Strat-O-Matic Baseball Players Championship 2015 (Rules)

The Strat-O-Matic Baseball Players Championship 2015 (2014 Season Player Set)

Official tourney page: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/23

Welcome

The 2015 tournament will consist of five events and a two round playoff. In the playoff, the top 36 managers will compete in three 12 team leagues. The playoff teams from those three leagues will become eligible for the Championship Finals. The winner from that final league is recognized as the 2015 Tour Champion.

The score for the qualifying events will be the sum of the best four scores out of the five events. This provides several benefits for the members of the tournament:

-If someone misses Event I, but they still want to join up for Event II, they can do that, and still have a chance of making the playoffs assuming they do not miss any additional events.

-If someone joins for Event I, but misses only one of Events II-V, they are still eligible for the playoffs (assuming they make the cutoff score).

-If someone enters all five events, they benefit from being able to drop their lowest score.

Commissioner

For the 2015 Tour Championship, I will be your commissioner. Most of you will recognize my name; I’ve been playing SOM Online for the better part of 12 years now. As the Tour Commissioner, I will NOT be participating in the tour and will not be eligible for prizes; however, I reserve the right to provide a “filler” team if necessary.

A brief word on Benevolent Dictatorships, Caesar-ism, tyranny, etc. First off, I am not an employee of Strat-O-Matic, and while they are generously kicking in prizes for our informal competition, this has nothing to do with the folks at OnlineGameSupport. Do not call, write, email, or telegram them to complain about anything that goes on regarding this tournament. This is not “officially sanctioned” if you will, and Strat-O-Matic is not to be held responsible for anything that we voluntarily organize among ourselves. Consider this a legal disclaimer, if you will, on behalf of SOM.

Secondly, I am a volunteer. Having said that, as a long time member of the community I want to do everything possible to see the Tour Championship succeed. I promise to do everything in my power to see that you have not only a fun experience but an absolutely fair experience. But please try to remember that in the end, I’m doing this in my free time and I ask for just a little bit of understanding when it comes to addressing the individual difficulties that will inevitably arise.

Thirdly, and maybe unfortunately, that means you, personally, might have issues with how this year’s tournament is run. That’s because this is where the “no exceptions” problems meet the “just this once” problems. This is where the one loud screeching voice meets the quiet contentedness of the majority. Having participated in a lot of tour events over the years, I have come to recognize that someone needs to lead. It’s just the way it has to be. This is not a democracy and there will be no votes. I sincerely believe that by trying to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. So know ahead of time, I am perfectly comfortable being blamed for decisions some might perceive as unpopular.

Moving forward, now…

Entering Your Teams

One of the ongoing problems of the 20XX Tour Championship has been the overly flexible scheduling, and managers trying to avoid leagues they perceive as “very competitive” by seeking out leagues with newer managers and fillers that form later and later in the process. Unfortunately too often, this has led to the tour season dragging out over longer and longer amounts of time. This will now be addressed in the following way:

Edit 3/15/15: When you sign up on the official 2015 Tour Championship sign-up sheet, you are now automatically entered in the first week events (April 20, May 18, June 22, July 20 and August 17). However, there will still be a second opportunity to join a league in each event for the following week (if you are unable to play during the first week). Although you no longer need to declare a start date for your team because you are already officially entered, you must declare if you want to switch to the following week, and you must do so by the deadline for emailing the Commissioner as outlined below. The purpose for this edit is to eliminate the need for unnecessary emailing back and forth.

For instance:

In order to participate in Event I, the deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, April 10. On or about April 11, I will post the league assignments for leagues beginning either APRIL 20 or APRIL 27. You must have your team entered by the corresponding Wednesday. This will give me some time to find fillers, if necessary, on Thursday and Friday before the leagues close Friday night (April 17 for the first leagues, April 24 for the second offerings).

Example #1: I signed the Official 2015 Tour Championship sign-up sheet. On April 11, I will receive my league assignment and I will have my team in by Wednesday, April 15. The league fills and officially closes before Friday, April 17. League play begins on Monday, April 20.

Example #2: I signed the Official 2015 Tour Championship sign-up sheet, but I now want to enter my team for the second available date. Before midnight on April 10, I email the commissioner and report “J-Pav Switching to April 27”. On April 11, I will receive my league assignment and I will have my team in by Wednesday, April 22. The league fills and officially closes Friday, April 24. League play begins on Monday, April 27.

