sbrylski

Yeah, this actually is as hard as I was making it. And I lied about what I actually needed. I'm looking for an equation with asymptotes at y=x and y=20. I got as far as trying to use eigenvectors of (0,1) and (-1,-1) at the critical point (5, 20) and work backwards or something, but figured I was in over my head a little. I had a differential equations course, but it's been over a year and I hadn't used anything from it outside the class.

This should not be as hard as my brain is making it... I need an equation with no vertical asymptotes, a horizontal asymptote at y=0, and a diagonal asymptote at y=x-20. Can anyone help me out?

I'm planning for two cars and ten people to go to the April 15th game. I've never driven to Wrigley before... looking for any and all suggestions on where to park and what to do when we get there. Any bars that will shuttle us to the game?

Just a note that I'm disbanding this league due to sparse interest.

Wow, Yuku is incredible. Keep the stories coming, Casey, they are a "entertaining" read... and thanks for dealing with those clowns, that must be a tough job.

I agree with obsessed, but this did pop out my toaster this morning... http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/SheetsToast.png

Great idea, RFB. I'll be there, filling out a bracket is fun and easy.

True, we are restricted to the accuracy of the sample that can be generated in one Earth's trip around the sun. But that doesn't mean we can't optimize it. The current system is split in two... a very large sample and a very small sample and neither are generated fairly. Its also pretty silly that the very small sample ends up holding more weight. Using just one sample (winner of the regular season determines the champion) we've already agreed is the fairest, but unexciting. So we want a fair and optimized system with multiple samples of results. I'll say again that I know its not politically feasible, but my proposal tries to balance and improve upon each sample that is used to determine the champion. The "traditional" regular season is shrunk to make room for a longer second sample. (Though every team still plays 162 games each year.) Its also more fair because it uses a balanced schedule to generate the results. Next I had a second sample of results larger than the status quo's second sample. The participants are determined by our best possible estimate - the results of the balanced first 132 games. Both second samples are smaller than their respective regular season, but each win or loss is more meaningful because they're concentrating the best teams. But again, my proposal has a balanced schedule in this round as well, while the status quo of the LDS's are unbalanced, resulting in a fair estimate of who should move on. My proposal then has the third sample of the traditional tournament style playoff. Tradition takes over here just by keeping it, but also by not mixing the AL and NL to balance the opportunities of the remain four teams to advance. (Why should one team be forced to play the best of the remaining teams while the other two teams get an easier matchup - each other? Only reason here is tradition.) But I think the tournament is improved by lengthening both the LCS's and the World Series. I also tried to go further by carrying earlier results over into the LCS's to increase the sample size as large as possible, but I can see that idea losing people (the few that might still be following me anyway.) All three stages I believe to be improvements over the current regular and postseason stages. And by adding the extra round robin stage a more exciting and intense relay-race of a season emerges, rather than the marathon that exists currently (which has six unequal paths instead of one for all members, and the results of that marathon are thrown in a hat and then redrawn to find the "true" winner.) And bringing this full circle back to the issue in variance of true results no matter how you slice the six months - that is why 12 and not two teams (AL and NL) are advancing into the second season, and two instead of one are advancing from the second season into the tournament style finale. As a second chance, but earned fairly. Sounds more complicated than it is, I believe, and objectionable mostly because its a bit radical, but not on fundamental flaws. (Aside from the major political flaws that I understand exists, and the logistics flaws of short-notice scheduling as pointed out, though the logistics problem is not incredibly different than the one's faced by the current playoff system.)

... and I thought that calling a good game doesn't matter and the pitcher was always in control... I think, at least in my opinion, that the effect of a catcher's game calling ability is minimal is because there's a lot of conformity in the "proper" way to call a game. I'm no pitching coach, and if anyone has more insight I'd love to hear it, but I'd imagine you could write out a list of strict rules that dictate the consensus way to call pitches. (For example, after an up-and-in pitch, go down-and-away.) The current way to determine if a catcher is good at calling games is to determine how good he is at following those rules. In the end, you end up with a bunch of catchers doing the exact same thing. This may already be happening, or at least may be beginning to, but until catchers begin to utilize pitchFX data and statistically analyze the effectiveness of pitch sequences, those that do will begin to separate themselves and take their game calling effectiveness to the next level. It is in that transition phase (as eventually they'll all do it), that a catchers ability to call a game will differ enough from the next guy to make it a true asset. Of course I'm ignoring the effects of controlling the emotions of a pitcher, but that's harder to quantify. That would be an interesting study if one were to find a way to quantify a pitchers level of calm (heart rate sensor?) and find it's correlation to pitch effectiveness and pitch selection.

