One day on the "best of", no days on the "worst of", an overall record of about .500 and NO playoff teams. Talk about a mediocre performance. Good luck to all the teams still playing, sincerely.

As a heads up, I am updating the Google Sheet after every cycle. Column A in the Summary sheet now represents overall rank, including playoff points

Playoffs so far

Rank	Owner	Alive	Started	Points	80M	90M	100M	110M	120M	255M
-------------	-------------------------	----------	----------	---------	-------	-------	-------	--------	----------	----------
1	brianjw	4	4	32			7	7	13	5
2	discodemo	2	3	24	13		6	5
3	ozomatli	5	5	31	7		6	6	7	5
4	schwarze	4	4	25	6	7	6		6
5	buddhagamer	3	3	19		7	7			5
6	doctorcc	4	5	32	7	6	7	7	5
7	dougpalm	1	2	18				13	5
8	mildnhazy	2	2	12			7			5
9	jfranco77	2	3	17	5	7				5
10	calhoop	2	3	23		13			5	5
11	rbow923	1	2	12	7	5
12	Relkcirts	2	2	19				6	13
13	redwingscup	0	0	0
14	beauchamp	2	2	13		6		7
15	Fusion27s	1	1	6				6
16	frank_drebin	1	1	6	6
17	bighooze	1	1	5						5
18	jbohrman	0	0	0
19	magicdreamer	2	2	12	6		6
20	barracuda3	0	0	0
21	mllama54	1	1	13					13
22	batandball	1	1	6		6
23	charliembg	1	1	5						5
24	Jtpsops	0	0	0

schwarze and I have two Game 5's coming up in the pm2 cycle that may very well determine where we finish (4th or 5th)

Ummm... all four of my playoff teams are currently tied 2-2. Two of those teams started 0-2 (both vs ozomatli), one started 1-2, the other 2-0. So I could have anywhere from 0 to 4 teams advance. Let's just say I will either be in a great mood this evening, or I will be very p*ssed off. I would take 2-2 in those 4 games right now as my teams tend to underachieve in the playoffs.

If you come back and win both of our series, I will have a very real shot at going 0/5 in the LDS

good luck in our match-up schwarze!

As usual, playoff success is playing an outsized role in the rankings

Rank	Owner	Alive	Started	Points
-------------	-------------------------	----------	----------	----------
1	brianjw	4	4	45
2	doctorcc	3	5	50
3	discodemo	1	3	24
4	schwarze	2	4	40
5	ozomatli	2	5	39
6	jfranco77	2	3	24
7	dougpalm	1	2	18
8	mildnhazy	1	2	12
9	rbow923	1	2	18
10	buddhagamer	2	3	25
11	calhoop	2	3	24
12	redwingscup	0	0	0
13	Relkcirts	1	2	19
14	beauchamp	1	2	20
15	Fusion27s	1	1	13
16	frank_drebin	0	1	6
17	magicdreamer	0	2	13
18	bighooze	1	1	6
18	batandball	1	1	13
20	mllama54	1	1	13
21	jbohrman	0	0	0
22	charliembg	1	1	7
23	barracuda3	0	0	0
24	Jtpsops	0	0	0

With all but one LDS complete, brianjw and doctorcc are likely locked into the Top 2 spots. There's a great race for 3rd place, though, as disco, schwarze and I are currently separated by a total of 3 points.