Because this should drastically eliminate communications traffic, you can now private message me at J-Pav on the boards rather than email me. However, since I started this email thing, I will keep it open and monitor it regularly, esp as we get close to deadline dates. Sometimes it might actually be more convenient to email than PM.

A brief word on tardiness: If you have signed up appropriately and have a league assignment, you will not be immediately removed if you fail to enter your team by Wednesday. You may still enter your team Thursday (or possibly even Friday), late though it may be. HOWEVER, if I am able to close the league with fillers after the Wednesday deadline, you have then forfeited the event, no exceptions. You will not be reassigned to another league (or to another league the following week) under any circumstances. So if your Wednesday beer league hockey game goes late and you forget to enter your team, you will likely still be able to get in the next morning, knowing the sooner the better. Just recognize that each minute you are late, you are that much more likely to lose your spot in the event.

Event Summary

Event I: Your start date is April 20. Deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, April 10 if want to change your start date to April 27. Enter your team either by Wednesday, April 15 or April 22. Leagues close on Friday, April 17 and 24.

Event II: Your start date is May 18. Deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, May 8 if want to change your start date to May 25. Enter your team either by Wednesday, May 13 or 20. Leagues close on Friday, May 15 and 22.

Event III: Your start date is June 22. Deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, June 12 if want to change your start date to June 29. Enter your team either by Wednesday, June 17 or 24. Leagues close on Friday, June 19 and 26.

Event IV: Your start date is July 20. Deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, July 10 if want to change your start date to July 27. Enter your team either by Wednesday, July 15 or 22. Leagues close on Friday, July 17 and 24.

Event V: Your start date is August 17. Deadline for emailing is midnight (EDT) on Friday, August 7 if want to change your start date to August 24. Enter your team either by Wednesday, August 12 or 19. Leagues close on Friday, August 14 and 21.

Players are expected to enter one team, and one team only in each event. Each "Event" will have many leagues, to accommodate the large number of players. So Event I will have Leagues 1 through XX (typically seven or so). But you only enter JUST ONE team in each “Event” - not one team in each “League”.

Entry deadlines will be strictly imposed as I’ve outlined. I will retain the right to invoke closure on event entries. I intend to avoid fillers as much as possible, although some fillers obviously will be necessary. Leagues will be set-up as private leagues with password protection. To keep things simple and moving along, the passwords will be posted in the discussion thread set up for each league. The main idea is to prevent accidental team entries for players who are not participating in the tournament. If someone has difficulty entering a password protected private league, please send me a PM or post openly in the forum threads and I will find a solution for you that works.

Point System / Tiebreakers

This year there will be a very simplified point system. One regular season win equals one point and one post-season win equals one point. There will be no “bonus” points for this season.

Due to the heated thread we had regarding this last year, I will give you a little bit of my tyrannical perspective. A 90 win team in one league with a division-winner or wildcard bonus (and maybe a participation bonus) is NOT better than a 90 win team in another league that comes in third and loses out on a three-way tiebreaker. They are certainly not 5-10 wins better. And they are certainly not 5-10 wins better when one manager waited until October to join a league in Event I so he could play a vet, five rookies and five fillers.

For this season, you’ll just have to trust me that this isn’t the end of the world. And if it is, next year’s Tour Commissioner can make it right however he sees fit. While I do think that this point system will tighten up the overall race (make leagues slightly more competitive), it will not change what would have been inevitable: the best managers still come out ahead in the end.

Tiebreakers
1. Championships won
2. Finals made
3. Playoffs made
4. Run differential (four best teams for each manager totaled together)
5. Pick three winner

Edit 4/2/15: The draft in the Championship Finals previously has been based on the manager's total points only from the qualifying rounds; however, the points accumulated in the semi-finals round will now be added to the manager's point total in order to produce the final standings.

Ballpark Requirement

A player must not re-use a ballpark. For example, if he used Fenway in Event I, he may not use Fenway in Events II-V, nor may he use Fenway in any playoff round.

There can be more than one player using the same ballpark in the same event and/or league. For example, player X and player Y may both use Fenway in Event I, League 1 (In theory, the same ballpark could be used by all 12 teams in any league or event). The prohibition relates to the same player using the same ballpark twice during the Tour Championship.

