for each of those geographically realigned suggested divisions:

RL East: 81 - 77
RL West: 77 - 78
CL North: 74 - 80
CL South: 80 - 74

Keep in mind the RL had a playoff series, so the total games will be a bit higher up there.

I'm going to work on a different series of proposed realignment divisions based on 5 year W/L records next.

[Alan T]

Here is alphabetical realignment.. I don't like these too much:

RL Alpha:

Ann Arbor 75-79
Boston 89-70
Columbus 80-74
Colorado 90-69

84 - 73

RL Omega:

Compton 67-87
Hartford 69-85
El Paso 66-88
Quad City 85-69

72 - 82

CL Alpha:

Atlanta 97-57
Baltimore 91-63
Brooklyn 82-72
New York 59-95

82 - 72

CL Omega:

Rio Grande 74-80
Texas 59-95
Toronto 64-90
Valdosta 90-64

72 - 82

[Chief Rum]

Looking forward to seeing how you guys decide to do this. I like Alan's first way best.

FWIW, I will probably still be around to see how the league is going and to see how Colorado is doing. But now I have the option of not sweating any drama, so that's nice.

[Young Drachma]

Given that we lost an owner has left and we've had an influx of new owners, it might be sensible (fair?) to have a revote on this topic...that might give us more time to plot our plans regarding this issue...but only if folks want that.

[Alan T]

Here is the 5 year averages realignment model for teams based on their past 5 seasons of performance:

CL #1

Valdosta 99.6
Rio Grande 77
Baltimore 72.2
Texas 57.4

CL #2

Brooklyn 83.6
Atlanta 83
New York 72.2
Toronto 71

RL #1

Colorado 87
Boston 81.2
Hartford 72
El Paso 68.2




RL #2

Compton 85
Ann Arbor 83.2
Quad City 70.6
Columbus 68.8

[Cringer]

I like the 'records' proposal, as well as the others. Really no big preference from me.

What I would suggest for the last one based on records though is that it would be done based on the last 5 years BEFORE the alignment is done. So it may be different then what is up there now since we haven't even played a season that would count in that.

This way though we wouldn't end up having a division worth of teams go into a slump for the next 4-5 years and already be locked into a division together.

[Commo_Soldier]

Originally Posted by Cringer

I like the 'records' proposal, as well as the others. Really no big preference from me.

What I would suggest for the last one based on records though is that it would be done based on the last 5 years BEFORE the alignment is done. So it may be different then what is up there now since we haven't even played a season that would count in that.

This way though we wouldn't end up having a division worth of teams go into a slump for the next 4-5 years and already be locked into a division together.

+1

I like the purposed division choices that Alan has provided but think we should look at picking a choice in the 1979 offseason.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Cringer

I like the 'records' proposal, as well as the others. Really no big preference from me.

What I would suggest for the last one based on records though is that it would be done based on the last 5 years BEFORE the alignment is done. So it may be different then what is up there now since we haven't even played a season that would count in that.

This way though we wouldn't end up having a division worth of teams go into a slump for the next 4-5 years and already be locked into a division together.

Isn't that short-sighted, though? Five years into divisional play, and those original five years are even more history.

I think the only concession should be toward where the AI teams are, since they were certainly suffer. Otherwise, in the long run, things will balance out.

But, of course, you're free to tell me to stuff it.

[Cringer]

CR, not real sure what you are saying here. If we realign in 1980, taking the records from 1975-1979 is somehow short sighted? I am not sure how that would be, feel free to explain why it would be.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Cringer

CR, not real sure what you are saying here. If we realign in 1980, taking the records from 1975-1979 is somehow short sighted? I am not sure how that would be, feel free to explain why it would be.

Oh I just mean that records-based realignment is a short term reason on which to realign. At whatever point you realign, it will shortly not matter, with the passing of further years, as new teams rise and fall. A geography based sort of setup would be more natural.

But, then, I also think that's more applicable to a real life situation, which this is not. We don't have to worry about travel time or regional television or developing actual local rivalries here.

So I guess records-based is as good a reason as any on which to re-align.

[graygoose12]

I think the geography based setup is a good reason because there are no biases in place doing it this way. Especially setting it up now, it becomes totally random when it comes in to play in seven years.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Oh I just mean that records-based realignment is a short term reason on which to realign. At whatever point you realign, it will shortly not matter, with the passing of further years, as new teams rise and fall. A geography based sort of setup would be more natural.

But, then, I also think that's more applicable to a real life situation, which this is not. We don't have to worry about travel time or regional television or developing actual local rivalries here.

So I guess records-based is as good a reason as any on which to re-align.

