Two Playoffs Questions

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Getting to the World Series


Each year, 12 teams will make the playoffs. Each division winner will be in, along with 3 wildcards from both the American and National League (best records after division winners). The fantasy season will end about 4 weeks before the MLB regular season does. The top 6 teams in each league will make the playoffs with the #1 and #2 seeds in each league receiving a first round bye. If either of the top seeds are tied, the tie-breaker will go to the best H2H record vs. each other. The tie-breaker to make the playoffs will be determined by head to head record. The second tie-breaker will be determined by conference record, and the third tie-breaker is your cumulative season total of pitching wins. The first tie-breaker in a playoff game is the same as the regular season tie-breaker. The second tie-breaker, if there is still a tie then the higher seed will advance. The AL Champion will play the NL Champion in the World Series, and the winner will claim Champions of the League!

I have already raised my interest in having the league look at the tiebreakers, specifically wins. If we go into stats, I posit that it should be the same as breaks the weekly ties (HR/SB/W/SV).

My second question pertains to the reading of this passage:

The second tie-breaker will be determined by conference record

This year, we saw Houston win the tiebreaker over Oakland because of division record.

But that's not the way it reads to me. Divisions are different from Conferences, and the latter is confusing, because conferences, as is understood in other sports, aren't called the same thing in MLB and don't really exist. In most sports, Conferences are made up of individual divisions containing a certain amount of teams (The NFC/AFC with the East/West/North/South; The Eastern and Western Conferences in the NHL and NBA). This correlates to NL/AL - leagues that are made up of individual divisions, the East, West, and Central. Which is why, in my explanation to the Astros, I thought Oakland had it wrapped up. I believe we have even used league records rather than division records in the past.

Bottom line, we need to clarify this wording. Either we change it to division or we change it to league, but conference doesn't make sense in our circumstance.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

I'll change the wording to division. Division record mirrors MLB and pretty much all other sports, so that's why we use it. It's tracked on Fantrax for that reason as well.

As for your first question, I'm very much in favor of getting rid of wins entirely, so I'd want to dive deeper in another thread. With the potential use of an opener by more teams, even QS is making less sense.

[Former Astros GM (Kevin)]

Champagne is flowing in Houston and AL West banner is being raised! Looking like my peak for the year since Tampa is stomping me.

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

QS is boring.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

I like IP. Closest approximation to what wins used to be.

[Braves GM (Dustin)]

I don't know about IP. Look at Homer Bailey for example. The Reds throw him out for 6-7 IP regardless if he gives up 8 runs or not because it doesn't matter to them. Not sure about rewarding a category that can manipulated by real MLB teams that are terrible.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

That might help the Reds, but it wouldn't help an owner here. You blow up whip and era by doing that. Roll out 5th starters looking for an IP category win and you'd probably get it, but you lose 2 categories every time.

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

Please IP. I'll never lose again 😏

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

I think IP would be a mistake. Right now, you can still do what the Astros did this year and execute a strategy around a strong bullpen. At the moment, if a team goes up against the Cubs or Giants, they still have a chance to win pitching categories, even Wins, with some luck. But if IP becomes a category, for those owners who hoard SP, they will legitimately never lose two categories - IP and K.

I don't want to see this league become a race to hoard as many SPs as possible. That wouldn't be fun. Quality over Quantity should still be a legitimate option

[Former Astros GM (Kevin)]

I don’t think the the league categories should ever change once a league is born. Changes the value of each player and teams could have let SP go (in trades or fa) that they would not have. Contracts of multiple years have already been divied out based on the categories that exist.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

I have to disagree Kevin. The league is not bound to the rules. Rules have and will change, just as moving to the shift and towards an opener (the closer didn't exist in the past) are real MLB changes. To base one out of 10 categories on a stat that may soon be going to relievers as often as starters seems inherently wrong to me.

I get that you're saying the league was formed on the rule set as written and teams have made decisions based on those rules, but you can't ignore change. See our salary cap rule change and discussion in the archived threads.

Changes are almost never done midseason and major rule adjustments are typically put to a league wide vote if they are contentious. That would be the case here, I'm sure.

[Nationals GM (Preston - Old)]

If I may, I believe the original intent of "conference" was for league (i.e., AL or NL). That said, I agree with Rob in the sense that we should always consider ways to improve, but I disagree with some of the proposals. I think our current categories work well and favor our matchup tiebreaker as a standings tiebreaker as well. That said, most changes should take a year for implementation (as they do as Rob said).

[Former Astros GM (Kevin)]

Wouldn’t Openers and shifts be an example of a change in strategy and not rules?

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

Shifts yes, that's strategy, but if MLB actually scored their games on more than runs as we do with 10 categories, notably here Wins for pitchers then yes, Openers would be a change in rules.

[Reds GM (Pat H.)]

How does this look?

Each year, after the regular season, 12 teams will make the playoffs; 6 from each league.  Each division winner will be in, along with 3 wildcards from both the American and National League. Wildcard teams will be determined regardless of divisions.  The #1 and #2 seeds in each league receive a first round bye.

The three division winners will be determined first as follows:

1. Best overall win/loss/tie %

2. Best win/loss/tie % among all games played H2H (only used if all teams involved have played each other the same amount of games)

3. Best division win/loss/tie %

4. Best league win/loss/tie %

5. Best cumulative season total of HR+SB+W+SV

6. Longest time accumulated as an owner since last winning the division

After the Division winners are determined, then these division winners are seeded as follows.

1. Best overall win/loss/tie %

2. Best win/loss/tie % among all games played H2H (only used if all teams involved have played each other the same amount of games)

3. Best league win/loss/tie %

4. Best cumulative season total of HR+SB+W+SV

5. Longest time accumulated as an owner since last receiving a bye in the playoffs

6. Coin toss

The remaining playoff spots will be determined and seeded as follows:

1. Best overall win/loss/tie %

2. Best win/loss/tie % among all games played H2H (only used if all teams involved have played each other the same amount of games)

3. Best league win/loss/tie %

4. Best cumulative season total of HR+SB+W+SV

5. Longest time accumulated as an owner since last making the playoffs

6. Coin toss

(If more than two teams are tied and going through the tie-breaking procedures, then the procedure is only followed until at least one team is separated from the group.  The remaining teams then restart the tie-breaking procedure again.)

During the Playoffs, the first tie-breaker in a game is the same as the regular season tie-breaker (most accumulated HR+SB+W+SV). The second tie-breaker, if there is still a tie then the higher seed will advance. The AL Champion will play the NL Champion in the World Series, and the winner will claim Champions of the PB FBBLeague!

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

2. Best win/loss/tie % among all games played H2H (only used if all teams involved have played each other the same amount of games)

The wording here confuses in the parentheses confuses me. Once you get beyond two teams, this is a tricky thing - if the Cubs, Brewers and Pirates are all tied, should games played between the Cubs and Brewers affect the Pirates in a tiebreaker? In my personal opinion, no.

I'm in favor of simply skipping #2 if there's more than 2 teams involved.

And

6. Longest time accumulated as an owner since last winning the division

While noble, and probably bound to never come up, to play devil's advocate here, we're putting teams at a potential disadvantage because they were successful? The difference between making the playoffs or not could come down to the fact that an owner has historically been good at reaching the playoffs? Why not just a coin toss at this point?