A player who is acting as a "filler" for any particular event and league may use whatever ballpark he wants to use. You cannot impose a “penalty” on a team that does not count in the official standings anyway.

If a player re-uses a ballpark in the qualifying events, there will be a 20 point penalty.

Events

Event I: $80M, DH #1
Salary Cap: $80,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: Yes (standard)
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

Event II: $60M, No DH
Salary Cap: $60,000,000
DH Rule: No
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

Event III: $80M, no DH
Salary Cap: $80,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: No
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

Event IV: $100M, DH
Salary Cap: $100,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: Yes (standard)
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

Event V: $80M, DH#2
Salary Cap: $80,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: Yes (standard)
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

There will be no use of the unleashed player set in any event this year.

Playoffs

Semi-Finals
Top 36 Managers play in three leagues of 12
(All 12 playoff qualifiers advance to Tour Champions League)

Salary Cap: $80,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: Yes (standard)
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

There will be a one round draft for unique ballparks to be done on the forum boards. The draft order will be the order of finish in tour points. Since each semi-finalist will have already used five different ballparks in Events I-V, they may not re-use those ballparks in the semi-finals. So, if a manager is picking 12th for the live ballpark draft in the semi-finals, he will have to choose from one of the 14 remaining ballparks (30 minus 5, minus 11 ballparks already drafted in that semi-final event).

Note: I have considered offering byes to the top four finishers in tour points and eliminating one semi-final league, especially with the newly randomized league entries; however, I have found a lot of evidence doing my own personal research over the previous tour finishes which indicates that the Top 36 managers are “equally capable” and that 36 is in fact a very fair cut-off among our usual 100 or so initial entries. If the tour were significantly larger or smaller, we might all re-visit this. For now, we will go with it “as is”.

Champions League
The 12 Semi-Finals playoffs qualifiers in a single 12-team league

Salary Cap: $80,000,000 (standard)
DH Rule: Yes (standard)
Free Agent Drop Penalty: 5/10/20

There will be an eight pick live draft for the Tour Championship, consisting of seven players and a ballpark, to be done on the forum boards. The draft will NOT be serpentine for the finals - i.e., the draft order will be repeated in each round. These "seeding" rules for the draft order provide an incentive and a reward for the managers who finish with the highest scores in Events I-V.

Edit 4/2/15: Reference is made to the slight change in the point system, adding points accumulated in the semi-finals round to the manager's points total from the qualifying rounds. This will effect the final overall standings, impacting the order of picks in the live draft for the Champions League.

Penalties

Salary Dumping: If a manager drops his team salary below 90 percent of the original starting salary, please report this to me immediately. I will ask OnlineGameSupport to return the team to its previous state above 90 percent and lock the manager out. If this situation occurs with the same manager twice, that manager will be disqualified and prohibited from participating in any future 2015 Tour events.

Once official play begins, failure to observe the rules against re-using ballparks in the playoffs will result in disqualification from the tournament. However, if the error is detected early enough to be corrected by OnlineGameSupport before the beginning of official play, then the manager will not be disqualified. He may, however, be publicly shamed and/or ridiculed.

There is no "super reliever" penalty. For those new to the tour, there was a time when we imposed a 200 inning maximum on any relief pitcher. That penalty is no longer pertinent.

Other

Communication

Edit 3/15/15: Reference is made to the edits above, eliminating the need for unnecessary emails and allowing managers the ability to send private messages instead.

Most of our communication, signups, etc. will be held on the Players Championship forum, and by occasional private messages. My intention for emailing TourCommissioner2015@yahoo.com is that it should only be used for indicating which event start dates you want to select. For transparency on overall league matters, let’s discuss things in the forums. For matters pertaining to an individual situation, question, or problem, please use the PM button (personal message).

Money

The only monetary requirement for the 2015 Tour Championship is to purchase your required number of teams (no less than four, no more than possibly seven). Buying the five-pack option would be a good value purchase.

Use of Fillers

Some qualifying leagues for an event will need "fillers" due to the fact that we won't have an even numbered membership (divisible by 12) and we will probably have some "dropouts" during the season. "Fillers" are generally non-tournament players who will play in the qualifying leagues solely for the experience of playing against tour-level competition. "Fillers" can also be tournament players who will play in an extra league just to fill out the league, but whose score for that league will not count toward their official tournament standings. For such filler managers, only their first team entered in an event will count for points. I intend to NOT use tour participants as fillers, if at all possible.

