Suggestions for the 2014 PC tourney-new thread/fresh start!

Al Hogg, instead of missing the Top 36 by 14 points, you would have missed only by 9 (and a tie breaker). The strange separation you noticed with your own team (despite a strong win pct) unfortunately applies across the board. So while your team moved up, other teams just behind you also moved up as well.

Sorry!

There's been a lot of handwringing about the assignment of bonus points. In my opinion, when after five leagues (lowest team dropped) teams 30 thru 40 are separated by only seven points, assigning bonus points unfairly distorts the entire standings and for what? Because it "seems" fairer to add additional reward to a playoff made? There are already so many intangibles (what league you join, level of competition, etc) why unnecessarily add one more intangible to the mix? Just leave a win a win and use Championships, Playoffs-made and all that as your tie-breakers.

At least when you miss the Top 36 teams by ONE point, you can say it was all decided objectively on the field of play, not by the amount of bonus points thought to be most fair by anyone. I know if I were to be the 37th place team, that's what I would want to be applied.

J-Pav, that's the second time you've said people wanting bonus points want things to be more "fair," and I'm not sure where you get that from. I, myself, have never used the word "fair" or expressed a desire for things to be particularly "fairer". What I do want--and what I believe everyone wants--is for the point total deciding the final 36 to accurately represent the separate accomplishments of making the playoffs, making the finals, and winning the championship...as well as representing wins gained during the regular season. Making the playoffs, making the finals, and winning the championship are not "intangibles"--nor would points representing them be--they are the major accomplishments in stratomatic competition and need to be recognized and represented as such.

Your points-per-win system would not do so. All it would do is give only one additional point for the additional game won in winning the first round or the finals...rendering the value of a won first round or finals to the meager equivalent of a game won in the season, which would not be an accurate representation of the significances of those achievements.
Which brings us to your claims of objectivity. You claim that your point-for-win system "objectively' represents the actual significant accomplishments in the competition. Even if your one-point-per-win standard was an "objective" measurement of value--and it is not--that would only be the case if the point total from your point-for-win system objectively represented all those accomplishments; and it does not. It represents wins during the regular season, and it represents wins in the playoffs, but in does not represent the accomplishment of making the playoffs, it does not represent making the finals, and it does not represent winning the championship.

This is why we need "bonus" points to most accurately recognize and represent all the accomplishments mentioned above in the point total deciding the final 36.

Okay, we've gone round and around I just disagree with you.

I do wish we could get more people involved in the discussion, because three or four of us deciding any of this is nuts.

Yeah, I don't foresee either of us agreeing with each other on the matter, but I'm not sure adding others to the debate would bring us to harmony either. I wouldn't mind seeing this brought to a vote, and I would go with the majority, but I could also see why Gbrookes would want to do what he felt was best for the competition.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Eastern Europe and that it wasn't Bratislava....

I'm fine with Geoff's proposed adjustments to the playoff bonus points and also fine with the 2013 PC format.

I do not think playoff points should be eliminated. Just as bonus points may appear unwarranted when one is in a weak league or division, bonus points are certainly warranted when one wins a very tough division or wins the wild card in a very tough league. In the latter scenario, one may have a relatively modest amount of regular seasons wins due to the level of competition, and, in my opinion, should receive the playoff bonus.

Additionally, making the playoffs, and winning in the playoffs, are skills in their own right, and may depend on the composition of your team and the chances you take during the regular season. For example, one may go for broke and sign high-risk, high-reward free agents, if one has to make up a lot of ground late in the season.

I'm not sure if this would skew the composition, but what about allowing managers the option for each event (or a limited number of events) to choose a live draft (whether done on the SOM platform or through the message board) or the traditional auto draft system. Geoff would thus create both live and auto draft leagues and let owners choose. I would also recommend that if a player signs up, but does not appear, for a live draft, a modest amount of wins is deducted from his total. Just throwing this idea out there, realizing that is might be an administrative nightmare for Geoff. This is an alternative to designating one or more events as exclusively live draft events.

Without posting a lengthy discussion on the playoff points subject (that I dont have time for ) , I will just add my voice to either keeping the status quo 5 point award system or going with Geoff's modification downward to 3 points per series won. For the reasons Strether stated I don't think those wins are equivalent to regular season wins and bonuses, even significant ones, should be made for titles, playoff series' won, etc etc.

I thought Geoff had settled this. If not, I'll re-state my preference for the record. If anybody cares, I think my reasons are adequately expressed in an earlier post on this thread, so I'll spare the dead horse.

My first choice is to maintain the status quo. My second choice is the system Geoff suggested. Like other recent posters, I'm fine with either. Otherwise, I, too, would prefer it be decided by majority vote, not who makes the most noise.

Al Hogg, instead of missing the Top 36 by 14 points, you would have missed only by 9 (and a tie breaker).

Thanks for doing the math, J-Pav!

It sounds like Geoff has made his decision on this matter. It certainly won’t stop me from participating and I’m sure the vast majority of teams in the semi-finals would be the same regardless of which system is used.

That said, I’ll just take a couple of more whacks at the dead horse for fun:

I guess I differ from others in thinking that sneaking into the playoffs with something less than the fourth best record because you lucked out in being in a weak division is something that deserves a reward in and of itself. I’ve had Strat-o-Matic teams in that situation in the past and I’ve felt kind of sheepish about keeping a team with more wins out of the playoffs when that has happened.

And, of course, teams that sneak into the playoffs in this way DO get a reward anyway in the 1 point for 1 playoff win system: The reward is the opportunity to compile more points through playoff wins (oh, and also the opportunity to win a free credit from Strat-o-Matic). If such a team happens to get swept in the league semi-finals and gets no additional points, well, that would seem to be pretty much what it deserves.

Another situation that’s been thrown out there is that a team that wins a seven-game championship series should get more than one bonus point than the team it defeated. I certainly don’t see that as self-evident. Let’s say you have two teams that each won 95 games in the regular season going against each other in that seven-game finals series. Those two teams would seem to me to be pretty evenly matched. If the idea of the point system is to identify the best SOM players to move along to the semi-finals, then a 1-point difference between them seems about right to me. (And there is also that additional free credit you get from Strat-o-Matic for winning the championship, so I don’t think you’d have many team owners not getting excited about winning because they only got one more point than the team they beat.)

^^ Somewhere here I think J-Pav said that the 20 point penalty for re-using a ballpark is excessive. I agree. But the penalty needs to be severe enough that it's going to discourage the re-use. Probably a 10 point penalty is more appropriate.

As long as we're talking about penalties, I'll bring up this question. A few years ago there was a penalty for relievers with more than 200 IP.

I didn't think (and I still don't think) it was much of an issue with recent 200x card sets (maybe not since Kuo was an R3 with a killer card), but maybe it's time to bring back something like that for super-relievers. My sense is that the super-reliever may be getting to be more popular as a strategy again.

It's not an easy penalty to enforce (it's a lot of work to review for infractions), so it has to be worthwhile.

Any comments on this?

I like the point system the way it was but the alternative suggested by the commissioner works for me. I also like the 36 team cutoff for the playoffs.