Event 4: Question to the Managers

Tour Managers,

I am plotting another wrinkle to Event 4 league assignments, and I am seeking some outside opinion.

Based on what we currently have with managers eligible for the Tour Semis, we're back to 108 names. My plan is to open six leagues and assign 18 managers to each league. As the six leagues fill, I will open leagues seven and eight (if necessary) for the slow movers.

Although we have 2-4 managers signed up for Event 9, I am going to stop "recruiting" managers to fill that league.

So what we're left with, is six oversubscribed leagues that should fill reasonably quickly. Additional leagues will open to absorb the overflow. Lastly, league 9 will still be available the following week. So the guys who want to play in the following week can ignore their league 1-6 initial assignment (but...if it turns out they can get in...then great!)

Further, the super stragglers can still get in the following week, when they're like "Oh! I just saw Event 4 started...!"

1. Does this sound reasonable? Is this TOO flexible?
2. Is six leagues too few, should we go with seven? (Admittedly, I used six because it was divisible evenly into 108).
3. That is, is there too much wiggle room for managers to avoid "tough assignments"?
4. Should no-show managers be allowed to "wait" all the way to league 9 (the following week) to close things out?

My goal is to fill the leagues as quickly as possible using the absolute least amount of fillers.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

I would go with whatever is the least amount of effort on your part. Your job is not easy, and you have done a fine job.
If people can't figure out where they are supposed to be and when after three rounds, then in my opinion they don't care enough. The rules set forth at the beginning were very straight forward, and you have consistently updated the discussion forums. Just my two cents....

Tour Managers,

I am plotting another wrinkle to Event 4 league assignments, and I am seeking some outside opinion.

Based on what we currently have with managers eligible for the Tour Semis, we're back to 108 names. My plan is to open six leagues and assign 18 managers to each league. As the six leagues fill, I will open leagues seven and eight (if necessary) for the slow movers.

Although we have 2-4 managers signed up for Event 9, I am going to stop "recruiting" managers to fill that league.

So what we're left with, is six oversubscribed leagues that should fill reasonably quickly. Additional leagues will open to absorb the overflow. Lastly, league 9 will still be available the following week. So the guys who want to play in the following week can ignore their league 1-6 initial assignment (but...if it turns out they can get in...then great!)

Further, the super stragglers can still get in the following week, when they're like "Oh! I just saw Event 4 started...!"

1. Does this sound reasonable? Is this TOO flexible?
2. Is six leagues too few, should we go with seven? (Admittedly, I used six because it was divisible evenly into 108).
3. That is, is there too much wiggle room for managers to avoid "tough assignments"?
4. Should no-show managers be allowed to "wait" all the way to league 9 (the following week) to close things out?

My goal is to fill the leagues as quickly as possible using the absolute least amount of fillers.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Just throwing out a thought. Can the ones needing a later start load a team early (that is starting a league using a unique password) then pull out? Everyone knows the rules. This would avoid 1,2 and 3 for the most part. Are there many that CANNOT load, waiver, FA either week?

Not sure I totally follow you here.

Everyone, as far as I know, can play in one of the two offered weeks. The difficulty I am trying to overcome is that 11 guys load and wait on Saturday, then the 12th guy shows up on Wednesday night or worse, the following week. I would like to load the leagues quickly, because most guys are ready to go that first Saturday-Sunday. Overbooking the leagues seems to address this very well.

I also like that loading promptly is rewarded with the league closing soon after. Although it's easier for me to find one filler to close a league, I still have to allow some given time frame for the missing manager. No one likes loading Saturday and then waiting until Friday night for me to find a volunteer.

As I rethink some of this, I may go with a seven league opening and just hold everyone to the "deadline for emailing" as we have done so far. We have around five or six for League 9 now, so that is close to filling (if I can get a few more volunteers).

I liked the flexibility I had with Event 3, but it was hard filling League 9 after I decimated it to close out the first eight leagues.

Just wondering aloud what the better approach should/could be...

I would certainly not assume that we are going to fill nine leagues again. My guess is we might need some fillers to complete eight.

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.

Per the rules copied above, I think you could keep accepting requests to start the second week through July 10. Let’s say you do get 12 people who want to start the second week (or at least volunteer to be flexible and start the second week if needed).

That would leave 96 people that you could assign to six leagues (16 per league). The first 12 to show up in each league fill it. That would leave potentially (4 X 6 =) 24 people “left out” who would need to sign up on the boards by the end-of-day Wednesday, July 15, in order to guarantee a spot in Event 4.

If you get 12 exactly, great. Start League 7 and make the second week league League 8.

If you get <12, start finding fillers for League 7 (maybe move up some “flexible” people from the second week league to league 7 to spread out the number of fillers needed in each of the two leagues). Maybe you, J-Pav, for example, would want to help out by volunteering to be a filler in both League 7 and League 8. (That prospect should discourage people from straggling!)

If you get more than 12 stragglers who sign up by the deadline, it would be a little trickier (that would suggest we’d again end up with nine leagues). So that no particular league is loaded with a majority of fillers, you’d probably want to divide the “stragglers” into approximately equal leagues and perhaps move up some of the flexible volunteers for the second week so that you’d need about the same number of fillers in all three leagues.

That’s my two cents at any rate. (My thoughts probably aren’t worth much more than that.)

J-Pav,

I like your plan to oversubscribe the first six leagues the way you described in your original post. Most of the people here seem to want to get going as soon as possible. Nobody likes to submit a team and wait 4-5 days or longer for the league to fill. So whatever reasonable incentive you can provide to get people moving is fine with me.

There may be a few who may try to avoid certain managers this way, but that's a crapshoot at best. There are many, many knowledgeable baseball people here and I really don't see any significant advantage by getting in early or opting for a league that fills late. At this stage of the tournament, there aren't many "rookies" left.

Kudos on a fantastic job so far of running this tournament. I thought Geoff did a fine job the past two years, but you have raised the bar to new heights. Your communications have been frequent, consistent and clear ... and much appreciated by myself and I'm sure many others. Thanks for all the time you've put into this.

If people can't figure out where they are supposed to be and when after three rounds, then in my opinion they don't care enough.

Maybe I'm overthinking again, as the above quote perfectly captures where we should be at.

I do believe we we'll lose some managers again this round. However, we'll stick to the guidelines as they're currently laid out. I will oversubscribe seven leagues to get us started. Leagues will have one or two extra managers, who will need to report in if they find their league filled. This actually worked pretty good in Event 3.

The deadlines will remain firm. The deadline to switch to the second week is next Friday at midnight. If your league fills before you get there, you have to report in by Thursday at noon.

Then, we'll just have to see where we are at. If we need a few, great. If we need a lot, I will likely open it up for tour managers to enter second "filler" teams.

Thanks for the thoughts and the kind words -

J