2018 IMBA Season Realignment Ideas

[volkert]

Two Conferences of 8 divided into Four Divisions of 4.

Play the Opposite Conference (of 8 teams) one 4-game series = 32 games
Play your Sister Division (of 4 teams) two 4-game series =32 games
Play your Division three 4-game series = 36 games

This would reduce season to 100 games. (25 4-games series)

[goatboy]

If possible, I prefer to maintain 18 teams.

[CCStegos]

I'd also make every effort to keep us at 18 teams for this season. Even if a team or two has to be drafted by an independent party and managed by Super HAL.

I'd be all for contraction the following season, but with trades being made for picks in this upcoming season's draft, we could set up procedures for contraction and then enforce them the following season.

The realignment I WOULD like to see is doing away with the 6-division format. Although presented as "helping" to ease scheduling of games, I certainly did not see very much of that happening. What I did see, was the creation of a couple of divisions chock full of hapless teams that HAD to produce two playoff teams. The records of those teams was buoyed by the fact that teams played a whopping THIRTY-TWO games within their division. This allowed those weak teams to have the appearance of "ok" records. That was somewhat easy to accomplish given one-third of their games were against themselves. Meanwhile divisions with good teams had their records brought down because of all the games they played in their division against other good teams.

So while 6 divisions sounded like a workable plan, it actually made for silly results come playoff time. More harm was done to having the best teams in the playoffs than was done to "ease scheduling". So it makes sense to go back to three divisions of six teams next year. Let's get the best teams in the playoffs.

[brodnine]

I don't see where ease of schedule was a factor at all. Only one division had two teams with losing records and the team that won that division was the 7 seed (KD). Only 1 other division did not have two teams with winning records and the team that won that division was the 9 seed (AC). So beating up on a weak division didn't hand them top seeds. The other 4 divisions had 2 winning teams and one losing team. PV and the Goats ended up with the #2 and 4 seeds coming out of their division. They had the team with the worst record in their division so having two tough teams was off set by having a really weak team. That will change from year to year. KC was the three seed and Sean the five seed. Phil the 6 seed and Jason tied for the 8 seed. I was the one seed with AM tied for the 8 seed. If me and PV or KC switched divisions maybe 1,2,3 seeds are different but we would all be in the playoffs and most likely a top 3 seed.

AC would not have made the playoffs if we had 3 conference winners seeded 1-3 and 6 wild cards. That was changed at the league meeting and can be rectified if people feel that was unfair. We set up the new format to make it easier for people to play. The problem was Chris/Phil and Jeff were behind all season and quit. What we need to do is find new managers with the love off strat and the desire to play the games. Then hopefully the dice roller divisions will work and the FTF players will have people near them so it's not an issue traveling to play.

Me and Sean have some leads on new managers . If anyone else has anyone let him or me know. This year we have 3 months to find managers instead of a couple of weeks. Hopefully this will mean we will find people who are more committed to putting in the time that this league takes. We can vet them better and add from a position of strength instead of holy crap what do we do now.

ty

MLB

[CCStegos]

Okay. Now I'm confused.

Brody's post opens with "I don't see where ease of schedule was a factor at all." Then in the third paragraph he states "We set up the new format to make it easier for people to play."

Which is it? Was it set up to make scheduling easier or not? Obviously it was.

I will repeat the point I made at the meeting about divisions. If a division winner doesn't qualify for the playoffs, then why have the division in the first place? Hence the desire to go back to three divisions of six.

Also, you can't discount those 32 games within a division under the current format. It has way too much of an impact on the teams' final records. Stop and think about that. 32 games against only 2 teams and 74 games against the other 15 teams? Absurd.

The way to rectify how things shook out (and can shake out again in the future) is going back to three conferences of six teams each.

Having three teams compete in a "division" playing one-third of their season against each other and then none of them make the playoffs is downright silly.

[brodnine]

Ease of schedule as in how tough your opponents were.
Division breakdowns
Comp conference
Arms /Dreads/Blues 150 wins
M9/Badgers/jayZ 163 Wins

Dice Roller
VANDALS/GOATS/DAYS 159 WINS
STRIFE/BEACH/MACHINE 151 WINS

FTF DICV
B SOX/LEAVES/SLUGGERS 167 WINS
GRIZZLIES/STEGOS/BOMBERS 146 WINS

The 3 divisions with the fewest wins ie the weakest divisions didn't have a team in the top 5. The three division winners from the divisions with the worst record were ranked the 6/7/9 seeds . So they did not get fat on playing in weaker divisions.

