bukie

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:E5AI0_fmk-h-TM:http://www.hitsof90.com/avatars/thriller2.jpg

I was wondering what you'd come up with, and you didn't disappoint. You never know, my team with Theriot, Figgins, Roberts, Bourn, and the rest of the speedy grit squad could end up looking a lot like the 2010 Cubs.

I could just see the Cubs going after Chris Young. Fast, toolsy, good fielder, hits well against the Cubs.

Fine by me, but you do have to actually put him into the starting lineup to make him count. :) meh, didn't matter. Congrats on the win! Thanks, barring some kind of 5 granny performance from Pujols. :) Finals matchup everyone was predicting at the start of the season, SABR vs. the Sanitizers

Fine by me, but you do have to actually put him into the starting lineup to make him count. :)

It absolutely does not make a mockery of a the 162, it emphasizes the importance of the 162 by rewarding you for winning your division. Right now, September is meaningless. It doesn't matter if you win the wild card or your division. The 1 game playoff is part of the playoffs. Baseball playoffs consists of series because teams have rotations and not just one starting pitcher. If you have to have the play-in, then I suggest a three-game series (MON-WED) in the park of the team with the best record. Start the DS on Thursday (#2 DW vs. #3 DW) and Friday (#1 DW and WC). Let the team with the best record play the wild-card winner, even if they are from the same division. The point of the one-game wildcard playoff is to throw off those teams' rotations and make it more difficult for a wildcard team to make the World Series.

What's really depressing is that's essentially saying the chances of both the Cubs and a team ahead of them playing well enough to stay ahead of them are about as good as the chances of the Cubs making the playoffs in any scenario.

Z - Zany antics on the mound A - A-hole to teammates when they make mistakes behind him M - Massacred a Gatorade machine B - Breaks his bats over his knee when he strikes out R - Rude to reporters when they ask him about being traded A - A-hole to teammates when they make mistakes behind him even more N - No control over his arm slot or velocity when the situation gets tense O - Oh yeah, and he also plays soccer, softball, and goes to water parks

The Cubs playoff odds are up to a whopping 2.5%, which is the highest they've been in 2 weeks. They are also the 8th highest in the NL, behind St. Louis, Philly, LA, Colorado, San Francisco, Atlanta and Florida. If they can somehow get to a 1 in 5 shot or better, then they have a realistic shot. Keep in mind, the Giants are 2.5 back and they don't even have a 1 in 5 shot.

Pipe dream scenario: Move Houston to the AL west (natural rivalry with Texas, similar intradivisional travel overall, yes the trip to Seattle will suck, sorry). This creates 6 divisions of 15 teams each, forcing at least one interleague series each week. On average, there are 54 series in a year (54 * 3 = 162), so there will have to be at a bare minimum of 11 interleague games per team. To make the most balanced schedule that still focuses on games within the division, this is what I would suggest: 16 games with each divisional opponent: 16*4 = 64 8 games with each league opponent outside the division: 10*8 = 80 3 interleague games with each team in a division that rotates every year + 3 games vs. interleague "rival": 6 * 3 = 18 64 + 80 + 18 = 162 This way you still get twice as many games within the division as outside the division, you get enough interleague games to spread out over the season while still having the ability to set up a "rivalry weekend" where every team plays their rival in an interleague matchup. Every team plays their rival at least 3 times a year, and in a year they play their rival's division, they even get a home and home with them. The schedule is completely balanced within the division aside from the 3 rivalry games and home/away differences. It may appear to cause an increase in 4 or 2-game series (as each divisional series has 4 odd games and each interdivisional series has 2 odd games, making 36 games per team that don't fit into traditional 3-game series), but actually there would be less need for those series, as the Cubs are scheduled to play 42 games this year in such series. As the playoffs go, I am also in favor of the extra wildcard team with a single wildcard game, although it would create an interesting scenario if 3 teams tied for a wildcard spot.

Yeah, nobody would try ranking baseball teams based on computers after 2 game, why would you do that with college football? Well, since the college football season is only 12 games long, more than 15% of the season is already over. It's more akin to ranking baseball teams after April. Still of limited use, but at least it offers as objective an analysis as is possible at this point.

The Elo rating is based solely on whether a team wins or loses. Therefore, it's more a measure on who has the best wins. Miami has only one win as a sample size over what is ostensibly a top-40 team, which at this point in the season is better than the vast majority of other teams' best wins.

Because until all teams are connected, he makes use of results prior to this year to connect the teams (i.e. the Bayesian process). Thus, ratings are generated from past results to connect teams that are not yet connected from current results.

