Open league alignment Topic

Isn’t it random?
11/20/2019 2:26 PM
That's been my experience, but I don't play in them much. Has that changed?
11/20/2019 4:05 PM
Yeah it's first come, first served basically. One division fills, then another and when the last division is full the league starts up.
11/20/2019 4:58 PM
Posted by italyprof on 11/20/2019 4:58:00 PM (view original):
Yeah it's first come, first served basically. One division fills, then another and when the last division is full the league starts up.
Right but they shuffle the divisions before generating the schedule. This has come up on a league message board; a couple of owners in that league, including one with long experience, believe it is not random and that some sort of algorithm for competitive balance is used. My memory from the early aughts is that there was no realignment at the time (nor was there even a wild card at first) and you would sometimes get RL friends trying to get into the same division. I did it once myself. You could try to enter at the same time as your friend or if you sent in a ticket they would place you as requested. I believe that a few owners complained about this; at any rate the site admins eventually announced there would be random realignment in open leagues. And that is the way I had believed it continued until now, which is what’s in question.
11/20/2019 5:20 PM
Answer to my ticket (sorry if it looks funny):

  • WhatIfSports Admin
Hi Bill,

Yes, open leagues are aligned randomly.

Thanks for playing on WhatIfSports.

11/20/2019 6:24 PM
I don't believe the realignment has anything to do with the competitive balance in a division, because sometimes in a division with two or three very experienced owners who have ten or more WS championships, and other times with maybe one owner who has won a championship. I believe it's totally random.
11/30/2019 10:37 AM
There are always people who think that WIS does funny stuff with their programming. Whether it's issues like this, or the fallacy that pops up every once in a while that they occasionally give you a "good" or "bad" version of a player. Or the one about WIS inserting streakiness (there is one owner in particular who won't shut up about this). WIS has been asked about each of these many times. Their answers have never varied. No, no, and no.

Safest assumption is this: WIS is honest with us. Their programming plays it straight and has no secret alterations. And (as in every other field of human behavior) we're all prone to seeking patterns in the data, and underestimating what randomness actually looks like - especially if it confirms our preconceived notions.
11/30/2019 11:35 AM
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Posted by bagchucker on 11/30/2019 1:24:00 PM (view original):
just goes to show you never can tell
A really nice version of the Chuck Berry classic. Thanks for posting that !
12/6/2019 1:33 PM
Regarding the dumping of a player who gets off to a slow start...the performance of the guy you pick up from the WW can only be compared to what the player you dumped would have done across the same time frame - which of course is unknown.

But i bring this up because in two leagues I am in currently, owners have posted about a dramatic turnaround of a player who started ice cold. In one league, 1964 Jim O'Toole in his first 8 starts was 0-6, 6.19. Since then he has gone 15-4 and has shaved 2 runs off his ERA.

In another league, 1981 Mike Schmidt started out (after 37 games): .204/.316/.415. We're now at game 90 and his season stats are .296/.411/.633.

Bottom line, the fact that you pick someone off the WW and he performs well is interesting only in the most trivial sense. You don't know how the guy you replaced was going to do over the same time frame. The best estimate of that is not "how he had played so far" but rather "what his underlying stats and performance history suggest is his typical performance." So to say "the WW works for me" is specious at best.
12/13/2019 8:43 PM (edited)
Don't get me wrong, because I truly understand your point. However, while I agree that I didn't know how the players I dumped WOULD have performed had I kept them (88 Rickey Henderson, hitting .230 with an .300 OBP at the time, and 15 Greinke, almost a 4.00 ERA). But what I DO know is that I was paying too much money for that kind of production, and that the players I got to replace them 23 Jim Bottomley (.357, .411 OBP and 77 RBIs in 110 games, and 64 Joe Horlen (13-3 with a 2.39 ERA) outperformed the guys I dumped and brought me back from eleven games behind and into the playoffs. So once again, while I definitely understand your reasoning, you can't argue with results, which is all I go by regardless of who the players may be.
12/16/2019 10:37 AM
Open league alignment Topic

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