Edit: 4/16/15: Further clarification:

In Event One, "Fillers" are actually "replacement managers". Anybody who has a team in Event One is entitled to the points they earn, even the replacements. They are now part of the tour and may continue to play as if they entered via the sign up page, although they are not obligated to continue (as in fact, no one actually is). The risk of entering as a filler is that if all managers who signed up would have entered their teams on time, the managers acting as fillers would not be eligible to be put into a league and would miss out on that event. However, if they get their team entered when requested, they are now for all intents and purposes, tour participants.

The same situation is basically in effect for Event Two. I will simply replace the missing managers names on the sign up sheet with the replacement managers, and I will recruit a new batch of "fillers". I will run the randomizer and make league assignments, and any no-show managers will again be replaced, and any replacements then become eligible tour participants.

After Event Two, because you need scores from four qualifying events to advance to the semis, any "fillers" who are participating for the first time are true "fillers" only and are not eligible to reach the semi-finals.

There is always a bit of attrition during the course of the tour. There will not always be a number of managers cleanly divisible by 12. The league has to be filled somehow, so in the end, yes, a manager with no ability to reach the Tour playoffs can siphon off wins from the qualified managers. However, that doesn't prevent any manager from the opportunity to notch his own wins.

I have no control over who wants to be a filler and my singular goal is simply to see the leagues filled in a timely fashion.

Catastrophic Events

In the event there is some malfunction with the game (like the previous situation we recently had when the servers melted down and the starting pitcher assignments were incorrectly reset), the official SOM Online results will be final. If OnlineGameSupport remedies a situation with some sort of re-play, again, the official SOM Online results will be final.


PRIZES

See tournament main page for prizes!


*************************************************************
Please post your questions here, on this thread!

Welcome to the official 2015 Player's Championship Tournament!

Post Script

Lastly, I just want to take a moment to say Thank You! to gbrookes, who is our outgoing commissioner. I believe he ran the tour with the utmost integrity and with every intention of making each manager’s tour experience the best it could possibly be. And thank you for writing out this particular post last year, which I cut, pasted and edited for this year. Starting from scratch would have been “inconceivable”. THANK YOU! (I hope next year’s commish will do the same, and start with this post as his go-by, for the sake of continuity and personal sanity).

*Very lastly, in a nearly 3000 word count document, I’m sure I missed something or misspelled something that I’ll need to fix. As Commissioner I reserve the right to make changes as necessary to this text for clarification purposes and for future reference.

A brief word on Benevolent Dictatorships, Caesar-ism, tyranny, etc. First off, I am not an employee of Strat-O-Matic, and while they are generously kicking in prizes for our informal competition, this has nothing to do with the folks at OnlineGameSupport. Do not call, write, email, or telegram them to complain about anything that goes on regarding this tournament. This is not “officially sanctioned” if you will, and Strat-O-Matic is not to be held responsible for anything that we voluntarily organize among ourselves. Consider this a legal disclaimer, if you will, on behalf of SOM.

First off, J-Pav, thanks for running the tournament and making your effort. Since your point system won't adequately represent the particular achievements of winning the event title or making the finals, I can't say I agree with it. However, you are the dictator, and what you say clearly goes.

However, if SOM kicks in cash prizes and advertises this tournament, it is no longer an "informal" competition, it is an official SOM tournament. Your statement does not constitute a legal disclaimer noting otherwise. Since you've done such an excellent job organizing, I don't foresee anyone making a complaint to SOM. However, since this would be an official tournament, they would be completely in their right to do so as paying customers/tournament participants.

Thanks again, and good luck with everything.

Thanks JPav for the rules explanation and for agreeing to take on the burden of commissioner. I think I caught one typo that you might want to correct, although it's obvious. The salary cap for the $100M league is listed as $80M rather than $100M.

My one comment would be that it's not the same tournament without you competing as a player. I for one would forgo any concerns that you might have about conflict of interest and encourage you to re-consider and actually play. You're one of the great players online and I suspect all/most participants would agree with me that you should be allowed to play in the leagues.

TN

Thanks for the kind words.

