2015 Tour Debrief

As an example to suggest the current point-per-win system is valid, here is a league where the top 3 teams are in the same division. None of the 3 of us in the East has the luxury of planning ahead for the playoffs by dropping or sitting injury probe players.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/426997

Of course, my previous post doesn't invalidate Jeff's tremendous work as the coordinator of this year's tour. I would have not participated if it wasn't of him.

Sometimes the simplest solutions are best. It seems that in coming up with a points system you would be concerned about three things: (1) rewarding players for their regular-season and post-season performance, (2) trying to minimize distortions caused by weaker divisions (since teams play in-division teams more often), (3) and minimize the distortion caused by weaker leagues vis-a-vis other leagues. As J-Pav points put its ridiculous for an 84 win wild card team to wind up with the same points as a dominant 98 win team that had a bad run of luck in the play-offs. That would be putting too much emphasis on the play-offs.That 84 win team might not have even have made the play-offs in another league--now they are going to get one of the highest rated totals in a tour event? And what about the 98 win team in an easy league that gets the extra 15 points? Now they are getting a huge score that they may be getting because they lucked into a weaker league. Of course they may be in a strong league, we don't know. But by having 15 bonus points you are exacerbating any differences in the strength of leagues. What about a team that does well because they are in a weaker division? Well, there are still 8 bonus points to be had in the play-offs that will help to equalize any differences in divisional strength. In sum, one point, one win appears to be better suited to furthering the goals of a point system as compared to a bonus system.

Thx for the great feedback! We'll have lots of time for full debate until next April!

For consideration:

I've been thinking about the weighting of points to favor Championships won, and I am trying to make something like this work:

What if we just had 36 $80 mil, DH leagues spread out over April to August? When you win a ring, you have made the semi-finals and do not need to play in any more events. The eventual tour Champ would then have won a qualifying ring, made the playoffs in the semi-finals league, and ultimately won a second (or third) ring in the Tour Finals. Heavily favors the Big Win, without any subjective judgment about who deserves "bonus points".

This eliminates points tracking. This holds interest because even up to the last league in August you can still make the semi-finals. This eliminates waiting on missing managers and lots of admin duties.

Conversations about sign-ups and eligibility and all that will still be necessary, but these are a few broad strokes...

Thx for the great feedback! We'll have lots of time for full debate until next April!

For consideration:

I've been thinking about the weighting of points to favor Championships won, and I am trying to make something like this work:

What if we just had 36 $80 mil, DH leagues spread out over April to August? When you win a ring, you have made the semi-finals and do not need to play in any more events. The eventual tour Champ would then have won a qualifying ring, made the playoffs in the semi-finals league, and ultimately won a second (or third) ring in the Tour Finals. Heavily favors the Big Win, without any subjective judgment about who deserves "bonus points".

This eliminates points tracking. This holds interest because even up to the last league in August you can still make the semi-finals. This eliminates waiting on missing managers and lots of admin duties.

Conversations about sign-ups and eligibility and all that will still be necessary, but these are a few broad strokes...

I like the thought, but I wonder about logistics. You would want to have leagues running at the same time. Perhaps I am an average player, so I am confident I can design a winning team, but not so confident I am playing one at a time. What happens if I exceed all expectations and win multiple leagues? Not an insurmountable problem, I am sure, but something to think about. But I agree with the benefits you describe above.

If you play nine leagues every month, like we did this season, you could end after the fourth month with potentially 36 unique managers. But, if you had say five multiple winners, you could rank order the remaining managers by Finals lost, playoff wins, run differential or some other metric to get the five additional managers you need to get to 36.

Note: Five is just a random number, you could have zero to 18, I guess.

Spacing out four event groupings over five months might even be preferable to our current five events in five months.

The hard part is probably dealing with eligibility and fillers.

Again, this all just thinking out loud and spit balling...

If it ain't broke..

I have not been in any previous tours but this one is running very smoothly...I gather that has not always been the case. This what I like the current system:

(1) different types of tour events requiring different strategies. Keeps things interesting ;
(2) I like the idea that there has to be some consistency of performance. You can't just be good at one strategy because you have to use different ballparks, salary caps, and DH rules. And there are different ways to get you into the semis. A couple of big scores might get you in or 4 good but not great ones. I am not that keen on the idea of of one ring trumping everything else . I won a championship in the first tour event-- my second tour event result was poor and if that continues I should not be in the semis. Also, it's fun competing in the tour events but it wouldn't be as much fun if you knew you were in.
(3) that being said, I think two rings should automatically get you in (I am not really sure this is necessary though--again why take the fun out of competing in the tour?)
(4)Every point system is going to get criticized but I think this one is as good as any. Maybe in ordinary play the emphasis is on rings or nothing but in reducing managers from 100 or so to 36 I think the emphasis should be on ability to create consistently strong teams over winning a ring.

Well stated, many excellent points.

Thx!

What if we just had 36 $80 mil, DH leagues spread out over April to August? When you win a ring, you have made the semi-finals and do not need to play in any more events. The eventual tour Champ would then have won a qualifying ring, made the playoffs in the semi-finals league, and ultimately won a second (or third) ring in the Tour Finals. Heavily favors the Big Win, without any subjective judgment about who deserves "bonus points".

That's an interesting proposal. However, all point systems measuring tournament achievements are partially subjective, not just those giving "bonus" points for playoff achievements. The determination of which achievements should earn points and how many they earn is partially subjective; there is nothing entirely objective about it. And the assigning of points for those achievements is also partially subjective; there are no objective "point" values for any SOM achievement. So, no SOM tourney point system is the "objective" point system; they all rely on subjectivity.

What if we just had 36 $80 mil, DH leagues spread out over April to August? When you win a ring, you have made the semi-finals and do not need to play in any more events. The eventual tour Champ would then have won a qualifying ring, made the playoffs in the semi-finals league, and ultimately won a second (or third) ring in the Tour Finals. Heavily favors the Big Win, without any subjective judgment about who deserves "bonus points".

This eliminates points tracking. This holds interest because even up to the last league in August you can still make the semi-finals. This eliminates waiting on missing managers and lots of admin duties

Not really a big fan of this idea. I think it would lose the tournament feel of 100+ managers vi prying against one another across a series of 4-5 events. I like seeing the leaderboard movements...kind of like the RPI in basketball..,just hoping to make cut to the big dance!