1990 State of the League (*Official*)

[Clay]

A couple of things....

#1 - We ARE officially going to make the switch to OOTP 11 this off-season. I was thinking we do one more in X, but there is really no compelling argument not to switch and the majority DID vote for the switch.

Please let me know if anyone is going to drop out because of the switch. I'd like to try to work something out as a league to not lose anyone. Maybe someone can donate their 2nd license.

#2 - Playoff SIM Schedule looks like this:

Sunday, August 14th - Wildcard Round
Tuesday, August 16th - League Championship Series
Thursday, Brewmaster's Cup

At that point, we will likely take 1 SIM off so that Andrew can help me with the conversion. That would mean we resume the following Tuesday, August 23rd.

#3 - Now would be a good time to discuss rules changes for next season. Let's examine in the next week to see if anything needs to happen before '91.

Thanks, Brothers in Brew!

[Jake]

Any chance of a divisional tournament? I'm glad to volunteer to set it up.

Thanks for the first year commish. Great job.

[Matt]

Mr. Speaker...The President of the BLB (cue music).

Fantastic job on you 1st season commish. We really appreciate all you do for the league and it was a great year. Even though we might never see the post season I enjoy the league and all the personalities that come with it.

Thank you.

[funclown]

A couple of things....


Sunday, August 14th - Wildcard Round
Tuesday, August 16th - League Championship Series
Thursday, Brewmaster's Cup

At that point, we will likely take 1 SIM off so that Andrew can help me with the conversion. That would mean we resume the following Tuesday, August 23rd.


Thanks, Brothers in Brew!

Just a heads up, I'll be in Germany during the conversion it looks like. I will be returning on the Aug 27th so I might miss the first OOTP 11 sim. Would that be the arbitration sim??

[Spectre]

I approve this move. In the absolute worst case that we lose an owner, it will be easier to recruit since we are moving to the most recent version of the game. It was tough to recruit owners for OOTP10 after OOTP11 had been released.

Great job this season Clay- A+ across the board.

[Carlos]

What rules changes are we discussing?

[rubisco43]

sounds good to me. i'm broke right now, but should be getting my loan check in a few weeks...

[funclown]

What rules changes are we discussing?

And hopefully nothing that takes 4 months to iron out.

[BradZ]

What rules changes are we discussing?

I don't think he means any specifically, it's just time to introduce any ideas for going forward.

[Pat]

I haven't bought 11 yet...anyone know any coupon codes or anything?

[Matt]

I call Washington.

[Ryan]

I haven't bought 11 yet...anyone know any coupon codes or anything?

Yeah, me too.

[BradZ]

Well, I was going to post my own thoughts about the playoff format going forward, but The Artist Soon to Be Formerly Known as jwolf02 already hit on most of the points in his post last year:

Spoiler

I don't know if this is the proper place for a proposal or not, but I figured since we are talking about sims it was close enough. It is sometimes mentioned how there is not enough reason to 'go for it' at the deadline or in FA in order to make the playoffs. I have only been around since 83 but one thing I always notice about the playoffs is how quickly they come and go. One sim for each round. There never seems to be much focus or discussion on the playoffs. And since it is one sim per round, all people (myself included) seem to do is check who won what series and then be done with it.

Before I go any further let me mention that I have no clue how long it actually takes to run a sim, download/upload/sim/rosters/etc etc. I would assume that with no trades, fewer exports and fewer games to sim that playoff sims might be "easier" in a way, but like I said I have no idea.

Basically what I am proposing is splitting up the playoff series into multiple sims, and figuring out a schedule that would work for everyone. Right now, if the playoffs started on a Sunday, the schedule would be:

Sunday: Wild Card Round
Tuesday: Division Series
Thursday: BLB Championship
Sunday: Offseason

What I was thinking is something more like this:
Sunday: Wild Card Round
Monday: Division series, first three games.
Tuesday: Division series, last four games.
Wednesday: Championship, first two games.
Thursday: Championship, next two games.
Sunday: If Neccessary, game 5.
Monday: If Neccessary, game 6.
Tuesday: If Neccessary, game 7.

Return to normal schedule.

I think you could go a lot further with how you split up the series, for example if the division series went 2-3-2 home/away instead of 2-2-1-1-1 you could just sim each homestand. Obviously this would be more work for you Clay so tell me if this is just a ridiculous idea and I will delete my post before this idea catches on, which I am oh-so-sure that it will.

My whole thought behind it is that it would put more of a focus and spotlight on the playoff teams and also would allow owners to make decisions like whether or not to adjust their lineups or start a guy like Aurillo on three days rest if they are down 0-3. I also think it would drum up more discussion about the players, and in some cases the owners if it is an underdog story like Clay or Linty, or maybe jistic gets another shot at the title. The schedule above would only push back the offseason two "sim dates" with the schedule we have now, and that's only if it goes 7 games in the championship.