No you don't. You get the best team and three other teams that might be the next best three or might have benefited from unbalanced schedules. One of the division winners is the best team in the entire league. The other division winner is not guaranteed to be better than any of the teams in the other division. You can see this occasionally in the current setup. One of the divisional winners is usually not better than the wildcard, and if you dig through the past standings you can usually make a case for the wildcard runner up as better too. I don't like the wildcard because directly comparing teams with unbalanced schedules isn't fair. I may have just changed my own mind on the less divisions but keeping the wildcards. I'd rather have as many divisions as playoff teams and no wildcards, so at least we know that each team not in the playoffs is worse than at least one team in the playoffs, that team that won their division. So once the MLB finds markets capable of supporting two more teams, I would vote rather for four divisions of four teams in each league as my practical suggestion for improving the fairness of the postseason. (Btw, I'm getting to the point where I'll start shutting up and let the disagreements fall where they may.)

Just to sound not crazy, as I probably did for most of this thread to some of you - I do agree that going back to two divisions is a realistic proposal that I think is better than the current setup and would support. Doesn't really solve any of the root flaws I see in the status quo, but bigger divisions help.

Financially, it is an impossibility to go down to 132 games. The details are moot. Everyone still plays 162 games. It would also be a logistic nightmare to quickly schedule those last 30 games as far as travel, stadium use (for teams that share with NFL for example), etc... You likely wouldn't know for sure which teams would be in the top 12 and bottom 18 until days before the "second season" would start. There is a reason the full 162-game schedule is finalized months in advance. Great point. Maybe two-three off days would help, and the first half of the teams statistically eliminated could schedule homes games for that first week of September, so at least the time and locations of the games being played are determined in advance. But logistics nightmare is a good term for this. Ugh, no offense but this is a terrible idea. Why? I think the initial reaction to it is just because its different. At least part of it. The best I can get out of people is "they wouldn't do that."

Given its my thread, I'll address all the points... The problem with bashing the Wild Card is it ignores the fact that the divisions are unbalanced to begin with (which you did acknowledge). Saying "You have 162 games to win your division!", just ignores the basic layout of the leagues, and to be honest, just feels like something the old "traditionalists" would say without any solid reasoning behind it. I thought I laid out my reasoning. I can bash the wildcard because of the uneven divisions and unbalanced schedule - 2nd place teams can't be easily compared anymore because they had different competition. That's why the wildcard isn't a fair system and irks me, not because its traditional to not have it. A Brewers fan who hates the wild card. Fascinating. We owe a ton of excitement and optimism to the wild card. Do you remember who won the NL Central two seasons ago? It wasn't the Brewers. As I said in the lead post, excitement and fairness aren't mutually exclusive. We can devise a fair system that retains exciting baseball and a postseason. The Brewers could play just as exciting baseball under either system. The system I outlined above may be even more exciting - there's a postseason run in August instead of September, and then a month long set of very meaningful games if you finish in the top six during the "regular" season. Gradually narrowing down the number of teams (30 to 12 to 4 to 2 to 1) makes each stretch of the season more exciting because the gratification for winning comes sooner. To determine a true champion, there should be no wildcard, playoffs, or world series. It should just be the team with the bext record after 162 games. Takes all the postseason luck out of it. It would also be as anticlimactic, in most years, as any sport could be. I pretty much addressed this in paragraphs #3 and #4 of the lead post. Actually, if you really want to even things out, but still retain a playoff system, get rid of the leagues and divisions completely. Have every team play every other team at least once during the season. Implement the DH across all MLB. Then just take the 8 teams with the best records, regardless of geographic location, and pair them up in the playoffs (1st seed vs 8th, etc). But again, why doesn't the regular season decide the winner then? A 5 or 7 game series will end up trumping the past 162 games, just like our current system. Under my proposal at the top, it would be quite tough for a team like the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, barely above .500 playing most of their games within a weak division, to first make the second season, be top two over that month, win a long series over the other top NL team, and then win the World Series. I think my system is exciting, fair, and does a better job of advancing the best teams.

