Broken Bat - Suggestions: Expanding Legends League

Forum >> Suggestions >> Expanding Legends League

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#36591	07/03/2016 12:58:18 pm
raygen12 Joined: 04/04/2016 Posts: 52 Inactive	Considering that the Legends League is like the major league, why couldn't we expand the league to more than 12 teams? I feel like it would make the league a lot more exciting and would give more teams and opportunity to compete at the highest level. I think a 24 or 32 team league would be great. This is just and idea as I know deciding which teams get called up and I have know idea how to go about that. I saw a forum once that suggested this but everybody said they would need to expand the whole game but I would say call up the highest ranked teams and move teams up the chain and then add the new 12 or 24 teams to LL 6. It would be cool to make this change and then maybe even have a more realistic playoffs and have divisions possibly based on region. I'm just bored and throwing out a cool idea I thought of. Any feedback would be great!

#36593	07/03/2016 1:09:48 pm
newtman Joined: 11/02/2013 Posts: 3343 Inactive	First, Legends isn't really a parallel to the MLB, nor is it meant to be since MLB doesn't have a promotion/demotion structure. Second, for argument's sake, when would the extra rounds of playoffs be? The schedule as is has no room for more games while still remaining viable that you only have to log in once a day for a few minutes. Adding extra days to the playoffs is not something that would gain support since the playoffs are already three days when 80% of the teams in the game are off.

#36594	07/03/2016 2:04:23 pm
mcrmoe Joined: 09/24/2014 Posts: 290 Inactive	I thought of something, so please bear with me and keep an open mind. Arguments for expanded division Its legends league, the cream of the crop, so why does it have the same structure as every other league? An expanded division as well as an expanded playoff structure will lead to more exciting rivalries, since most of the teams involved will be more consistent than the current format. Proposal Expand each division to 9 teams, 18 total in legends. Where the top 3 from each division go to a playoff and the bottom 2 are relegated. With this format, the broken bat pyramid system is preserved. The playoff structure will be the following division semifinal: #2 vs #3 in best of 3 which can take place in a day division final: winner of semi vs #1 in best of 5, can take in 2 days league final: winner of each division in best of 7, same structure or could possibly take place in 2 days depending on time constraints Proposed schedule outline Currently there are 160 games, 50 in interdivisional play (10 per team, 5 home and 5 away) and 110 divisional play (22 games per team in 4/4/3 games per day home and away). There is a simple way to keep track of home and away. When the new legends format is created, all teams are issued an ID number. For example one year W1 vs E5 is away, then alternates. This IDs are only created once and when dealing with relegations and promotions they are transferred. For example, W2 and W7 are relegated so the incoming promoted teams are assigned those. I propose making interdivisional play 5 games per team per BB game day, alternating home/away every season (40 total) and 112 divisional games (14 games per team in 4/3 games per day home and away). Under this structure there will be 152 games in total plus the playoffs. Granted I haven't worked out exactly how many reals days this plan would take, but it should be very similar to the current format. Conclusiones This proposal does not affect the current pyramid structure, hence isn't a total overhaul. It simply makes leagues a little different, which in my opinion is fair. Its legends, it should feel different and special. Plus with having more of the same teams and a playoff structure, there is a possibility of better rivalries. There will be 152 games in total and 3 additional days required for playoffs, doesn't seem like too much of a deviation from the current total days it takes to complete a season. Corrected a few typos... Updated Sunday, July 3 2016 @ 2:05:41 pm PDT*

#36595	07/03/2016 2:09:31 pm
mcrmoe Joined: 09/24/2014 Posts: 290 Inactive	Hopefully I answered a few of the concerns in newt's post. Adding extra days to the playoffs is not something that would gain support since the playoffs are already three days when 80% of the teams in the game are off. How is this different from teams eliminated from the cup? In my proposal, since there are less total games 152 vs 160, the season would end on the same day for everyone. This way people in other leagues won't notice a change.

