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Miller Envy Part 2: Transforming September

Here’s a little post for your enjoyment while we wait for standings updates to resume.  I say “for your enjoyment” but this brainstorm might change your fantasy baseball life.

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This has been the least exciting EFL season ever,  at least for us near the top of the standings. I think it was more fun the year the Alleghenys relentlessly built their 20 game lead over the second place team (Old Detroit).  It gave me the chance to stick it to the man on the last day of the season by taking away his 20-game cushion and forcing him to have a neighbor only 19.8 games away. (Figures may not be precise since I’m going from memory.)  If he tried to sleep with his windows open and the wind was blowing just right I could disturb him by simply conducting nuclear weapons tests.  That was one of my proudest moments as an EFL manager.

This year it feels like someone has put us in straightjackets and taunts us with glimmers of hope immediately dashed. But Jamie and I have whined about it enough. You don’t need to hear it again.

We may be encased in carbonite, but there has been more life in other sectors of the league. What if we had a reason to root for the outcome of a race for 9th place? To make the suddenly close contest between Cottage and Brookland a harrowing nail biter?

This brings us to Sam Miller’s best wild idea of the year:  every team makes the playoffs.  You should follow the link to read it, but in case you didn’t, here is his summary:

On Sept. 1, the playoffs begin. The worst team in each league plays the second-worst team in a winner-take-all game. One travel day later, the victor in that game plays the 13th seed — in the 13th seed’s park — in the same format, and the winner of that stage plays the 12th seed, and so on, with stages getting progressively longer until the league champions face off in the seven-game World Series. All playoff games, until the league championship and World Series, take place in the higher seed’s home park.

Miller believes this format would make EVERY game in the regular season meaningful, since playoff position battles would rage at every level in the standings.

(I just realized where I’ve seen this before: in old bowling shows.  Before the show starts, the tournament is run until one half of the bracket has produced a finalist, half of the other side of the bracket has produced a semifinalist,  half of the remaining quarter of the bracket has a quarterfinalist, and the remaining eighth of the bracket has semiquarterfinalists or whatever you call them.  Octofinalists. Then they play the remaining octofinal game, then the quarterfinal game, etc. You get to watch  a series of sudden death eliminations as the underdog tries to fight his way up the mountain.)

Miller’s idea has issues.  The biggest one is how unfair it will be for the Dodgers and Astros to have to sit around for several weeks waiting for the playoffs to give them an opponent.  Miller says teams not yet in the playoffs would just keep playing regular season games.  I’m skeptical about that in MLB, but fortunately we could easily handle it in the EFL.

Here’s how I see it — NOT THIS YEAR .  Maybe next season.

After the games of August 31, we continue recording results and keeping the regular season standings just as we have always done, but we also keep a running account of the Miller Style Playoffs.  The following would be Checkpoint dates:

Octofinals Day: the morning when there are 28 days left in the season.

Quarterfinals Day:  21 days left.

Semifinals Day:  14 days left.

Finals Day:  7 days left.

On Octofinal Day, teams in 11th and 12th place are eliminated (from the playoffs — they continue with their regular season) , and any other teams under .500, are tentatively eliminated.   Playoff brackets are constructed to fit the number of teams qualifying for the playoffs.

For example, if 10 teams are at or over .500, the 10th place team faces the 3rd place team, 9th v 4th, 8th v. 5th, and 7th v. 6th.  The Octofinals last seven days, and are tracked two ways: individual daily games (winner each day has the best rs/ra ratio) and as a big chunk (winner has the best rs/ra ratio for the entire week).  To advance, the lower seeded team has to win both the majority of the individual games, and the week-long rs/ra contest.

The quarterfinals begin on Quarterfinals Day. The teams in first and second place in the regular season standings on Quarterfinals Day get a bye (even if one was an octofinalist) and the remaining teams are reseeded (worst regular season record on that day v. best, etc).   Again, the team lower in the regular season standings on Quarterfinals Day is the away team and must win at least four of the seven daily contests and the week-long contest.

The semifinals begin on Semifinals Day. The surviving teams are re-seeded according to their regular season standings as of Semifinals Day. Again, seeding is determined by position in the regular standings as of the first day of the semifinals, which last seven days, and the lower-seeded team has to win both ways to advance.

The last week of the season, the two surviving teams are re-seeded again with seeding determined by position in the standings as of Finals Day.

