PatrickM said:
Sorry SoxFan, but I’m still not convinced that 4-team divisions is the way to go. A computer league in which every team is stocked with all time greats is by definition a tightly competitive league, as opposed to real life, in which the quality of the teams is more like to differ. Having 8 4-team divisions is a recipe for having 7 of the 8 pennant races over by the All-Star break.
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While it is a computer simulation, the league i participate in does not have “every team stocked with all time greats.” There’s a salary cap, and the game is set up to turn on the strategy of using marginal players of the past to fill out your roster. Heck, we’re at mid season, and my team is 15 games out in last (4th) place. But each of the 3 divisions has a closely contested race between the top two teams (no more than 6 games seperates first and second place in each division, one division is a 2-game difference, the other 4) and if I were in one of the other divisions, I’d be 21 games out. This scenario is usually borne out. Occasionally, one of the divisions is a runaway, but that usually guarantees one other will have a close race because of the equities of the schedule.
This is the case in the current MLB set up, and was the case when there were only 4 divisions. I don’t know what your definition of a “pennant race” is, but let’s say a finish of 8 games or less for the second place team is considered a “race,” (this is arbitrary I know) and what are the results?
From 1969 to 1988, with 2 divisions in each league, we had a “race” a total of 59 times. That a divisional pennant race 78% of the time, with 2 divisions of 6 or 7 teams.
From 1950 to 1968, using the same criteria, we had a “race” a total of 28 times. That’s a 78% success rate as well, with only 1 division in each league of 8 to 10 teams.
From 1930 to 1949, there was a race a total of 25 times, or a 67% success rate.
From 1910 to 1929, there were 22 races, a 58% rate.
From 1901 to 1909, there were 12 races, a 75% rate.
I know figures lie and liars figure, and it probably depends on where you draw the line as to how the numbers skew. (I end at 1988 because my edition of “Total Baseball” ends there).
But in similar time frames, the odds that there would be a close race in your league or division did not change at all between 1950 and 1988. And this includes a time when baseball added 10 additional teams and split into 2 more divisions. So even though you added more teams and increased the number of possible pennant races by a factor of 2, the percentages did not change. Meaning there were actually MORE exciting pennant races (if you consider a finish of up to 8 games out “exciting”) than when there were only two “divisions.”
You folks who are better at mathmatical logic can cut this theory down, but why would we not excpect this ratio to remain with a further split of divisions? That is, if 70 to 78% are the odds, there will be a likely close race in 3 of each league’s 4 divisions.
Also note that the the lowest average (from 1910 to 1929) was 58%. Even there, the odds are great that we could expect a good race in as few as two and as many as three divisions in each league. That sounds like pretty good odds for an exciting season for somebody’s division, and not the horrid prediction Patrick foreshadows for MLB with 8 4 team divisions.
The suggestion I made in my last post (having more intra-divisonal games) helps mediate some of your concerns.