Three four-team divisions?
Posting on behalf of Dave:
The idea is to convert our league to a three-division format. This would hopefully resolve two of our league's problems: our current highly unbalanced schedule that fosters competitive imbalance and our annual problem of the playoffs dragging on far too long.
Here are the highlights:
-- We would have three four-team divisions, with the three divisions champs and one wild card (the second-place team with the best overall record) reaching the playoffs.
-- The playoffs would be two rounds rather than three, so they should be done by Nov. 15 at the latest.
-- The season would remain 160 games and run March through October, but the number of games played per month would vary between 18, 19 and 25 games (plus a shortened 12-game October that will allow us to jump-start the playoffs before the end of the month).
-- Teams would play each of their three division rivals a total of 16 times (four 4-game series).
-- Teams would play each of ther eight non-division rivals a total of 14 times (two 7-game series).
-- This breakdown is only slightly unbalanced and much more equitable that our current set-up (20 games vs. division rivals and only 10 vs. non-division).
posted by Gary @ 2/23/2006 11:57:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I'm OK with the three-division format, but the uneven schedule concerns me. I foresee lots of botching of pitching rotations without our symmetrical current method. Can Mike or Dave lay out what a typical month would be like? How you arrive at 18/19/25 games when series are 4 or 7 games?
I like the old 2 division format with 6 teams in the playoffs.
On first glance, everything looks great. Just throwing something out there (shoot it down if you'd like), why not have a 5-team playoff system. Give the top seed a bye in the first round and take 2 wild cards. It'd still be less than the 50% of the teams in the playoffs.
Also, as for the reshuffling of the divisions, i'd say the best time to do this is every 4 years. Why 4 years? We vote for president every four years, so let's do new divisions every 4. (totally random, eh)
I think Mike Renbo's bid for architectual change is on the mark, but I'd be (we'd be) hard-pressed to formulate who the foursomes would be. I agree that the games played between
division and non-division foes are a little unbalanced. I still have a proposed schedule reform
on Gary's blog. This is definitely a discussion now...implementation later issue.
As far as lessening the number of playoff teams in competition...I resoundingly (yet sheepishly) hope that wouldn't happen......please.
Any division with Springfield below Tropical is fine with me.
I tend to concur with Mike W. ... division rivals should play each other more often than interdivision foes, so the new configuration would pretty drastically alter that dynamic. I do like limiting the number of playoff teams (33 percent of a 12-team league seems more reasonable than 50 percent), and if we instituted that, the playoffs would figure to move more quickly.
If it's a question of not playing certain managers often enough, we could on occasion reshuffle the two divisions, since there's only a marginal geographic tie to it anyway.
1.) Unbalanced Schedule: Did not know it was an issue—except when I faced Littleton 20 times last year. I think it makes sense to face your divisional challengers more than not. I do not like the proposed schedule of 48 games intra division and 112 inter division. Swings far too much the other way. Personally, I do not like the 4 team divisions.
2.) Playoffs: This is not a recent issue. Been a problem since I have been in the league. I think that, if the playoffs are not finished by mid November, they will always drag on, due to traditional time constraints at year end. Last year, we cut the October schedule to 10 games and we still struggled to finish the playoffs. I am not sure the proposed changes will address this issue.
Since every proposal has the Isotopes with either Tropical or Littleton in it and properly listed higher, I selfishly vote no.
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