Some notes:

  1.  If a team is under .500 for the season on any checkpoint day it is (tentatively) eliminated before seeding takes place.  This may create additional byes for better teams — or the eliminated team may be replaced by a team that was previously tentatively eliminated for being under .500 but has gotten itself above .500 by the checkpoint.
  2. Teams eliminated because they were in 11th or 12th place on Octofinal Day, or lost a playoff series, are permanently eliminated from the playoffs (but not the regular season championship).
  3. The .500 or better requirement is dictated by reason and basic ethical instincts. I realize it does mean there could be a season with no champion (if we all sank under .500). I also realize it creates incentives for league members to agitate for rules making it easier to win.  You will be fine as long as you have a commissioner with a commitment to truth and the spine to stand up to “democratic” demagoguery. Think of the EU, or the British or Italian parliaments, those bulwarks against mere democracy.
  4. I would despair of this ever being accepted in the old days. But now much of our league has tuned in to soccer, and is used to the idea of side-competitions during the season, like MLS’s Cascade Cup. This is barely even a side-competition!  We aren’t playing non-counting games, for example, like they do for many soccer cups.
  5. At the end of the season, if the same team wins the playoffs and is first in the standings, that team is the Undisputed Champion.  Otherwise we have co-champions.  Both teams go on the trophy — we have plenty of room — but the regular season winner gets to take it home for the year.

 

 

 

7 Comments

  • This great rock classic (OK, you might argue about that) by Styx came to my mind for some reason.

    “Too Much Time On My Hands”

    Sitting on this barstool talking like a damn fool
    Got the twelve o’clock news blues
    And I’ve given up hope for the afternoon soaps
    And a bottle of cold brew
    Is it any wonder I’m not crazy? Is it any wonder I’m sane at all
    Well I’m so tired of losing- I got nothing to do and all day to do it
    I go out cruisin’ but I’ve no place to go and all night to get there
    Is it any wonder I’m not a criminal?
    Is it any wonder I’m not in jail?
    Is it any wonder I’ve got

    Too much time on my hands?
    It’s ticking away with my sanity
    I’ve got too much time on my hands
    It’s hard to believe such a calamity
    I’ve got too much time on my hands
    And it’s ticking away, ticking away from me
    Too much time on my hands
    (It’s t-t-t-t-ticking away)
    Too much time on my hands
    (And I don’t know what to do with myself)
    Too much time on my hands

    Too much time on my hands
    Too much time on my hands
    Too much time on my hands

    Now, I’m a jet fuel genius – I can solve the world’s problems
    Without even trying
    I got dozens of friends and the fun never ends
    That is, as long as I’m buying
    Is it any wonder I’m not the president
    Is it any wonder I’m null and void?
    Is it any wonder I’ve got

    Too much time on my hands?
    It’s ticking away with my sanity
    I’ve got too much time on my hands
    It’s hard to believe such a calamity
    I got too much time on my hands
    And it’s ticking away, ticking away from me
    Too much time on my hands
    (T-t-t-t-ticking away)
    Too much time on my hands
    (And I don’t know what to do with myself)
    Too much time on my hands
    Too much time on my hands
    (T-t-t-t-ticking away)
    Too much time on my hands
    Too much time on my hands
    (Too much time on my hands)
    (Too much time on my)

  • I love the little ironic twist, Mark, posting (at 1:38 a.m.) a comment that repeats “too much time on my hands” 21 times. I am completely unfamiliar with this song. I don’t need to be anywhere for an hour. Maybe I can find it on You Tube.

  • I’m listening to this “classic” right now. I have never heard it before. It runs on a bit. I think I have time to write another post before it’s over.

  • I love that song, having watched Tommy Shaw sing and play it live in concert! Such clever writing, for a rock song. And while it didn’t come to my mind reading the post I completely understand the sentiment it expresses as pointed out by Allegheny management.

    And for your listening pleasure here is another wonderful song from Styx:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnw-waq-O6Y

    I fell in love with Styx when I heard this album playing in a record store (remember those? they’re all coffee shops now, having transformed from being baseball card shops in the interim) in Emporia, Kansas in about 1973.

  • John — that song is over 8 minutes long! I’d been listening for a long time and then checked to see how far I was from the end. It’s still going as I type this. (I’ve never heard this one before, either.)

    It seems Mark’s comment about having too much time on his hands wasn’t merely self-referential.

  • Still going… The song’s title is “A Day”. It turns out to actually be pretty close to a day.

  • Well, I hate to interrupt such a vigorous discussion of music (except to wonder how Ron had never heard that song before? It’s not particularly obscure):

    I do like the idea of a secondary title in the EFL. An EFL Cup, so to speak, soccer style. As 12 doesn’t really work for a traditional single-elimination bracket (or have enough rounds to generate interest) it would have to be based on pool play and then a bracket.

    So, four pools of 3 teams (one top 4, one middle, one bottom) each play a head-to-head week (last week’s in April, May and June?). Top of each pool advances to semis (in July) and then final two square off the last week of August for the Cup.

    Keeps more teams interested in winning through at least June/July and doesn’t detract from a tight pennant race in September.