Do you really want the best record in the league?

[The Last Druid]

OK Pub. I'm not a kid. I'm 50 with a PhD in Clinical Psychology and have an extensive statistics background. And I've completed about 250 seasons of this game. I'm not sure why you or the other contributors to this thread needed to trade insults but since you did...

I'm wondering who funds your game theory research at Princeton? The Pentagon, perhaps? I ask because a principal application of game theory has been for the military. Glad to see you're applying it to something more benign for a change. :wink:

I very much doubt that there is a bug in the game engine with the playoffs and your thesis that there is highly speculative, at best. I've had 16 teams win over a 100 games. Six won championships. I hate when you have the best team in the league and don't win but in two short series anything can happen. And the a priori odds are only 25% for a given playoff team to win. So my 37.5% record probably accurately reflects the likelihood of 100+ win teams grabbing the ring.

I do think that playoffs inherently fail to determine the best team. Because even with no playoff bug in the game engine, having two short series decide the champion of the league doesn't make sense from the point of view of determining the best team. It seems to me a 162 game schedule is a much more accurate barometer of a team's worth than two short playoff series.

Since we are playing a fantasy game I don't see why TSN blindly follows the format established by MLB. There the playoffs make huge financial sense. But here?? I think 5 of 9 would be better for the first round and 7 of 13 for the finals. And the cost to this would be...? Or just have the three divison winners. The team with the best record gets a bye to the finals.

I'd also prefer two divisions of 6 teams each. Divison A winner plays Division B winner. Finis. Or even better, one division with no playoffs. And make it an advanced option for the league to choose which format they want.

Assuming that the present format remains intact, I think that the team with the best record in the league should get a free credit automatically and 20 rating points.

I agree completely regarding the TSN injury system. Injuries are a continuous variable that gets treated by TSN as a dichotomous variable. And whenever that strategy is employed, realism suffers. Injury length should be a direct function of plate appearances.

I'd love to see a dynamic baseball engine but you'd require a vastly more sophisticated brain trust than Strat Founder Hal Richman currently has access to. Maybe some of your buddies could offer their services to him.

It's too bad that this thread degenerated as it did. I must say, however, that reading it initially I was struck more by your lack of emotional maturity than those you slammed as not being adults...

[The Last Druid]

You can reach Hal. Just call 518 671-6566.

[ADRIANGABRIEL]

In 83 ATG seasons that I've been in, the team with the better record in the finals has won 41 times (49.4%).

In 101 Major League Baseball seasons, the team with the better record in the World Series has won 51 times (50.5%).

Strat-O-Matic and Major League Baseball are not isomorphic, but I can't think of anything with more verisimilitude. (Thank goodness for kindergarten vocabulary).

[ADRIANGABRIEL]

Oh, and I'm not, like, smart, and stuff, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express Last night.

And I do want the best record...or at least the better record.

[cplake]

[quote:9d60f8d09e]Gotta run, time for kindergarten.[/quote:9d60f8d09e]

LMOA!

[quote:9d60f8d09e]Oh, and I'm not, like, smart, and stuff, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express Last night.[/quote:9d60f8d09e]

ROFLMAO!

Thanks for the laughs guys....... :D

[gkhd11a]

[quote:0f60aa2c8c]About injuries, we awakened a few of more ghosts. One guy said, "Just don't draft guys who can get hurt for 15 games!" Really? Thank God you told us, we would have never thought of that. Our point is, with a salary cap, to make it more fair, do you not feel that injuries should be graded? [/quote:0f60aa2c8c] Injuries and ability to be injured are inherent in the pricing of the players.


[quote:0f60aa2c8c]do you think that it is totally normal for a team that goes 10-2 during the season to get swept 4-0 by the team it went 10-2 against?[/quote:0f60aa2c8c] It would depend on the circumstances of the regular season series. One of the keys to the play of the game is the effect of your bullpen, if your bullpen is light in dollars spent it may become tired throughout the year leading to more losses. Once the playoffs starts though all of the pitchers are fully rested and a weaker regular season team becomes much stronger. If you have only one good reliever, he may not have been available much in the regular season.

What were the injury situations during the regular season/playoffs? Have there been any trades? Are the lineups different? How where the pitchers matched up in the regualr seaons? How does that compare to the playoffs. I just played someone in the regular season who knew I had Babe Adams and he had Pete and 3 bums, rather than start him in the 1st game against Babe he started him in the second. In the playoffs he's be forced to play Pete against Babe in the 1st game if he wanted to pitch Pete twice,.

If I am playing a team that has beat me like a drum in the regular season I will change up my batting and pitching order in order to advance. I would adjust my managerial settings to take advantage of the specific games I have coming up. For the first two games when I have aces I may set running on very aggressive in an attempt to get an early lead and hope HAL pinch hits for my opponents ace and I can get to the bullpen.

Or if you play one of my teams in the regular season with a rotation of Alexander Adams Ruelbach Rommel and Speer and miss my aces you get Alexander Adams Ruelbach Speer Alexander in the playoffs, a much tougher assignment. I have won championships 3 times as the wild card my rotations for those 3 were:
#1) Camintz Adams Ruelbach Norwood Gibson Byrne (3 Aces)
#2) Cicotte Adams Ruelbach Russo Rommel
#3) Brown Pfeister Ojeda Speer Rommell

Of the last 8 times I have had the best record in the league I have won the championship 7 times. However this is probably because most of my teams have a staff similar to the above and my teams are typically stronger in the playoffs than the regular season for that reason. When I am fortunate enough to accumulate the best players to go with that pitching combination it is very difficult to beat those teams in the playoffs.

In general I have noted no correlation between losing and having the best record in the regular season. The games come down to matchups and the playoffs are not the same as the regular season. Just as is major league baseball. The game has weaknesses but wild card champions are not among them.

[quote:0f60aa2c8c]Of all the folks heralded here, our hats are off to Mr. Petrosian, a true gentleman.[/quote:0f60aa2c8c] :lol:

[nevdully's]

I read and re-read the thread carefully and found the first insult to be tossed out by Pub.....

[quote:baaf2657bd]Now I know you gentlemen (I jump to that conclusion, by the way some of you have taken offense I can only gather you're not all adults)[/quote:baaf2657bd]

I be curious to find what Pub thought childish leading up to his quote above..... :roll:

[Simon31]

I thought this was a serious study. Just checked back in to see it's somehow gone off in a different direction. Oh well. Frankly, I think there are too many variables for anybody to actually figure this game out. But I do like to see the statistics aspect of it. I....am a stataholic!! :(