#36598	07/03/2016 2:49:04 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I like the premise of expanding Legends, but I don't like the idea of going down to 152 games. I'd really rather keep the regular season at 160 games. The regular season is really the crux of the game. If we kept 160 games, then as Newtman said it would be hard to keep the season from dragging on for all the non-Legend teams. I'm still open to the concept, just not at the expense of the regular season. Even with 9 teams, I don't see why we would need the top 3. Top two would be pretty representative of the actual ratio.

#36599	07/03/2016 2:59:02 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I suppose we could have Legends play on Dead Friday. And then make Legend playoff series 3 and 4 games instead of 2/3/2. You could still alternate home and away as normal, just gives less time to tweak lineups. That would make it end at the same time despite having an extra series.

#36600	07/03/2016 3:25:23 pm
mcrmoe Joined: 09/24/2014 Posts: 290 Inactive	True Rock, it could just be the top 2 from each division. As for for 152 game schedule. That was one of the ways to have each team play each other the same number of times. Eight less games is only 2 less series or days. There might be other formats to get back to 160 games, but at the moment Im drawing a blank. Everything that comes to mind seems to complicated and complex.

#36601	07/03/2016 3:53:01 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	14 games vs Division teams = 112 Plus 5 games against 6 interleague teams Plus 6 games against 3 interleague teams Would probably want to break up the 6 games as two series. Which means we would need break up the divisional series like this to stay at 42: 6 teams - 3/3/4/4 2 teams - 4/5/5 Or if we want to save additional days for playoffs, we can move additional matchups into the 4/5/5 format.

#36602	07/03/2016 3:57:37 pm
Dcmrulz Joined: 02/14/2013 Posts: 588 Inactive	how would you get to 18 teams? 10 teams enter, 4 teams leave for 1 season, then go back to an even amount of teams coming and going, since otherwise, the structure won't work. For this to work, you get each division champ in II, and the 6 more from both leagues (idk, best records?) but then III will need an extra 6 teams among their 4 leagues to promote to II, and so on, until there's a lucky few of teams throughout all of VI to promote to V without winning their division. And for all that to work, 6 teams will have to be created to fill in the voids left in VI. Updated Sunday, July 3 2016 @ 4:00:53 pm PDT

#36604	07/03/2016 4:01:40 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	You get 18 teams by having a one time reorg. Then you continue with the current promotion/demotion. Bottom two demote, top teams in LL II promote. This would mean adding 6 more teams to LL VI, and bubbling up the 6 teams with the best record or highest rating or something like that from each level.

#36608	07/03/2016 5:23:44 pm
mcrmoe Joined: 09/24/2014 Posts: 290 Inactive	Just to add a bit more to Rock's point. This season is 57 days long (starting on July 18th). Of which, 42 are for league games, 13 for cup and 1 for all star. September 2nd has no activities, so lets say this is an open day. There is a way to keep 160 games in 42 days. An open day may be used for 3 games from the division final. So in theory, the season would only need to be extended by 1 day for the playoffs for the other 2 games in the division final. 1 more idle day for the BB doesn't seem like too much, in my opinion. Another matter would be the all-star game. If the date is kept for all of BB, for legends might it not be exactly at the half way point. Not really a big deal, again just my opinion. Updated Sunday, July 3 2016 @ 5:25:11 pm PDT

#36614	07/03/2016 6:53:59 pm
Tiger504 Joined: 06/17/2014 Posts: 1314 Kalamazoo Bloody Tigers III.4	While legends is the top rung on the ladder, there is some pretty good baseball being played in lower leagues. Take a look at recent cup results. With more regular owners out there, the quality of teams appears to be going up. I'm not sure if that's an argument for or against this suggestion. I'm for improvement of this great game, I'm just thinking there are possibly some unintended consequences that would need to be addressed for a small increase to the legends league.

#36618	07/03/2016 7:07:21 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	I don't have particularly strong feeling either way in regards to expanding. Just trying to brainstorm how it could be done.

