Awesome job on this. Doubtless a lot of tiedeous work went into it.
Thanks. I thrive on tedium.
Awesome job on this. Doubtless a lot of tiedeous work went into it.
I was planning on using Plan 2, as it seems the most awkward (and therefore interesting): Minnesota stuck in the East, while most of the "Black and Blue" Central we know from OTL gets shoved West with LA and SF, and Dallas gets to completely dominate a division consisting of itself, the Falcons, Cards, and Saints.
So far I'm through the first year. No huge changes: the same teams that went to the playoffs from 1970 in the NFC still go, but with different results: we see Minnesota playing Baltimore in Super Bowl IV.
Wow. This is an impressive body of work. Congratulations.
My one question is with the intangibe mechanics of this scenario. Obviously, I haven't reviewed the actual math behind it, but the model that you use seems very good. But the question underlining this is how long the model can be effective using OTL results. Quite simply, the butterflies are going to impact things a lot. Different clubs are going to have more or less success, which will directly and indirectly impact things like player movement. Different personal means different players reach the top, and in some cases do so with different teams.
Some examples. Let's look at the Boston red Sox. From what I can tell, they do rather well up until 1920, but they don't have nearly as much success as they had in the same timespan IOTL. This has a lot of potential ramifications. We may never see the Curse of the Bambino, with the red sox never trading away their stars, or simply developing more slowly, becoming a dominant team after Murderers Row declines. Or the Sox teams in the 1940s. they had some potential, but that was interrupted by the Chaos of the war years. After the war, they looked like they were going to be the team that ended Boston's title drought, but a run of bad luck (injuries to the pitching staff which never truly developed; a Lou Bordreau foul called as a homerun, which caused a playoff for the pennant won by Cleveland (Denny Galehouse?!?!?); losing on the last day to the Yankees in 1949, etc...). This is a team which could have easily won the world series, or at least appeared, with a little more luck (in fact, noticed that they do win in 1946). Butterflies in ownership may mean that the club doesn't keep its doors closed to african american players in the 1950s, which could mean people like Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays playing in fenway.
Or the Seattle Pilots. After a half-century of butterflies, they don't necessarily need to fold after their first season and migrate to Milwaukee. One wonders what would happen if Seattle stays put, and baseball never comes to Milwaukee.
In short, I love what you have done here, but I don't know if it is useful as anything more than a vague guide as to what an earlier division system might result it.
Are you keeping the same season records for each team but just switching the divisions around? That makes things a lot simpler. How do you determine who wins each playoff game?
Yes to the first question.
For the playoffs:
1. If the playoff game happened in OTL, than I select the OTL winner.
2. If the teams met head-to-head in OTL, I select the winner of the OTL game.
3. I compare the road record of the road team to the home record of the home team, and select a winner that way.
4. I compare the average of points scored per game vs. points allowed per game. If hypothetical Team A scores 24 points a season and gives up 20, and Team B scored 22 points a season and gives up 16, then you could "guess" that A would score (24+16)/2 = 20 points and that B would score (22+20)/2 = 21 points. I would select B to be the winner.
If 1 doesn't take place, I give a 33% weight to each of the three other methods, and see who comes out ahead.
24 points in one season? Sounds like the Detroit Lions.![]()
I like your method. It's definitely easier to work with than mine. Are you keeping the divisions in the AFC the same as in OTL?