I understand what you are saying now. Still, as I said in my first post up there, I don't really care which one happens really. I was just suggesting how that one should be handled. This will probably end up going to a vote of all options listed above, and then whatever gets the most votes taken. If the Board just selected an option I am sure there would be people bitching about it not being fair for one reason or the other.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Commo_Soldier

+1

I like the purposed division choices that Alan has provided but think we should look at picking a choice in the 1979 offseason.

I have a few problems with waiting till the 1979 offseason to pick this choice..

The big one is if we're voting on it now, my vote depends alot on which we would choose. If we're going with a realignment that seems logical to me I'll likely pick divisional over a wildcard. If it is one that seems bizarre to me, I'd probably just vote wildcard instead.

(of course I'm still favoring no realignment or wildcard. I don't see what was wrong with last year's season finish. It was more exciting than you would ever see with wildcard or divisional play)

The other issue I have with waiting is that means suddenly a discussion has to be crammed in the offseason real quick, which limits time for discussion and leads to a quick knee-jerk implementation in order to keep from delaying the next season.

If everyone is set on doing the realignment, I'd rather us figure out how we are going to do it now. (Not necessarily assign the teams out now, but I am saying at least state now that after the 1979 season we'll realign the teams based on geography as listed above, or based on 5 year avg record from 1974 - 1979, or whatever the system we are going to use is).

That more importantly would also allow Dark Cloud the time to take a seperate test league, go through the actual exercise of doing this function and then simming through a season or two to make sure there are no sudden catches with schedules, playoffs, or some other unforseen thing that OOTP will throw at us.

[Commo_Soldier]

Maybe I worded it wrong, but when I said 1979 offseason I meant decide the division alignment after the 1978 season ends since this will give us enough time to decide what structure to use for the 1980 season.

I agree it would be best to decide now what way to align the divisions, but think we should wait on deciding who goes where if we use a record based alignment.

[Young Drachma]

Crazy as this might sound, we might want to consider expanding in 1981 to four teams. That'll give us four 5-team divisions, especially now that we've got a fill of human owners.

We could also consider, provided there is support and actual participation, breaking off into our own forum/web site and that might make it easier for people looking to find us/learn more, to do so.

I've been pondering it for a bit, but haven't drawn up elaborate plans as of yet.

Just food for thought.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

Crazy as this might sound, we might want to consider expanding in 1981 to four teams. That'll give us four 5-team divisions, especially now that we've got a fill of human owners.

We could also consider, provided there is support and actual participation, breaking off into our own forum/web site and that might make it easier for people looking to find us/learn more, to do so.

I've been pondering it for a bit, but haven't drawn up elaborate plans as of yet.

Just food for thought.

I don't think moving to our own forum would help draw more people. I think the traffic would be far less. I imagine there are a good number of people who happen to browse through forums at Operation Sports or FOFC that happen across this forum from time to time. I highly doubt that would happen on an independant forum. Any advertisement of it you did could be done just the same for this place. (Plus it is easier on me to not have one more place to go!)

You could technically have the best of both worlds with an independant web site with various user contributed content with the forums tying back to here though as well if you wanted.

[Cringer]

If we split into divisions, and all teams remain human controlled between now and then, I could support expansion.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I don't think moving to our own forum would help draw more people. I think the traffic would be far less. I imagine there are a good number of people who happen to browse through forums at Operation Sports or FOFC that happen across this forum from time to time. I highly doubt that would happen on an independant forum. Any advertisement of it you did could be done just the same for this place. (Plus it is easier on me to not have one more place to go!)

You could technically have the best of both worlds with an independant web site with various user contributed content with the forums tying back to here though as well if you wanted.

Well that's more likely to happen. The reason I moved us from FOBL to here was precisely because of the traffic issues. I just thought if we got big enough, it'd be easier to integrate other features that might maintain the people we've got. But...that said, because so many of us are active FOFC posters -- though not all -- it's helpful to be here.

I'm just floating that balloon.

And I'm with Cringer. Only if we were 16 human at that time would it be something to talk about. But better to talk about it now and at least kick the tires on it for a few years, versus waiting to spring it on all you then.

[Alan T]

I'm not a huge fan of expansion, but I am guessing that is not really a huge surprise for anyone

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I'm not a huge fan of expansion, but I am guessing that is not really a huge surprise for anyone

No, but in this particular case..don't think of it as "expansion" or "watering down of talent." Think of it as "sharing the love of FOOL to the masses."

[fairly]

I'm still lurking, but with 52 chances per year to win a championship, I don't see a compelling reason expand the playoffs. Especially, with just 4 teams in a division you're very likely to get that sub .500 team sneak into a championship sooner or later. Maybe, if you get to 24 total teams, divisional play makes sense, but not now.