Okay ... so full disclaimer ... I'm new here and so my experience/opinion should be regarded thusly.
With that said, I've completed four seasons and am close to wrapping up a fifth. Year one ... missed the playoffs by 2 games. Years 2 and 3: I clinched a playoff berth on the last day of the season. Year 4: Clinched the division ... on the second to last day. And this year .... with 16 games left ... I have a four game lead on the Wild Card spot.
In addition to these "exciting" finish to the seasons, there are a couple other similarities between these teams:
- Because of the last minute nature of the races, my players were fully utilized, exceeding allotted plate appearances by the standard 7-10 percent before it reduced their 100 percent performance level.
- I lost in the first round ... in each of the three seasons I made the playoffs.
- And most importantly, and relevant to this post, I was "randomly aligned" in one of the toughest if not the toughest divisions.

Frankly, I think random alignment in open leagues is lazy at best, negligent at worst and certainly reduces the quality of the game.
Because of "random" realignment, I've been in divisions where everyone had a very good career record (.550 or better) while I've seen others with every team below .500.
The problem is two-fold: obviously, if you are "lucky" enough to be the one competent team in a division full of newbies or guys with .400 win percentages, your path to the playoffs is easier.
But more importantly, once there, your players are MUCH more likely to be fully rested if you won your division by 30 games and you coasted the last month of the season than your opponents. This can be a major advantage in the playoffs.
This could be an easy fix by using some formula of experience (games played), titles, and win percentage ... or at the very least ... align them by win percentage.

I'd like to hear others thoughts on this. Am I off base with this concern, or does it sound legit?

thats actually a great idea, if you aligned the divisions by some combination of owner rating and number of seasons played you'd definitely make open leagues a bit more manageable for new owners learning the ropes

I've seeded theme leagues before, though it wasn't an idea that was overly applauded or criticized.

I get frustrated with bad luck as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure it's any more fair to use a formula to distribute the divisions. As a more experienced player than you, does that mean I should aways get tougher divisional assignments? I would not be very happy with that. I've had my share of easy divisions where I barely win 80 games and win the division, and I've had my share of difficult divisions where I win 100 games and still miss the playoffs. Over the long haul, it balances out. We all tend to notice the times we get the short end of the stick more than we notice the times when the pendulum swings in our favor. Hang in there. You've done well for a relatively new player - this adversity is helping you to learn more quickly than most!

The problem is people who game the system as always. If teams are aligned by owners W-L record, every owner who wants to game it will keep changing their ID for the site to be in the weak divisions.

Random is fair.

Random is also real life.

The Patriots were quite fortunate that during their dynasty, the other 3 teams in their division, the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets, which if you don't count about a 3 year window for the Jets, were totally incompetent the entire time. They were essentially assured a division title every year, giving them a home playoff game and the inside track to a bye and home field throughout.

Also I remember in 2001 where the 2 best teams in baseball were both in the AL West, neither could beat the Yankees but that's playoff baseball for you.

I believe open leagues should be for newbies only. If you qualify for the Champions League you should play there.

Posted by fillies on 1/25/2021 7:27:00 PM (view original):
I believe open leagues should be for newbies only. If you qualify for the Champions League you should play there.

Overall, I agree, the problem though is how fast leagues fill. If you leave OLs to just newer owners, it could take weeks to fill a league and many would lose interest.

I’ve tried Hockey a few times and all but once I had forgotten about the team before the league started and by the time I remembered the league was 20-50 games in and beyond fixing. That’s not how you draw new people in.

A: The way to align teams isn't by experience, or even championships, but by win percentage (unless you wanted to create a formula that took all three into account.) You seed the divisions just like the NCAA seeds the basketball tournament brackets.
B: Using that simple win percentage, I don't think you could "game the system." Based on the scenario presented, one could argue that would actually hurt the "gaming the system" owner by creating new accounts so he'd be seeded as a newbie. If he's the newbie ... and you are seeding each division equally ... there's a very good chance he'll be the only newbie there ... guaranteeing he'll never be able to fatten up his win percentage on someone learning the ropes.
C: Random is not real life. Using your NFL analogy ... those divisions were set up geographically ... not randomly. You don't see the Patriots or Jets playing in the AFC West, or South, for a reason. Plus ... the division alignments aren't seasonal. They are constant. Rarely change.
In fact ... if what you were saying were true ... at the end of each season, the NFL would put all the team names in a hat and draw out the new divisions for the upcoming season. Can you image that? "And in the AFC South, we have Kansas City, Buffalo, Seattle and the Green Bay Packers. And in the AFC North, we have Jacksonville, the New York Giants, the Denver Broncos and ... the Houston TExans!"
Well ... that's kind of what we have here.

I like the sentiment of the seeded alignment, and it was brought up in another thread recently when Adam solicited advice, but the seeding is difficult to do without introducing multiple facets of gaming the system and ruining the enjoyment for others even more so. Random alignment balances out over time and with more teams. It's frustrating to be on the wrong side of random (I've had .700 W% teams finish 3rd in a division), but it's a laugh when it works in your favor.

With non-random-seeding, no matter how it's done, there will always be ways to game it.For example, with just W%, and your division is weak, you get the dual benefit of being able to throw games to preserve better seeding next time and resting your better players for the playoffs, and the extra benefit of having games thrown increase your opponents W%, thus hurting their seeding next time, and further increasing your odds of making the playoffs again with your next team. It was before your time, but it's like bringing back the fatigue strategy where owners intentionally lose games in the short term because it benefits them more in the long term. Not to mention, someone like myself is greatly benefited from the get-go with a W% based seeding because of all the test teams and failure league teams I run.

I'm not arguing in favor or against- but if the seeding were done like the NCAA tournament, having a higher winning percentage would be an advantage. There's really no way to 'game the system' to increase your winning percentage. Sure, you could find a niche theme league/cap level/cooking lineup that you dominate and keep fping back to to boost your winning percentage, but how many owners can actually do that? It appears that most of you assume non-ramdom realignment means there is a built in advantage for owners with bad winning percentages and a disadvantage for have a high winning percentage. I dont see it that way whatsoever.
in fact, it's the exact opposite.... And that said- newer owners or owners that need more time to figure out what works and what doesn't- may find it frustrating that they're ALWAYS is the division with the best or 2nd best owner in the league....

I understand the frustration though. I'm in a division right now where the 3rd place team in the division has the 3rd best record in the entire league. That sucks for him. If he were in any of the other 5 divisions, he'd make the playoffs- but he's not.

And while predictions don't aways come true, it was easy to predict that particular division was going to be a monster, just based on the owners.

I just played in a theme league where I was 87-75 and finished in last place. $hit happens.

In the other version of the same league, I'm 40-25, last place is 34-31 with a .629 expected win %. We knew when the season started it was going to be brutal, but that's life.

The bottom line to me is that WIS is essentially a math game, and there are some math geniuses on this site. If there's an algorithm to figure out and exploit, someone will do it, others will copy it, and it will get annoying. There's no way a newer player could know the history of the site and all the times this has happened, but it's happened a lot, and no one saw it coming ahead of time, or things would have been designed differently in the first place.

Never underestimate the power of math nerds in large numbers. Taking math out of it and leaving it to randomness is the only way to keep it fair.