1) Yes, I do not think the Brewers should go to the playoffs. If the Brewers had the same schedule as the Cardinals, but a different schedule than the Giants, it is clear to me that the Cardinals deserve to be in the playoffs over the Brewers, but it is not clear that the Brewers deserve to be in the playoffs over the Giants - that's my point, six games during the regular season don't really say that much, I want to use large and equal samples. It's not even clear the Cardinals are the better team than the Giants. Given we are talking in extremes, what if the Cubs, Pirates, Astros, and Reds are all 30-132, but every team in the NL West has a winning record. Now is it clear cut to you? But note that not only did I say I don't like the wildcard, but I don't like divisions and unbalanced schedules either. It doesn't help competitive balance or fairness - I believe its actually unfair. In fact, I'll go as far to say its complicated (because its difficult to compare records across divisions and know who really is the best four teams) but not objectionable because its the status quo and known, whereas my suggestion is objectionable just because its different. (This last line here is in response to the "too complex" comments by Ennder and obsessedwithbrewcrew.) 2) You read it wrong - the top six from each league form an AL and NL pool. So there are 12 cities that are still fighting it out in September, and 18 that are playing out a meaningless month. And as I said in the lead post, this really isn't that different than it is in the current system. If we go to CoolStandings.com and look at the 2009 standings as of September 1st, these are each team's odds of making the postseason: Yankees - 99.8% Cardinals - 99.1% Dodgers - 97.9% Phillies - 97.7% Red Sox - 88.2% Angels - 86.3% Tigers - 67.8% Rockies - 55.4% Twins - 28.9% Giants - 26.1% Rangers - 25.3% Braves - 18.7% Rays - 6.3% Everyone else below 5%, 14 teams at 0.1% or lower. That's 13 teams above 5%, and the Rays can still barely be considered alive. So what's any different? In my proposal, you only have 12 teams in the race at September 1st as well. In fact, I'm able to argue my system produces more meaningful games around the league, because those top four teams are pretty much guaranteed playoff spots and would be playing meaningless games during September as well. EDITS: Grammar and a line or two of clarification.

1. I said it wasn't political feasible, this is meant to be a ideological discussion.2. There's still a set of 162 games that could be deemed the statistical season. Its just that the first five months is under a balanced schedule, and the next month is unbalanced with the best teams playing only each other to best determine the best two teams to play in the LCS.3. I think it sounds more complicated because I included that provision of carrying over the results. Really its not that messy. Just dividing the top six teams from the other teams for the last month of the season.

If the season is so long and grueling, why aren't the results trusted then? Why do we have to give a second chance out to the best non-first? Even if they're the second best team in the league, they lost to the great team fair and square. You can make a case for the other divisional leaders to have a chance to beat that great team, because of the unbalanced scheduling, but I don't see the case for why the 2nd place team should get another chance, other than it's more exciting for the fans. Exciting and fair are mutually exclusive. So I've said why I believe the longer the season, the less need for a wildcard. You didn't really make an argument for your point either. Why would a longer season require a wildcard? And I'm not advocating a two team postseason, if you read my plan right. I'm actually expanding it to six, lengthening the postseason, and shifting the first rounds to a round robin instead of tournament style. Maybe it sounds simpler in this format: 30 Teams - 132 game regular season over 5 months12 Teams - Two 6-team pool play over 5 weeks4 Teams - League Championship Series2 Teams - World Series

