How to set-up a balance in Division (1 Viewer)

[bulldog_guy]

We have a 12 team league split into 3 divisions (4 teams each).

Each team plays the other teas within the same division twice. First 3 weeks and once again in weeks 11 through 13. The other weeks are inter-divisional games.

This means there are 8 inter-divisional team possibilities but only 7 weeks to play them. So, any one team will not play one other team from other divisions during the fantasy regular season.

Division winners get a bye in WK14.

The next 2 highest records, regardless of division, are wild-card playoff teams and play each other in WK14.

We use a snake draft order. That is, 1-12,12-1,1-12,12-1,etc.

I am trying to balance the division and schedule so that draft order will not cause any great advantage to deciding division winners. This, of course, does not take into account owner roster moves and ability to pick good players, etc.

The first question I have is how do you (or how would you) break the teams into division that gives the most competitive balance within the division.

Examples:

Would you put draft order 1-4 into one division together, 5-8 into the second and 9-12 into the third? Or

Would you put draft order 1,4, 7, 10 into the first division, 2,5,8,11 into the second and the rest into the third? Or

Some other idea?

The second question concerns the how to decide which two teams will never play each other during the regular season.

For instance, assuming divisions are made as 1-4, 5-8 and 9-12 (first example above) would you have teams 1 and 12 not play each other, 2 and 11 the same, etc?

If you can answer both questions and some reason why you feel a particular way, it would be appreciated.

I apologize if this is not the correct forum, but since it is a commissioner question and not an idividual team question, I wasn't sure if it should go here or The Assistant Coach forum.

 

[stugnut]

We have a similar setup and this is what we do:

1. Assign teams randomly to each division. For the two wildcard spots we use highest point totals. I would not worry about trying to "balance" divisions by trying to read the tea leaves of the draft order. The fact that you have two high point wildcard spots will do the division balancing come playoff time; good teams in "stacked" divisions will still have a shot at getting into the playoffs. We run a one round "draft" using this, and then assign teams 1-4 to Div 1, 2-8 Div 2, etc.

2. Instead of not playing 1 team we have a double header in week 13. We considered having a schedule where you didn't play one other non-division team, but we knew that some owners would ##### and moan about how they had to play the "toughest" team but Team X didn't and they got into the playoffs. The owners voted to hold the double header in Week 13 instead of Week 1 even though none of their studs would be injured in Week 1 (and they may be in the last week of the season) because having the double header at the end of the season brings a lot of excitement to the final week.

 

[Stinkin Ref]

we do a double header the first week after the bye weeks (week 11) to solve the issue of playing everybody.....each year our draft order is random....each year our divisions are random....both are drawn out of a hat one month prior to draft day...most owners like the luck of the draw to determine who they are in a division with....it kind of sucks to have it predetermined by your draft slot and really it doesn't have an affect on the balance of the league...I understand what you are trying to accomplish but that really is overdoing/overthinking it a little....you should be able to set your schedule (and most computer generated ones do it this way anyway) so that all your division games fall before or after the bye week, so owners have their full rosters for division games....

 

[JohnnyU]

Scramble Divisions each year

The odd number drafting team will be the Eastern Division and the even number drafting team will be the Western Division.

Each team still plays teams within their division twice. Games played outside the division is based

upon the standings of the previous year. Weaker teams get an easier 3 game schedule, better teams get a harder 3 game schedule.

1) First place teams play teams 1, 2, and 4 from the other division.

2) Second place teams play teams 1, 3, and 5

3) Third place teams play teams 2, 3, and 6

4) Fourth place teams play teams 1, 4, and 5

5) Fifth place teams play teams 2, 4, and 6

6) Sixth place teams play teams 3, 5, and 6

 

[GottaBohlieve]

We have 12 team league also. We use 4 three team divisions. That way everyone gets to play every other team. Week 14 top 2 teams get a bye and then other 2 division winners and 2 Wildcard teams play. Winners play the two teams with byes.

As for the divisions, in the past we drew division names out of a hat, which led to some seriously unbalanced divisions. We have changed some rules this year. This year we will be selecting our draft order in reverse order of finish (i.e. the team with the worst record will choose which slot he would like to draft from, and the team with the second worst record will then choose from the remaining draft slots, etc.)

We decided to allow the champion from last season to choose which division he would like to play in this season, and then the runner up will choose which division he would like to play in, until all the divisions are full. This will allow people to form their rivalries if they choose, or take the "easier" road (and take the crap from the rest of the league.) We will see how this works out, but these were our ideas.

 

[puckalicious]

We have 12 team league also. We use 4 three team divisions. That way everyone gets to play every other team. Week 14 top 2 teams get a bye and then other 2 division winners and 2 Wildcard teams play. Winners play the two teams with byes.As for the divisions, in the past we drew division names out of a hat, which led to some seriously unbalanced divisions. We have changed some rules this year. This year we will be selecting our draft order in reverse order of finish (i.e. the team with the worst record will choose which slot he would like to draft from, and the team with the second worst record will then choose from the remaining draft slots, etc.) We decided to allow the champion from last season to choose which division he would like to play in this season, and then the runner up will choose which division he would like to play in, until all the divisions are full. This will allow people to form their rivalries if they choose, or take the "easier" road (and take the crap from the rest of the league.) We will see how this works out, but these were our ideas.