I mean, the guy played soccer, softball, and went to a water park. I don't think you can get any more unprofessional than that.

Why is BYU a better team than Virginia Tech? Because they performed better in two wins versus comparable opponents (SOS 34 vs. 39) than VT did in a win and a loss. Why is Oklahoma rated better than Alabama? Because they performed better in a win and a loss versus somewhat comparable opponents (SOS 60 vs. 47) than Alabama did in two wins. And yes, winning by 50 makes more of a difference than winning by 23, even with diminishing returns awarded for higher margins, as Sagarin uses. There is currently a very small sample size, and not every team is connected yet (meaning there is a way to link every team to every other team through games played), so there are obviously going to be more flaws in the ratings early than as the season progresses. I'm sure the system also doesn't take into account that, for example, Oklahoma's QB is out the first half of the year, so those results will be affected as such. At this point, even one week's worth of results adds an additional 50%+ of results to the current set of data (since there are at most 2 weeks of results for teams at this point), so the ratings will continue to fluctuate wildly from week to week, even to the end of the season. To me, though, even with its limitations, it's still a better gauge of current results than the human polls, which rarely take actual results into the voting.

I disagree. At least that's actually based on the results on the field, and not some imaginary level of competency assigned to a team in the preseason. For the first few weeks of the season, the starting ratings have weight in the process http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt09.htm Maybe by the end of the season they will be better, but not right now. Alabama beat Virginia Tech by 10 points and then beat FIU #113, by 26 points. Oklahoma lost to BYU by 1 point and then beat #151 by 64 points. So OU's win over a crappy team by 64 points outweighs Alabama beating the #12 team by 10 points enough to cancel out the loss to BYU? Since BYU is a better team than Virginia Tech, yes. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a better measure than human polls.

Ohio State won by 4 and lost by 3, if scoring margin is all that matters how do they rank 4? By taking into account opponents scoring margin and opponents' opponents scoring margin. Their strength of schedule is measured higher than any other top 50 team at this point by playing two quality teams to this point.

I disagree. At least that's actually based on the results on the field, and not some imaginary level of competency assigned to a team in the preseason. If on-field results lead you to believe that Virginia Tech or Missouri are top 20 teams right now, then your system is wrong. If on-field results lead to Miami being a top 10 team, the system is wrong. No, it just means the system disagrees with common perception. Except with Virginia Tech, which is a top 20 team everywhere except apparently in your mind. The points system is by far the more accurate of the two, as the inability to take margin into effect severely limits the accuracy of any analysis.

I disagree. At least that's actually based on the results on the field, and not some imaginary level of competency assigned to a team in the preseason.

Because I hate the human polls at this point, here's the top 25 according to Sagarin, two ways: 1) Pure Points (where scoring margin is all that matters - also the best predictor of future results, in general): 1. USC 2. Oklahoma 3. BYU 4. Ohio State 5. Texas 6. Boise State 7. LSU 8. California 9. Penn State 10. Alabama 11. Florida 12. Virginia Tech 13. Nebraska 14. Notre Dame 15. TCU 16. Tennessee 17. Missouri 18. Iowa 19. Michigan 20. Clemson 21. South Carolina 22. Arizona State 23. Oklahoma State 24. Auburn 25. Oregon 2) Elo-Chess (where only winning and losing matters...i.e. the BCS version): 1. USC 2. Boise State 3. Alabama 4. Ohio State 5. LSU 6. BYU 7. Utah 8. Miami-FL 9. California 10. Oregon 11. Houston 12. North Carolina 13. Missouri 14. TCU 15. Oklahoma State 16. Georgia 17. Virginia Tech 18. Georgia Tech 19. Texas 20. Florida 21. Wisconsin 22. Arizona 23. UCLA 24. Michigan 25. Baylor

That Niemann start is going to end up killing me. Even 10 points out of him and I'd be up 40.

Big day for me with 3 starts. Could use a good hundred point day to at least make it tough.

Well, here's hoping I can somehow beat Tim's team 3 times in a year.

And now you've done it.

Half the teams don't play anybody until then. We'd basically end up with the preseason preview magazine polls restated, minus any team that gets upset. Yeah, and I'm sure there would be many voters who had their own poll (or used the coaches poll) and adjusted it each week instead of assessing after 5-6 weeks. But at least waiting to release the polls would give the illusion that it's a bit more accurate. While I think that's the best way, I don't think there's a good way to run a sport based off of subjective opinions. Well, they used to run the BCS mostly off statistical analysis, but people's subjective opinions had their feelings hurt.