I hate the wildcard more than anything in the MLB today. You had one hundred and sixty-two games to demonstrate your team's ability. You shouldn't get a second chance for simply being a good second place team, and then have the subsequent 5-game series trump the previous 162-game season. Also, a four team division is ridiculous. Give me one good reason why one of those four AL West teams has to be in the playoffs every year. There isn't any. Unfortunately, I realize both are likely here to stay, and I don't really believe in the political feasibility of my ideas, but its fun to talk about. I probably come across above as beginning to advocate a balanced schedule, and the team at the top of the standings at the end of the season wins the league. I do believe that to be the fairest and most simple system, but I also believe its not exciting. Obviously what would happen is more teams falling out of the race by midseason, and almost all the teams are not playing for anything the last weeks of the season. In otherwords, more meaningless games. A league that does determine its champion this way is the English Premier League, however it derives excitement over fighting to not be demoted via finishing in the bottom three, and also making the Champions League by finishing in the top five, IIRC. The MLB has no prizes other than the winning the championship. So, I understand it is desireable to have more teams involved for a greater majority of the season. But to me the wildcard isn't the fair solution. For one, the post-season is too short to yield a meaningful result. It should be lengthened, if more teams are going to qualify. As a result, the regular season would end up shorter - however I believe this to be a positive as it lends credence to giving non-first place teams another chance. I would be in favor of something along these lines: No divisions, and a regular season of 132 games without interleague play, ending August 31st or shortly thereafter. After the regular season, the top six teams from each league form two postseason pools (AL and NL) and play a home and home series against everyone in their pool. The point here is to concentrate the top teams and have them duke it out over a more meaningful sample of games (30) during this "second season". Meanwhile, the other 18 teams can play out their remaining 30 games (everyone still plays 162 games) under the 40-man expanded roster rule. In the current MLB system, the bottom half of the league already plays out a meaningless schedule because they are already assured to not make the postseason by game 132 anyway. The only difference in this case would be that all of their last 30 games would be against teams that are also eliminated, so they will likely lose some attendance, but its not incredibly different. I would also advocate interleague play for these teams all in that month, to maybe keep some fans in the seats. But back to the teams that still matter... The top two teams from that five week, 30-game second season then play a long series. Maybe as high as to 10 wins, however, allowing their second season results carry over. So if the Cubs and Brewers were playing in the NLCS, but the Cubs beat the Brewers in four of their six second season meetings, the Brewers would have to win eight against the Cubs in the NLCS before the Cubs won six. What this accomplishes is, again, having larger samples determine the better team. I realize that carry over of some of the results might sound odd, but if you think about it, all the carry over games will have taken place in the past month. Some of the carry over games could have just happened last week. Therefore, I don't think it would sound so odd in practice. And lastly, a first-to-five game World Series, at the least. I think two, six-team, month long round robins would be very exciting. Think of the Caribbean World Series. Each game would have ramifications for all the other teams. Even into the last week, unless the 5th place team is playing the 6th place team, each game would likely be very important. And if there would be carry over of the results into the LCS, if a team locked up the top spot early in the second season, who they beat the rest of their games could really matter. Their fans would also be very invested in the outcome of the battle for 2nd place in the second season - they'll pull hard for the team they just beat five times to make the comeback and therefore give them a big leg up in the LCS. Also, despite the addition of the round robin, we don't lose the tournament tradition, as the final four teams play out the classic LSC's and World Series format. Best of both worlds. Your thoughts?

Interesting to see the varying opinions. They are very similar players. Its hard to have a firm opinion one way or the other.

I'm curious... what do butchers and convenience store owners have in common?

You know, I never understood this one. However, that didn't stop me from starting it in the second deck of the student section earlier this evening. Had a great time and let it all out in our last home game.

To be clear, I'm currently doing invites for a new league, not the keeper league.

Ha! Me too, Conor!

I wouldn't want to see it fold, but like I said above I kind of dead-beated on it because I hate the tedium of necessary daily lineup changes. I'll invite you.

No joke, I had a dream last night that all the Arizona Fall League teams joined the Big Ten, and they played their home basketball games at my old high school with each team having a section of the stairwell for a locker room.

The short track was nuts... Ono making his move but hitting his skate on the other guys arm and stumbling back to fourth... the three Koreans in front, and then two going down in the final turn. My friends and I jumped out of our seats at that.