I have created prototypes of the 12 spreadsheets we will use if you adopt the proposed new format for our league. As a byproduct I have also generated a stunning early prognostication for the 2022 season: one very long-suffering franchise is in great position to finally win the championship.
Or if not, then another one is almost as well situated — who hasn’t suffered as long, but has suffered in depth in its own way.
As a reminder, we wore Dave out last season, to where he had to withdraw from some of the IT support he has been giving us, especially the work- and stress-intensive burden of being the only one who knew how to run the database, which we’d loaded with complications. I am the worst culprit because I have so seldom met a complexification I didn’t love.
But it a dramatic reversal, I am proposing we SIMPLIFY this season by taking our standings tracking back to the world of spreadsheets. This involves reviving our old spreadsheet format but giving the system twists to make management manageable and avoid going back to the bad old days when mid-month reallocations worked retroactively to change results earlier in the month.
Here, in broad terms, are the proposed reforms:
- Update standings only once per week, to limit the update workload.
- Close out the statistical record every week, so each new week is a fresh start, and changes don’t affect previous weeks.
- To compensate for the lower-frequency updates, make each week a head-to-head series with an MLB or EFL team. This will allow us to get at least a sense of how we are doing mid-week without needing a full EFL update.
- Head-to-head series will also make it harder to know how the rest of the season will unfold because
- we will have a chance late in the season to directly face our EFL rivals,
- we will face the same MLB rivals at different points in the season, and
- the outcome of each week’s series will etch into our records volatile short-sample runs of luck, good or bad.
- Record our results using a relatively simple set of 12 Google sheets: one for each team, and one for league standings. At the end of the 27-week season we will have one (big) spreadsheet with each week’s league results and standings, and 27 saved spreadsheets for each team.
- All team spreadsheets, and the league results spreadsheet, will all be available on Google Sheets.
- You will be able to adjust your allocations every week (up to a limit of players — say 4? — to begin with until we see whether we want more freedom).
We’ll keep our drafts (run on Dave’s database); our VIL; and our monthly managers meetings. We’ll continue to post league updates here.
We will cut the official league updates to one per week. However, since it will be easier to follow how teams are doing between updates because there will specific opponents to watch, I am hoping we’ll get people’s mid-week commentary. If your pitcher goes 8 2/3 perfect innings before collapsing to a 5-4 loss, surely you will want to tell us all about it. Or one of us will want to tell YOU all about it.
I have already shared with you access to a Google sheet for each team, and for the league-wide compiled results. Links are available below. Some notes about these sheets:
- They are still subject to tweaks and fixes. So if you see something on a sheet you wonder about, let me know.
- The league-wide summary sheet will grow each week. I’ll insert new rows at the top, move the live update section to that top section and replace it in the newly-demoted second section with a de-linked copy. The current standings will be to the left, the current week results in the middle, and off to the right will be a yet-to-be-constructed section showing MLB standings with our teams included. By the end of the season, this sheet will be about 400 lines long and maybe 70 columns wide. I don’t KNOW if Google sheets that big work. If they don’t I’ll need to break it into a few separate sheets.
- I haven’t figured out yet how to make folders in Google Sheets. If someone knows how I would love a tutorial. I’d like a folder for every team inside a folder for the entire league.
Ok, let’s start with the league summary sheet. These standings were generated:
- using 2021 stats,
- with our rosters (except McPherson) in their current off-season state,
- assuming we all played a 162-game series against an MLB .500 team.
In case you don’t want to click the link, the standings look like this:
The McPherson Elephantes were given the year-end version of the Wolverines’ 2021 roster. So this offers a rough estimate of what the Wolverines would have done had they had their September roster all year.
Other than the fictional Elephantes, what stands out to you?
OK, OK, sure, the fuzziness of the image. I’ll work on that. I may need to pass the standings through Excel or even Word before posting it here. This is a screenshot.
Ok, sure, your own team’s fate captures your attention. For all the teams except the Elephantes, this records the prospects for your team as currently constructed. Most of us would have to consume replacements by the truckload if we didn’t add more players. Your team should get a lot better.
On the other hand, I should mention the Kangaroos have over $60,000,000 to spend in this spring’s drafts. On the other hand, they only have a few slots to fill, so they can’t get TOO much better. On the other other hand, they only have a few slots to fill.
The weekly results show identical data (since this is the only update for the season so far), and look like this:
It’s the same data but presented in alphabetical order. In real updates I’d probably sort the week by the weekly results, so you can see who won the week. (Again — I’ll figure out how to eliminate the fuzziness. You can get past it by clicking this link.)
You should be able to access all 12 team sheets (including the Elephantes) and the league sheet on your google drive. If you don’t have access to your google drive, or don’t know how to access it, let me know. I’ll walk you through it if you just don’t know how. All our sheets have titles beginning with EFL.
To see the team sheets, following these links:
Again, the league standings sheet is here.
Please look over the sheets of interest to you. Let me know if you have questions, or suspect errors. And keep an eye on those Kangaroos. They’ve been known to stampede.