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Post 25 Jan 2013, 5:34 pm

Picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue here...
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Post 26 Jan 2013, 8:27 am

SLOTerp wrote:Well, we're definitely going to 21 weeks. How has yet to be determined. Either way, I'm going to lock in a scheduling set-up:

Play division rivals twice.
Play one team from every other division twice.
Play all other teams once.

Sorry Steve, I just don't like the 'triple-play'.


You don't have to like it. :wink:

I don't like this either. But, you are the commissioner-for-life and I submit to your rule.
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Post 26 Jan 2013, 10:14 am

21-week season passed and will be accomplished by extending the existing playoff structure into the final week of the MLB season. Check email for voting results.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 11:08 am

This is the way I'm leaning if anyone has comments before it is finalized: The initial allocation of owners to divisions will be geography-based and permanent. I believe a two year experiment will be sufficient to determine if it works for us. After the two year period, we will evaluate the system.

The divisions appear to be quite unbalanced based on historical and recent team history. The intent is to take advantage of natural rivalries (West, Mass, NY, South), not balance. However, some balance will be attained via the scheduling of the three inter-division games. Note that the new teams will be in the weaker divisions. Michael doesn't fit well (geographically) into any of the east coast divisions so he was placed in the weakest of those three.

Here they are, ordered by time in league and with last 3 years of results (regular season place):

Note on division names: These are preliminary and I am comfortable with divisions naming themselves.

West
Alexander (13th, 8th, 14th)
Nick (12th, 11th, 7th)
Brad Ba (1st, 4th, 10th)
Freeman (new)

Division notes: Freeman enters into a weak division. Who will rise in the west?

Mass
Andrew (6th, 3rd, 11th)
Brad S (11th, 13th, 8th)
Steve (10K record: 3rd, 10th, 13th)
Michael (new)

Division notes: Michael enters into the weakest east coast division. Massachusetts is for the taking.

N.Y.
George (2nd, 7th, 1st)
Brad Bu (9th, 14th, 12th)
Todd (5th, 1st, 4th)
John (7th, 5th, 9th)

Division notes: A tough conference. Brad, you really need to up your game!

South
Mike (8th, 6th, 6th)
Matt (4th, 2nd, 2nd)
Barry (10th, 9th, 5th)
Ryan (14th, 12th, 3rd)

Division notes: Another tough conference, especially with the recent success of the last two teams.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 12:48 pm

Wallaby approve!
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 12:59 pm

Looks good to me.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 8:37 pm

Looks great to me. The south is *brutal* - four 2012 playoff teams. I welcome the challenge!
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 9:11 pm

While it looks like I'm doing myself no favors by placing myself in the southern gauntlet, I just realized that I am the lowest ranked team in the division based on last year's results. That gives me a sweet inter-division schedule. That was not my intent, I swear! :wink:

Todd, I'll leave the scheduling up to you but you may wish to consider not allowing any one team to play both new teams twice.

[edit] In fact, for the upcoming year do what you think is best to balance the schedules. Nick & Brad S. are also being unduly affected by virtue of being top dogs in their respective divisions, yet neither made the playoffs last year.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 9:26 pm

Average rankings over the 3-year time span:

West: 8.78
Alex: 11.33
Nick: 10
Brad Ba: 5
Freeman: N/A

Mass: 8.67
Andrew: 6.67
Brad S: 10.67
Steve: 8.67
Michael: N/A

N.Y: 5.17
George: 3.33
Brad Bu: 11.67
Todd: 3.33
John: 7

South: 6.75
Mike: 6.67
Matt: 2.67
Barry: 8
Ryan: 9.67

Sorry, which was the brutal division again? :razz:

It will remain possible for all four of the perennial playoff teams of recent years (Matt, George, Mike, and myself) to all make the playoffs, but only if we take both wild card spots. I probably wouldn't bet on that happening, even if we all remained in the top 6 in terms of overall strength (and that's ignoring the disruptive possibilities introduced by the new teams).
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 9:28 pm

The 3 rotating inter-division games will only drive half of your strength of schedule, with your division driving the other half. We're cutting more than half of the last-year's-results aspect from the schedule (from 7 games to 3), so I wouldn't worry too much about that being unbalanced.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 9:38 pm

For what it's worth (very little since it will only affect the order in which games are played, if anything), I'm considering Freeman to have finished ahead of Michael by virtue of a superior prior RBL service record.
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 11:36 pm

Tentative schedule for this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Anp0Q9wAJOB8dEV5bVlrUTRIa2JnNmdmcXVDeHpwaGc&hl=en#gid=3

All of the sub-divided 3-week sets are pretty easy to shuffle around without altering the basic structure. I could also break up the 3-week chunks if people think its boring to rotate through different divisions (it's a lot easier to "read" the schedule this way, though). The main goal was to space rematches out as far as possible, and to put the most (theoretically) compelling matchups toward the end of the season (so divisional rematches, with 1 v 2 coming latest, and 1v1 inter-divisional matches).

You can also see strength of schedule, where a lower number is a tougher schedule (though bear in mind that this is a particularly rough estimate given the entry of new teams). Most teams actually line up pretty well with their ranking from last year, with a few exceptions (particularly the Cougars). However, the ranking is somewhat deceptive, as the schedules are very clustered, surprisingly so compared to the old schedule system (and given that the divisions are effectively random). On the Pre-Divisions Schedule tab, you can see what the old system would have produced (albeit with only 14 teams, so the SoS numbers are lower). The new schedule ranges from 164 (Lumberjacks) to 186 (Cool-Es, Freeman), but the Lumberjacks are the only team below 171, whereas the old schedule had teams spread across the same size range (139 to 161), despite smaller numbers, and with no single outlier.

Anyone with thoughts on the schedule, let me know, so I can properly ignore your input :winkgrin:
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 11:41 pm

Just realized I totally ignored this: "Todd, I'll leave the scheduling up to you but you may wish to consider not allowing any one team to play both new teams twice."

The way we set this up basically demands that people (specifically the Cougars and Soup) play the newbies twice, since they're both considered to be in last place last year in their divisions. Anything we might do to adjust that would probably just make other things worse (for example, switching Steve and Michael's positions). So... too bad :razz:
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Post 29 Jan 2013, 11:48 pm

One final post and then I swear I'm done.

My schedule is 85.7% (yes I'm serious, 18/21) divisional-reorganization-proof. So if we do end up wanting to shuffle things around for some reason (I don't see why we would, but...), we can do it without causing much change to the schedule. It would only affect the 3 inter-division rematch weeks (and the non-rematch versions, but those are just copies).
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Post 30 Jan 2013, 7:19 am

Sharur wrote:One final post and then I swear I'm done.

Pshaaw... like I believe that.

I suppose what I was getting at is demonstrated by the following example:

- Have Freeman & Michael play each other twice (that should be ok)
- Have me play one of them (F or M) twice and Barry play the other twice. Allowing me to play both new teams twice (who should be fairly disadvantaged the first year) doesn't seem right. The difference between our teams last year was marginal (although based on three year average, perhaps Barry should be playing them twice).
- As for Brad Bu, I'd be ok with him playing both new teams twice. He'll need some advantages in your deathtrap of a division.

There is no policy on this specifically, so I will leave it to your best judgement. You can rank divisions however you please (last year's results, 3-year avg., etc...). What you do this year does not have to be 'forever', but after this year we should probably have a consistent system. Whatever you like.