However, there's free internet and cable here in the ivory tower, and wrapped in a new blanket of warm power, I'm perfectly content to watch the 2015 Tour unfold from my new vantage point.

Now sign up in the other thread and post in your other leagues that Tour sign-ups are open for business.

I agree with the rules and look forward to making the semis again where guys who produced during the tourney choke big time. thanks.

A brief word on emailing:

At first I considered using the private messenger, but there is just not a lot of storage capacity there.

I recognize there might be some discomfort with sending out your personal emails for league signups. I get that, that's why I created a separate email for the purpose of the tournament myself. My hope is that you will send nothing more than "JohnnyWhosit April 20" in the header. I don't want/need any more than that, in fact the body of the message should be blank. I have zero plans for a Strat-O mailing list and will shut down TourCommissioner2015@yahoo.com at the conclusion of the tournament. Like I said earlier, the email is not for dialogue. That's what the boards are for.

If, however, you remain unconvinced, and believe I will be spamming you with requests to join Scientology, buy Viagra or sell Amway, you can create a Strat-only email (like I did). I used Yahoo and it took literally about 60 seconds.

If names/start dates are posted openly on the boards, we create a "race to be last" situation, where the last guy in gets to assess where everyone else is before committing his team. I would actually prefer everyone to be very early, and this method appears to work very well over in ATG and the Barnstormer's.

Also, I recognize most people with kids are on Spring Break this week and next. If you would, please message all the teams in your league to make as many managers as possible aware of the Tour start date and league sign-ups. Four weeks will go by very quickly.*

*Reference is made to the 3/15/15 edits changing the requirements for emails and private messages.

"Since your point system won't adequately represent the particular achievements of winning the event title or making the finals"

It does. You get a point for each playoff win. Actually this is fairer to the losing manager since it distinguishes between a 4-0 sweep and a 7 game series.

We had a horrible time of it when we last tried to do this, and I don't particularly want to relive it. However... I do want to acknowledge that both l.strether and ScumbyJr have valid points.

Here's my take: In any INDIVIDUAL league, the system of three divisional winners plus a wildcard completely and fairly establishes the actual achievements of the managers; however, across a GROUP OF LEAGUES, it does not. And across a group of leagues with high achievers, it especially does not.

The only way to achieve utopian fairness would be for every manager to compete against every other manager head to head at some point in the competition. Since that is unrealistic, the only way to judge fairly across the board is to acknowledge outright wins and losses in every individual game played.

The reason why so many like the "bonus" system (me included), is that one or two division wins virtually guarantee you make the semis. So, if I can skate around the League 1 and League 2 guys, I can (theoretically, at least) scratch my way in.

This year we will try it my way: Win more games, make more playoffs, collect valuable playoff wins. I think that is as fair as you can possibly be (although maybe not as "popular" as you can possibly be).

Some additional notes:

I have already contacted OnlineGameSupport regarding the official tourney page and running a banner to advertise the tour sign-ups. I asked that this be done next Thursday, to coincide with the Thursday "Garcia's Blog" and to give them some time to prepare the items.

Also, I inquired about "badging" this year's tour participants. My idea was something along the lines of a colorful "Circle T". That is, once I officially join the tour, my name on the boards will appear as "J-Pav®" (you have to employ some imagination here in that the R is actually a T - this speaks to my programming skills).

It could actually be an emoticon, a ribbon, or whatever. But this is a shout-out to all you tech guys out there and those that know about increasing internet participation and what-not. Post your ideas here or PM me at any time.

"Thank You!"

"Since your point system won't adequately represent the particular achievements of winning the event title or making the finals"

It does. You get a point for each playoff win. Actually this is fairer to the losing manager since it distinguishes between a 4-0 sweep and a 7 game series.

It doesn't represent it. It only gives you one point for winning the title. Since winning a regular season game also gives you one point, J-Pav's point system equates the value of winning a title with winning a regular season game. Since winning a title is a greater accomplishment than winning a regular season game, J-Pav's system does not adequately represent winning a title.

Your 7-game series anecdote perfectly demonstrates this. Under J-Pav's system, winning a title is worth only one point more than losing the finals in 7 games. That's ridiculous. Winning a title is more than one-point "greater" than losing a title in 7 games. So, again, J-Pav's system does not adequately reward or represent the achievement of winning a title.

But, as he said, he's the dictator, and what he says goes.