Broken Bat - Suggestions: Tie Breakers

Forum >> Suggestions >> Tie Breakers

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#29138	01/18/2016 10:53:11 am
MukilteoMike Joined: 08/09/2014 Posts: 3294 Inactive	Have a one-game playoff for all tie-breakers (promotion and relegation). I'm not sure why MLB's method isn't used. It would be much more satisfying and exciting to break the tie with an actual game. I think that's the best solution, but if that isn't used, head-to-head record would be a much better method than run differential. The four major American professional sports (sorry soccer) all use either a play-in game or head-to-head to break the ties. They just make more sense. Run differential is reasonable and logical for the Cup, but not for a 160 game season.

#29139	01/18/2016 11:26:45 am
newtman Joined: 11/02/2013 Posts: 3343 Inactive	Completely disagree, run differential is far more indicative of performance over 160 games than a one game play-in which would greatly favor one dominating player over depth, especially if someone has a 16+ potential pitcher.

#29142	01/18/2016 1:38:33 pm
Crazy Li Joined: 01/25/2015 Posts: 879 Inactive	I disagree that a 1-game playoff is the best method but also disagree that RD is the best. I like the head-to-head as a tie breaker. Rather than your entire season coming down to 1 game and its random variance, why not take all the games they played against each other that season? And I guess if that's tied, THEN you can go to RD. I don't like RD first because it doesn't really tell how good of a team you are. If you're an offense-first team, maybe you have a high RD because of the occasional offensive slaughter you put up. If you're a defense-first team, you may win a lot of 1-0 or otherwise 1 RD games. Does that mean you're a weaker team? Not necessarily. Maybe you can hold the offensive juggernaut to less runs than you score as well. There's no way to know for sure without actually playing the games... and guess what? The teams do that all year long.

#29149	01/18/2016 3:46:39 pm
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 5035 Administrator	Run differential is used because it's easiest to implement. Imagine a three way tie...3-team 1-game playoff and what if all three teams go 1-1 or something. Steve

#29160	01/18/2016 6:39:38 pm
the gizmo Joined: 02/07/2013 Posts: 574 Inactive	I believe one game should not be the deciding factor after 160 RD is not necessarily the best as the differences in offense and defense from each team mentioned above Every team plays a balanced schedule so have head to head record of tied teams as first tiebreak, then division W/L and RD if 3rd option if needed

#29184	01/19/2016 9:35:16 am
PrivateSnowflake Joined: 01/06/2015 Posts: 1231 Bloomington Thunder Legends	+1 @ newtman. Fairest way to do it. One game does not a season make.

#29187	01/19/2016 10:08:20 am
MukilteoMike Joined: 08/09/2014 Posts: 3294 Inactive	RD is completely artificial and doesn't mean anything. There are many reasons why it's a bad breaker, which is why it's far down the list of MLB breakers. With a tie breaker game, there is a legit winner. One has a better record. I understand it sucks to lose that way, but it's a lot better than any artificial stats breaker. What is more fair than having a better record? Head to head is next best. Winning games is what baseball is about. It's not about by how many runs you win by. It's about wins. When in doubt, look to MLB. We try to outthink ourselves way too much. Go with the real world model. Updated Tuesday, January 19 2016 @ 10:13:03 am PST

#29197	01/19/2016 12:27:50 pm
Crazy Li Joined: 01/25/2015 Posts: 879 Inactive	But Steve said the real world model is difficult to code and properly implement. You have to consider the limitations of things not decided by actual human beings. The real world has the benefit of sentient input. Still, I fail to see why something like head to head and/or vs division records can't be assessed ahead of run diff. Granted with only two actual divisions, the latter might be pointless. Updated Tuesday, January 19 2016 @ 12:29:39 pm PST