Do you have some FF challenged owners? I can't see doing anything other than randomly choosing the divisions, or just assigning divisions based on random draft order. To me, if you use last year's standings for this year's draft then you are admitting that your league is imbalanced in the owner's FF ability.My main money league randomly selects a "pre-draft" order in which owners get to choose the draft slot they want. This pre-draft order also determines the divisons with spots 1-4-7-10 in division 1, etc. In 8 years we've had 6 different owners win (2 with 2) from virtually every draft spot. The only draft spot with 2 wins was the #7. (ETA: we use regular snake order)We have only 1 or 2 owners that are weak every year but they don't usually hang around for more than a couple years and they get replaced.I've grown to really like our schedule of 2 games against in-division, and 1 game against out-of-division over 13 weeks with 1 double header. Playoffs weeks 14-16. It's important to schedule the double header outside of bye weeks (either early or late) and against non-division, or at most only 1 in-division opponent to minimize the effect of a team blowing it up or stinking it up on division standings. I prefer the double header in week 1 or 2 since you'll be starting the players you drafted and nobody should be at a disadvantage from injuries.

 

[Mjolnirs]

I run a 12 team three division league. We play 14 weeks so the schedule works perfectly with everyone getting to play everyone else.

Many years ago we started rotating the division members based on the previous year's standings.

The three division winners and the top wildcard make up Division A. The second wildcard team will be in Division B. The remaining 7 teams are seeded for draft order 1 through 7 based on last year's record. Teams picking 1-4 are Division C and 5-7 fill the rest of Division B.

 

[Stinkin Ref]

I don't quite get all the love for trying to "balance the divisions", especially if it is a redraft......

 

[GottaBohlieve]

I don't quite get all the love for trying to "balance the divisions", especially if it is a redraft......

In every "casual" league (yes not every league is filled with Sharks) there are some people who put more time and effort into building their teams, and some people who enjoy playing the game but are not completely focused on it. In our league we all know who we are, and we are able to break up our divisions this way. But there are no guarantees as to how fair the divisions will be.

 

[Chief]

Bulldog, this is a great topic.

In our league, we have always placed the odd# draft order teams in one division and the even# drafting teams in another. For your situation just count off the teams like your elementary teacher did but in the order of the draft. So you end up with the following drafting teams in each respective division:

Div A: 1,4,7,10

Div B: 2,5,8,11

Div C: 3,6,9,12

I just happened on your post wondering about what happens when the NFL expands their schedule to 18 weeks or whatever they may decide. Then everyone has to rethink their schedules again!

 

[bulldog_guy]

Thanks all.

There are some great ideas here.

I'll put some of them to a league vote.

I especially like the double header in WK11 idea. Why didn't we think of this????

As for comments regarding the uselessness of balancing the division: I totally agree, draft order doesn't seem to matter. All I am trying to do is to eliminate any potential complaining. By having a thoughtful logical reason for grouping them together kinda fizzes out the crybabies.

Thanks again guys.

 

[Redgun]

By draft order

Div 1= 1,4,9,12

Div 2= 2,5,8,11

Div 3= 3,6,7,10

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

By draft orderDiv 1= 1,4,9,12Div 2= 2,5,8,11Div 3= 3,6,7,10

To be completely balanced (assuming 1>2>3...11>12) I would think you'd do thisiv 1= 1,6,7,12Div 2= 2,5,8,11Div 3= 3,4,9,10

 

[houndirish]

I tend to agree with Pasquino's thinking on the serpentine assignments of the divisions in redraft.

Divisional strength/weakness has become a big controversy in my league. It's a dynasty format so there is no assigning of divisions on an annual basis. Our divisions were set with our initial draft order and have stayed that way for 5 years. I've recently fielded a lot of criticism from owners who feel they have a larger mountain to climb than others. I'm not in favor of the annual reshuffle but I'd be curious to hear if there are any dynasty leaguers who change the divisions on an annual basis and what the justification is for doing so.

One more thing Bulldog ... our league size and division layout is identical with 6 divisional games and one "missed" opponent every year. I've tracked the missed opponent every year in an effort to ensure owners don't replicate the miss. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about how this will effect the perceived fairness of the schedule since there's no guarantee of who will suck versus who will excel. For as much as guy's in my league like to complain, they've never made an issue out of this.

One suggestion I might give to you is to have one set of divisional matchups occur in non bye weeks while the second meeting occurs in bye weeks. I think this is a truer test of the relative strength of teams as it really puts more pressure on bench strength. We've been doing since inception and it's never gotten any static from the owners.