#36697	07/04/2016 1:35:23 pm
raygen12 Joined: 04/04/2016 Posts: 52 Inactive	I just felt like it would make the top level a lot more exciting and cool to play in or watch happen every year.

#36726	07/04/2016 8:58:50 pm
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	It would not be trivial to re-progam the scheduling and league configuration just for a larger Legends league. Additionally, how would promotion and demotion work with a larger Legends league? The advantage of having smaller leagues is that you get teams that are closer in overall strength competing against each other. An expanded Legends league would mean you'd get a lot more lopsided games...I think the spread between teams ranked #1-24 is much greater than #1-12. That said...I am willing to listening to all arguments for it. Steve

#36735	07/04/2016 9:38:49 pm
Slug5373 Joined: 12/23/2014 Posts: 376 Inactive	While I like the idea of an expanded legends league in theory, I don't see it happening for the reasons Steve mentioned -- mainly because it would be a headache to draw everything up. Scheduling Playoff Format Playoff Schedule Promotion/Demotion Realignment of ALL league structures Etc...

#36738	07/04/2016 10:46:39 pm
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Promotions and demotions wouldn't need to change. There are no promotions in Legends, so that part is easy. Demotions would be exactly the same. Bottom two demote from each division. As far as effort to implement, that is totally in Steve's court, and I could see it being a considerable effort. Probably not worth it at the expense of Steve's time.

#36745	07/05/2016 2:59:02 am
mcrmoe Joined: 09/24/2014 Posts: 290 Inactive	Yes this would be a relatively huge programming project. Tiger mentioned earlier about unforeseen/unintended consequences, Steve brought up the talent differential in an expanded league structure as a possible issue. There may be a few more, either negative or positive. That being said; the suggestion is extending legends to 18 teams (9 per division). A one time reconfiguration would shuffle around around some teams and create six new teams, possibly at the VI league level. Six more teams is the smallest possible change, since all team additions would need to be in multiples of six to conserve the cup structure. With this suggestion only one more cup group is added, with the winner getting an automatic pass and the rest of the 256 slots will be filled by at large (same of before). Most importantly the BB pyramid structure stays untouched. Bottom 2 demote, and top 2 from II.1 and II.2 promote. Legends league is the only place where a playoff can take place, since there is no promotion at stake. As to taking the top 2 or top 3 is still up in the air, both are hypothetically doable. The scheduling will required the greatest adjustment, but a few ideas were brainstormed in the current topic. There are ways to keep 160 games, interdivisional play and playing against all teams the same number of times. With 160 games and top 2 playing a division final (Bo5) before the league final (Bo7), only 1 more day is required (see previous messages in topic). I wholeheartedly believe that this will increase the rivalries at the highest level and am in favor of making legends a bit different from the rest, giving it an allure of being something special. This was just an idea that came to mind and didn't seem to completely rebuild the BB league structure. fixed typos, for some reason I only find them after posting... Updated Tuesday, July 5 2016 @ 3:01:00 am PDT*

#36748	07/05/2016 3:35:13 am
Rock777 Joined: 09/21/2014 Posts: 9603 Haverhill Halflings III.1	Between the auto-miscorrecter, my broken 'r' key and the tiny edit window, I always find types after I post as well.

#36754	07/05/2016 4:43:23 am
amalric7 Joined: 01/20/2016 Posts: 2238 New York Lancers V.4	I tend to be against most changes, so take this with a pinch of salt if you wish. I don't see how expanding Legends would make it any more exciting/interesting. I would think just being in Legends, competing against the very best in the game, is exciting and epic as it is. To get to that level is an achievement above almost all others - staying there and/or winning it all the ultimate goal. Its already competitive enough up there (I would imagine), making it even tougher to win..? Is there that much of a benefit to gain?

#36756	07/05/2016 4:52:40 am
Haselrig Joined: 04/13/2014 Posts: 2790 Novi Doubledays III.4	While I like the idea ( I'd submitted a similar suggestion some time back), I'd rather see some other things added first. I just feel there are other upgrades/additions on the list that would improve the game more, for about the same, or even less, work.