I'm sure we could all agree that the best part about this league is trash talking and witty banter. I think this would give the playoffs that same atmosphere.

So, while I might quibble with the exact scheduling that he proposed (I like the 2-3-2 setup, but my earlier post related to this subject included a 3-3-1, for the sole purpose of a solo game 7 SIM if necessary), I like the basic idea of breaking up the playoff series into smaller chunks to build excitement around what should be the highlight of our season.

Clay raised a good point that our group tends to like a shorter offseason than a longer offseason (present company included) and this is where this issue falls solely on the Commish, since he would be most affected by a change since breaking the playoffs up would seem to require a compressed SIM schedule. As Jake pointed out, we don’t really know what goes into running these SIMs, so any input from Clay is certainly welcomed.

At present (for this year) we have this arrangement:

Sunday - ILDS/DLDS
Tuesday - ILCS/DLCS
Thursday - Brewmaster’s

Under a modified playoff SIM format (using the 3-3-1 format):

Spoiler

Saturday - Games 1-3 ILDS | DLDS
Sunday - Games 4-6 ILDS | DLDS
Monday - any game 7’s necessary, otherwise offday for the Commish
Tuesday - Games 1-3 ILCS | DLCS
Wednesday - Games 4-6 ILCS | DLCS
Thursday - any game 7’s necessary, otherwise offday for the Commish
Friday - Games 1-3 Brewmaster’s
Saturday - Noonish - Games 4-6 Brewmaster’s
Saturday - evening - Game 7 Brewmaster’s

Sunday - offday
Monday - offday
Tuesday - Offseason starts up

As the playoffs go along and there are fewer and fewer teams, there could be some flexibility (ie, if there are no Game 7’s in the ILCS | DLCS then Thursday would be an offday, but if the two penant winners posted that they were locked and loaded for games 1-3 of the Brewmaster’s then the SIM could be run on Thursday and then take a break on Friday or whatever combination of offdays is preferable at that time). I think the Game 7’s would lend themselves to an Ad Hoc nature that could be run (at the Commish’s convenience) at any point between the end of Game 6 and the regularly scheduled slot for Game 7’s as long as the teams involved in those games made a declarative post that they were ready for that game.

I’m just throwing this out there for the sake of discussion. If only a handful of people have any interest in breaking the playoffs out into smaller chunks, then by all means the present course is fine. If there is a larger interest in splitting the playoff series up then certainly different formats could be discussed as well. And last but not least, Clay, the compressed SIM schedule obviously has an impact on you so your input could nip this in the bud post-haste. I don’t personally have an interest in expanding the time frame needed to SIM the playoffs before moving to the offseason (where everyone can be involved again) any more than it has to be, but I’m interested in discussing whether or not there is a happy medium between the two.

[Carlos]

All solid points and I think the only things that would hurt this proposal are:

1. Clay's time.

He has shifted the schedule a few times (all understandable) because of his commitments to life and work.

2. Dormant teams.

They are doing nothing right now and most are not even getting into any playoff discussion because they are simply waiting.

There is no real issue with length of sim schedule because the proposal adds sim days within the week. The only way it becomes an issue is if Clay says he approves of such a move, but cannot do it on a daily basis. Now, we move into issue:

3. Longer Playoff Sim Schedule

This affects the dormant teams the most, I would think. I doubt anyone else really cares.


Something I thought of as a counter-proposal - but not in a way to challenge Jake and Brad because I think it's better. Just something to throw out there as another idea to consider:

We have pre-sim trade guidelines for the commish to follow. Also, before Andrew changed the length of the DL stay from 14 days, we were also able to provide instructions on removing a player from the 15-day DL in the middle of the sim and Andrew obliged.

Couldn't we consider a similar format for the playoffs?

Couldn't all participating owners instruct Clay on how they would like their lineups to look or who they would want to start depending on the length of the series or their deficit/advantage?

Say for example a team has a 3-0 lead. What if that team wants their fourth starter to start and asks Clay to pitch #4 starter with a 3-0 lead so I still have my Ace for game One of the next series (though this isn't a great example because we get enough off days to combat this I believe).

A better example is like the above mentioned by Brad. What if someone wants their ace to pitch in a crucial Game 4? They can instruct Clay to start #1 Pitcher in Game 4 if we are down in the series (either 2-1 or 3-0)?

Now this could result in countless scenarios that would make Clay's job a nightmare, but we could also agree on what conditions call for those instructions. Almost like Beer Pong: you get two opportunities to rearrange your cups and only a few options on how to set them up depending on the number of cups remaining.

(And yes, I had to find a way to relate this to beer because this is the BLB, you know)

[Carlos]

Of course, the above still doesn't solve the issue of the playoffs going by too quickly.

I guess that's my next question: what is the real issue?

Are we asking for this sim schedule so the playoffs are more of an event or are we doing it so owners have more control over their team in crucial games?