ID		ROUND 2								PLAYOFFS			ROUND 1		OVERALL
Rank	Owner	80M	90M	100M	110M	120M	255M	Wins	Win%	Teams	Total	Rank	Total	Rank	Total	Rank
------	-----------------	-----	-----	-----	------	-------	-------	-------	-------	-------	------	------	-------	------	-------	-----
1	brianjw	86	78	94	98	96	97	549	0.565	4	47	2	697	1	945	1
2	doctorcc	92	91	89	94	84	71	521	0.536	5	52	1	678	2	912	2
3	discodemo	93	89	104	91	84	82	543	0.559	3	24	8	646	4	890	3
4	schwarze	90	91	96	80	90	80	527	0.542	4	42	4	641	6	890	4
5	ozomatli	89	70	101	90	90	93	533	0.548	5	45	3	618	9	887	5
6	jfranco77	87	90	88	87	77	84	513	0.528	3	32	5	642	7	866	6
7	dougpalm	83	85	84	96	94	78	520	0.535	2	18	12	637	8	857	7
8	mildnhazy	85	80	91	83	80	94	513	0.528	2	13	13	644	5	848	8
9	rbow923	91	88	73	78	80	80	490	0.504	2	19	10	667	3	843	9
10	buddhagamer	78	91	95	83	89	88	524	0.539	3	28	6	565	21	835	10
11	calhoop	63	100	75	83	89	85	495	0.509	3	25	7	570	18	805	11
12	redwingscup	74	85	85	77	83	80	484	0.498				607	11	788	12
13	Relkcirts	79	76	82	90	81	79	487	0.501	2	19	10	562	24	787	13
14	beauchamp	73	82	79	90	75	83	482	0.496	2	20	9	563	23	784	14
15	Fusion27s	77	82	74	86	76	75	470	0.484	1	13	13	591	12	779	15
16	frank_drebin	85	75	85	74	78	66	463	0.476	1	6	20	572	17	755	16
16	bighooze	78	78	59	79	77	89	460	0.473	1	13	13	564	22	755	16
18	magicdreamer	88	67	94	66	64	79	458	0.471	2	13	13	566	20	754	18
19	batandball	84	79	55	70	82	71	441	0.454	1	13	13	588	13	748	19
20	mllama54	77	79	62	67	85	75	445	0.458	1	13	13	579	15	748	20
21	jbohrman	77	64	82	73	76	87	459	0.472				574	16	746	21
22	charliembg	72	71	60	68	73	88	432	0.444	1	7	19	582	14	730	22
23	barracuda3	67	82	80	76	69	73	447	0.460				560	26	727	23
24	Jtpsops	76	71	57	65	72	68	409	0.421				566	19	692	24

Postseason bonus points have had an almost equally strong impact on each owner's overall rank as regular season results have. These numbers are combined Round 1&2. This is especially noticeable near the top of the standings, where playoff points come into play more.

Since the playoffs are much more luck-based, this is somewhat of an inefficiency within the tournament as it is currently structured, in my view.

Owner	Season Pts.	Season Rank	Playoff Pts.	Playoff Rank
-------------	-------------	-------------	-------------	-------------
brianjw	1117	1	179	1
doctorcc	1094	3	160	2
discodemo	1081	7	134	3
schwarze	1089	4	123	4
ozomatli	1095	2	103	7
jfranco77	1077	8	111	5
dougpalm	1085	5	90	8
mildnhazy	1084	6	86	10
rbow923	1067	9	109	6
buddhagamer	1052	10	66	14
calhoop	1005	14	87	9
Relkcirts	1015	12	54	21
redwingscup	1029	11	62	16
beauchamp	1007	13	58	17
Fusion27s	993	15	83	11
frank_drebin	983	17	58	17
bighooze	980	19	57	19
magicdreamer	980	19	57	19
batandball	976	21	67	13
mllama54	966	22	71	12
jbohrman	982	18	51	22
charliembg	961	23	66	14
barracuda3	990	16	17	24
Jtpsops	932	24	43	23

Season Corr.	Playoff Corr.
-0.952	-0.864

What do you guys think? Is the drama added by giving an outsized importance to playoff games/points worth the loss of having results that reflect who built the best teams?

I think about guys like justinlee_24, jmissirlis and barracuda3 who all were well within the Top 24 of Round 1 but missed out (or, would have, in 'cuda's case) on Round 2 due to bad playoff luck.

To me it seems like playoffs should matter and should be able to be the reason why someone does or doesn't make Round 2, don't get me wrong. My point is that the impact is too large with 31 possible points per team. Someone who builds the 10th or 11th best set of teams in Round 1 (as barracuda3 and jmissirlis did) should be playing in Round 2.

I agree. But I've historically had very bad luck in the playoffs (including this year in both rounds) so I'm not exactly objective. It is the same issue I face in the fantasy pools I'm in. Some guys like the reward to be higher for the winner of the playoffs because that is ultimately the way we reward teams in real life. No one cares who won the regular season title - just who won the world series. However, I am on the other side of this debate....I like the reward to be higher for the owner whose teams is best over the longer period of time - it minimizes the luck factor as much as possible which is ultimately what we should be striving for in this type of system. We should be rewarded only on what we can control which is building the best team at the outset to get as many wins as possible. Of course, some will say they build their teams specifically for the playoffs (ie. having 2 great pitchers vs spreading out the rotation).

