Commish - type question (1 Viewer)

[turleyfan]

A league I am in grew too large a few years ago, so we separated it into two 12 team divisions, each with its own player pool. Ostensibly, these divisions are independent leagues until week 17, when the winner of one division championship plays the winner of the other for the big prize.

This year, one of the division championships ended in a tie. We don't have any documented rules about how to handle this, as, in five years, we've never had a tie in the playoffs before. The tied teams proposed that we allow both to continue into the week 17 finals, making it a three way matchup.

Pros - The tie is settled on the "field", not left to a commish / league vote decision on how to break it. Avoids arguments about the best way to break ties like this (bench points, overall season points, h2h, etc.)

Cons - One division champ now has to beat two teams to win it all, which seems unfair to that team.

Thoughts on this? Of course, going forward, we're going to have to add a rule for breaking ties, but in the absence of one, how do we do this fairly?

 

[5x champ]

That makes the winner of the other league (non tie) have to beat two teams to win it all. It can not be done that way.

 

[Ted Lange as your Bartender]

If i was the other division winner, I'd be incredibly annoyed at this "settle it on the field" BS, because through no fault of my own, I've gone from a 50% chance to win the title to only a 33% chance of winning. That's a ridiculously unfair swing in the odds.

I say for this year only, the higher ranked regular season team (i.e. the "home" team) wins the tie game. And then next year, work in a definitive tiebreaker procedure, including the implementation of decimal scoring if you don't already have it.

 

[Novice2]

Hope for a stat correction. If that doesn't happen then the higher seed advances. Unless the commish is the higher seed then the commish has to bite the bullet and let the other team advance.

 

[PatsWillWin]

This would be the absolute worst way to decide this tie because you are screwing over the other team. Any kind of tie-breaker, be it head to head, total points, higher seed, or heads or tails, should be preferable than this outcome.

 

[turleyfan]

Under discussion now is another possibility... to let the two teams do a mini-draft of one RB and WR each from tonight's game.

Due disclosure, for what little it's worth. I am the division winner these guys are trying to play against next week. Which means, first of all, I agree that allowing them both to advance is patently unfair. On the other hand, since I am directly impacted by the situation, I am not sure if I am capable of cold, unbiased neutrality on the question. Y'all are suggesting to me, by your responses, that I am not being unreasonable in asking them to work it out in some way.

 

[PoolShark]

I'll skip the part where any rational person would ask "How can you possibly run a league with no tie-breaking procedure for playoffs..."

I'll also go against the answer given in every reply so far... Whatever you were to use at this point to break the tie would be unfair. Any tiebreaker used at this point would favor one team over the other, and since it's being implemented "after the fact," it is inherently unfair. By choosing which tiebreaker to use, you are in effect choosing which team wins. (The only exception to this would be to toss a coin, which seems like a pretty lame way to decide who gets to play in the big game)

I assume there is money involved, since you mentioned playing for the "big prize." If that's the case, I think you should allow all three teams to play in the title game. My suggestion would be:

All 3 teams field a roster & play for the title. Whichever team post the highest score of the week is declared the "League Champion" for purposes of trophies, etc. However, any money involved should be split down the middle, with half going to the winner of A vs B1, and half going to the winner of A vs B2. This way, the team that won his division outright (A) doesn't have to outscore both co-winners (B1 & B2) to take home prize money.