SOM PLAYERS TOUR LEADERS (Thru Event 7, Leagues 1-3)

[ERICTAYLOR 2]

There's no question some luck is involved. There's luck involved in REAL LIFE in short series. This is a simulation after all...
Cristano is essentially arguing that it is ALL luck which is obviously untrue.

[cristano11]

#1: im simply arguing that playoffs are enough luck that they shouldnt be worth 50 additional points on a season...
#2: i pull more bjs than u can even imagine, so please...

[mesquiton]

I generally try to avoid these chatboard pissfights, but I've had a couple of drinks so I'll go ahead and tell the truth...but don't bother arguing with me, as I'll likely not respond.

First, it's a simple mathematical fact that there is FAR more luck involved in a 5-game series, or even a 7-game series, than in winning a division. I'm disappointed that Luckyman would even dispute this, as I have great respect for his sabremetric abilities, and I know he knows this is true...even the stupidest managerial moves in a short series are easily overcome by a couple of lucky dice rolls.

Second, I think ET has been VERY lucky this season with his success in the playoffs. Not knocking his talents, but he's still been lucky as hell, as there are at least a couple dozen Tour managers at least as good as he is...even I left him in the dust in our Tour auction league. I also beat Luckyman in 5 games in the finals of another Tour league, but I don't claim to be a better manager than either of them. Luck will out. Even over a 162-game season, the same team against the same competition will typically win plus-or-minus 10 games over 10 sample seasons, based on luck alone...this fact has been well documented by simmers. That's a 20-win/loss swing potential in any given season, due to nothing more than dice rolls, with the same manager managing the same team against the same competition. Among the top managers, luck will determine the division winners more often than not, and in the playoffs luck will determine the winner WAY more often. In a typical playoff between good Tour managers, maybe 10% of the difference is skill, the rest is luck. There's just not that much difference in the skills of the top managers, and not that much a manager can do to overcome the luck factor.

Third, I agree with Teepack (and ET at least in part) that the fairest way to handle tour points is to count all events equally, allow the worst league to be tossed, and eliminate the "star" event bonus points. I'm guessing Cristano is mostly in agreement with this as well...?

Finally, my money's on Cristano to win the finals, unless I get there, in which case I've gotta be the favorite. I'm also guessing Cristano gets more than ET ever did.

:D

[Coffeeholic]

[quote:30df803e47="cristano1"] i pull more bjs than u can even imagine, so please...[/quote:30df803e47]

I knew there was a reason why you, giddyup and spiicki were so tight! :wink:

[cristano11]

haha u guys are all garbage...spicki is my brother, thats just wrong...and giddyup, hes just homely, so thats awful as well...
anyway, anytime anyone is in NYC, let me know...we can do a little draft...then hit the bars...u guys can show me how its done...

[Coffeeholic]

:D

btw, I don't have a problem "imagining" getting a lot of bj's... actually getting them, however, is another thing. :roll:

[teepack]

Nobody gets more than us married guys, let me assure you! Or maybe I'm just lucky and have a willing and hot wife.

Luck does have a lot to do with Strat-o, just like on poker. And I haven't had any luck this year! I've only had one Tour team make the playoffs, and that was my second round team. That team went the entire regular season, 54 series, without getting swept! And then what happens in the playoffs? I got swept by a team that I had beaten like a drum all year.

Luck also goes into play with your divisional assignments. How many times have you seen a team win its division with around a .500 record, and several teams with better records are left out? Maybe we should cut the bonus points down to something like this:

Division winners - 10 points
Wild-card - 5 points
Winning a first-round playoff series - 5 points
Winning the World Series - 5 points

The other thing we could do is give everybody who makes it to the postseason 2 points for each postseason win, plus the regular season division and wild-card bonuses. So it would look this:

Division winners - 10 points
Wild-card - 5 points
Winning a first-round playoff series - 6 points
Playoff losers - 2 points per playoff win (4 max)
Winning the World Series - 8 points
World Series loser - 2 points per WS win (6 max)

Another option I was thinking about was bonus points for teams that win at least 95 games in a regular season. We could make each win over 95 worth two points, so if you won 98 games, you'd get 101 Tour points! I just went and checked the Tour data, and there were only six teams that won more than 95 games in the first six rounds.

What do you think of these options?

[MARCPELLETIER]

Mesquiton,

1- what I am only arguing is that playoffs is not just about luck. I am not contesting that luck is part of it--luck is part of Strat everywhere--but playoffs are not 100%-driven by luck. I guess I could agree with cristano's last opinion that less additional points should be given for it, but I still believe that it should receive substantial points.

2- I also said that I disagree with cristano idiosyncratic decision that actual winning pct should decide who's the best. As I said earlier, I have experimented some new team formations in the two-three recent seasons, in order to settle on what to do with the last league. I have thus purposely lower my winning pct in order to prepare myself for the last league---I don't play in Strat other than in the Tour, except for a 200M league, so if I want to experiment, it has to be within the tour.

We said at the beginning of the season that the winner of the Tour would be the one winning the Final league, and I think that we should stick to this, and forget all about these crappy statistics (who cares about RS/RA anyway????). This is, at least, how I conducted my teams. There is a billion of things I would have done differently were the best coach be decided by RS/RA ratio.

[MARCPELLETIER]

In case you wonder, I like cristano a lot (bjs wise, particularly). I had a lot of fun during our exchanges in the league in which he finished with a better record than me (but we were both hammered by riggo's team).

I just think that he should act like a man, stop publishing crappy stats that don't mean a thing, and wait for the REAL season, when we will be between men :P so I can take my revenge upon him :mrgreen:

[cristano11]

bill james says that RS vs RA allows matters a ton, that it is the single biggest predictor of how good a team is and where it should finish, random variation removed...
i dont see how anyone who understands even elementary statistics can say that RS vs RA is a "crappy" statistic...

and for the record ET, we dont have the luxury of being "bobby cox"...bobby cox gets his team to the playoffs every single year...and that is 85% of a managers job...but in the playoffs, bobby cox can micromanage...we cant, all we can do is set lineups and leave it to HAL...so, real baseball, 3 out of 5 is a lot of luck...our baseball, 3 out of 5 with little control except setting rotation and lineups, a lot lot lot more luck...