Don't really know what the answer is but I wouldn't be opposed to changing the scoring in some way that is reflective of your performance over 162 rather than a much smaller sample size. This would include potentially looking at the luck of making the playoffs in general (such as being in a weak division - or missing out on the playoffs with the 3rd or 4th best record in the league). That may be too radical however.

There are definitely ways we could get very complex with how bonus points are awarded, but I think the simplest and most digestible approach would be to reduce the amount of bonus points available in the playoffs. How that would be structured exactly, I haven’t really thought about yet.

However, the point about building teams specifically for the playoffs (and likely intentionally sacrificing a few regular season wins) is valid and worth considering as well. Any reduction would need to not be drastic enough to dissuade this approach.

I will play devil's advocate...

1. The average playoff points is approximately 13.5 pts per team. If the average playoff team wins 90 games, that represents about 13% of the overall point total. Obviously, not all owners hit their average with such a small sample size (i.e., 2-4 playoff teams), which is why you will see big swings among various owners.

2. Typically, the playoff points only affects 2-3 teams with respect to getting into round 2. This year seems to be an outlier (5 teams affected). Also, the difference in regular season wins by somebody who moved up vs somebody who moved out is a coupe of wins per team (which is not statistically significant). calhoop was certainly an outlier this year.

3. The number of playoff teams also has to be considered. mllama54 had 5 playoff teams while bigmc had 2. bigmc won more regular season games (526-521). bigmc actually had better success in the playoffs (15 pts per team vs 11.6 pts for mllama54). The randomness of the playoff results did not affect who made it to round 2 in this comparison, but the randomness of the division alignment absolutely did.

4. Another thing to consider is how do people build their teams? I typically build my teams for the regular season (which is probably why my regular season results are better than my playoff results). I will often have 3-4 fairly equal starting pitchers, while some may draft 1-2 studs and a couple of crappy guys who won't start in the playoffs. If you devalue the playoffs, people will draft their teams differently.

5. What I see as the main problem is it appears that the sim playoffs seems to be way more random than real life playoffs. (I've not studied it, but it would be easy to prove if somebody spent time doing so). Part of this is due to zero home field advantage built in to the sim engine. In real baseball, there is a measurable home field advantage - more than simply drafting to your ballpark. I actually proved this to admin a long time ago (posted data in the old forums, so it's no longer available to read).

Instead of changing playoff points, what about adding bonus points for where you rank in terms of wins in your league? This has the effect of dampening the playoff bonus points while at the same time rewarding teams that got unlucky with division alignment.

Example
Team A wins 105 games (wins NL East)
Team B wins 99 games (finishes 2nd in NL East, gets wildcard)
Team C wins 90 games (finishes 3rd in NL East - misses playoffs)
Team D wins 92 games (wins NL Central)
Team E win 85 games (wins NL West)

Top 4 teams (based on wins) in each league get bonus points
#1 team in wins = 10 points (Team A)
#2 team in wins = 8 points (Team B)
#3 team in wins = 6 points (Team D)
#4 team in wins = 4 points (Team C)

So you get lucky and win a bad division (Team E), you get whatever playoff bonus points you can earn, but you don't get these additional points. Team C is unlucky to be in a tough division but gets some extra points for having a good record. You would apply this "wins ranking bonus" to both the NL and AL separately.

You can play around with different point totals to see what makes sense... maybe even apply these to this year's point totals to see what the revised standings would look like.

All it takes to skew it even more is for a few of the lower ranked owners in one side of a league to do the fatigue death spiral and completely artificially pump up an entire half of a league. Division alignment is also a huge factor as getting stuck in a group of death owners likely makes it very tough to get to the post season to earn additional points. I don't know why there was such a huge disparity in my first round performance vs. the second one with better competition (although I did allow my son justinlee_24 to build half my teams to offset his disappointing exit in round 1) so I can't say for sure what changes if any would produce more "fair" results.