The realignment was to keep the league going. A majority didn't want to play FTF so this alignment was done. We also can not have Manhattan and Long Island teams in the same division.
You(Jim S) threatened to quit the league if you were forced to go into Manhattan to play conference games. It is too much travel time and expense. That being said we tried to make divisions with people in them that enjoyed playing each other or were near each other for ease of play. We as a league have to decide if we want to keep this format. We have to decide if we do keep it, will we go with the current playoff system or 3 conference winners and six wildcards.They are matters for the league meeting but its good to discuss them now in order to save time. We also will need to realign as we have lost 2-3 managers so far and will have to change to accommodate the new managers locations.

[CCStegos]

So you read "ease of schedule" wrong. Obviously, nobody was predicting which would be the good vs bad teams and somehow come up with divisions combining teams in that manner. We are in agreement it was "ease of being able to schedule games".

Try twisting numbers all you want and ignore the facts. Looking at final records determined by 32 games against division opponents that HAVE to result in those games going .500 is meaningless. Six divisions of three DID NOT WORK. Will not work. It is dumb. The only dumber thing would be to have six divisions with the possibility that three of those divisions have the possibility of not having a team in the post season. For the umpteenth time, why create divisions that don't have any meaning?

I really don't understand the problem with three divisions of six. In no way am I saying to put teams from Jersey into a Long Island division. Don't be silly. Ignoring the inevitable realignment issue, all I'm saying is combine back to three six team conferences. Combine the the two FTF divisions into one, the two Dice Roller into one, and the two Computer divisions into one.

The "big" difference from a scheduling standpoint is one less series against those in your former division and one more series against those in the former sister division. Is that "make or break"? The result is we'd be competing in a much more balanced manner just like we used to do. That is so obvious.

Would love to hear others take on this issue as it appears neither Brody nor I will be changing our stance.

[brodnine]

It worked. I did not twist numbers. From year to year division strengths changed. Sean/KC Wil's division had the most out of division wins with 119. Followed by my division 117 and then PV's with 111. So if KC was in my division does he get the number one seed,maybe but it came down to me going 3-1 vs both KC and PV which landed me the #1 seed. I had the leagues best division record but I tied with KC for the best out of division record. Calling it dumb is just more of the uncivil behavior which is ruining the league. Just because you don't like a rule doesn't mean you have to get nasty and attack the person who disagrees with you. Put your reasons out there. Make your arguments but don't say the person who is disagreeing with you is twisting numbers or is arguing for a dumb rule.

[CCStegos]

I will try one more final time to make my point.

The issue is not the top or bottom teams. The top competing teams will make the playoffs regardless of how the league is set up. The bottom/rebuilding teams will be part of the lottery. The concern I have is with the middle of the pack - not so much the playoff seedings or Lottery Roll adjustments although those are also affected.

The middle teams are competing for a postseason berth where every game matters. We all invest a lot of time in this league and to be truly competitive, the playing field should be as even as possible. Having 32 games against 2 opponents is far from a level playing field. Let's look at the five teams that finished in the middle of the standings (#7 thru #11) and the winning percentage of their divisional opponents

# 7 Grizzlies .431
# 8 Strife .466
# 9 JayZ .514
#10 Dredds .451
#11 Beach .475

The JayZ had to deal with much tougher teams for one-third of their season than the others while the Grizzlies had the easiest time of it. The expected divisional wins for those two teams over 32 games is 15.6 and 18.2. That puts the JayZ at a 2.6 games disadvantage against the Grizzlies just because of the division they played in. That's a huge difference to make up when, as I pointed out, every game matters for these middle-of-the-pack teams.

I am not saying that every team should play the exact same schedule. However, leveling the unbalanced schedule a bit by going back to the prior three divisions of six will do that.

I have not seen evidence of, nor have I experienced, what may have been gained by the change put in place last season. However, whatever may have been gained is outweighed by the loss of competitive balance it has created.

I don't know if anyone else, other than Brody and myself, cares about the divisional set-up. It's either ambivalence or nobody else is reading the forum. I would like to hear what others have to say about the topic.

[brodnine]

The only team to miss he playoffs on that list was Josh. JayZ had a one game play in vs the Dreads. He was 17-15 in the division 531 winning %. He was 31-25 in the conference 554%. He was 25-23 521% out of the conference. So it was his out of conference play that cost him a higher seed not being in tougher division. 12 series 50% of games played are of of conference. 16 series are played out of division 66%.

AC made the playoffs despite having a 469 winning % in his division and a 464 in his conference. He went 28-20 a 583% out of conference. His division was 4th in out of conference wins. His conference was last in out of division wins.

In the old system you 15 series in division and 12 out of division. So being in a tough division for 55% of you games can have much more of an effect then being in a strong division for 33% of your games.

Thanks for keeping it civil hopefully league members are reading this so they can make informed decisions at the league meeting.

[Brooklyn_BlackSox]

Id ask that we re align once we have new managers brought in based on what makes the most sense. Im for keeping the smaller 3 team divisions. However Ill put forward that its just the 3 main division winners that get 1-3 ranked and everyone else is ranked based on their record. A division winner that finishes at .500 or close to it should not bump a better record team IMO. I dont see the need to have micro division winners finish ahead of other teams with better records. Letting friends play with their friends in division for 4 games seems to me to promote getting games in on time, and keeping it fun. When the season is over Ill start putting my proposals in order for next year.

Ive read everything through and understand the issue. This is how Ill be approaching the re alignment/divisions for 2018.

Regards,
Sean
Black Sox

[ichithekiller]

It is patently false to claim that the new divisional and conference alignments helped make it easier to finish the regular season on schedule this past year. Every year the league has laggards, teams who fall incredibly far behind and finish their schedule only at the very last moment. This year was far worse, the worst I've seen in my seven years in the league. Whatever effect the new conference and divisional alignments had, and I personally found them demonstrably unbalancing, they did not make the completion of the regular season go more smoothly, as they were supposed to do. If anything they had the opposite effect.

[goatboy]

Any support for a Philadelphia / South Jersey division. Baaa!

[CCStegos]

If people like playing certain teams more, then that was the viable reason to create 6 divisions of 3. However, that is not evidence the format worked this past year. It's just restating the preference.

Perhaps there is preference for even more play against certain teams and we can avoid playing those teams we don't want to play all together? Is that the direction we should move? Like the days before inter-league play in MLB. If so, let's hear some proposals for even more games against favorite opponents. This is not being stated sarcastically. We are a democracy where the people get what they want by a simple majority.

55% is bigger than 33%. But 5 opponents will have the same schedule and that's much bigger than 2. It's still unbalanced, but it's spread out across more teams making for fairer competition.

It's a shame that Alec and Jason (with Alec getting there despite coming from the division with by far the best record) had to be involved with a tiebreaker game where both teams used their best pitchers in a do-or-die game. The winner then had to move on to another do-or-die game without that best pitcher available.

Rather than go with "that's the way the cookie crumbles" under the 6/3 format, managers should be able to rely on a system that provides them with the best chance for all their scouting and game play preparation to pay off for them due to a more level playing field.

Having one or two teams suffer/benefit by the current setup is a disservice to managers working hard all year to make the postseason.

It seems to me the decision between the 6/3 and 3/6 formats comes down to preferring to play certain teams versus preferring competitive balance.

[volkert]

So I'm not for or against any option at this point, as I want to see who is playing in the league first, before I vote on a format. I like the idea of 18 teams, and heck I'd like to expand to 20 teams by 2020. But, for me it is all about the managers and their commitment to playing the game. If you asked me for a decision today, i'd say I hated these small divisions, because I had a team in it who NEVER wanted to play. It's becoming to hard to get any opponent to play. I feel like I'm bothering people by continually calling and emailing. I'd like one of you computer geniuses to just put up a google calendar, and everybody could mark monthly when they are available to play. Then, I would just look at the calendar, and make one phone call.

My solution for competitive balance is the following if we continue with 18 teams. Just play EVERYONE TWICE, and a series in only 3 games like most of them in MLB. Playing ALL 17 guys 6 games puts us at a 102 season. I see the benefits as the following:
- Some managers will agree to just play all six games at once allowing them to play the whole season in just 17 days or twice a month(Mar - Oct) Only once in Feb.
- Everyone plays everyone the same amount of times. Can't get any better balance.
- 2 fewer games... (pretty minor)