Friday, January 29, 2010

Winter 2010 Conferences Announced

As debated on this very blog a few weeks ago, our league is dividing into two "conferences" (we can't call them divisions) for the upcoming season.  There was a lot of discussion surrounding how to separate the teams, with no clear-cut perfect method. Personally, I think the entire league dropped the ball by not splitting the league by the "would you sex them" binary scale rating of all girls per each team. Next season, my offer will still be on the table if you want to make this happen.
Anyway... AlcoTyrus decided to do something unique and have a random draft order select the conferences.  On paper, this doesn't really seem like a bad idea at all.  Each team received a number between 1-16, which then determined the order that they chose a conference.  But just as the BCS works out every now and then in selecting the top two college football teams... it also tends to fall apart when certain variables are in play.  The variables that killed Ty's method were:

1) Balls and Dolls getting #1 (a team most people don't want to play) 
and
2) Ligers getting #2 (a team most people do want to play)

After BnD signed up for conference A, it was a no-brainier for Liger Captain Chris to insert his team into conference B.  Team Fabulous was up next... and again... seems logical to prance their way into B.  Selection #4 belonged to the Alcoballics, who love themselves some Ligers, and decided B was more enticing.

It was at this point in which the room realized we had a problem. After Thee Beer Nuts followed suit and joined conference B... who in their right mind would willingly sign up for A?  It didn't take long for representatives of the Hen House on Superbad and Pick Me Up to realize that conference B would be filled long before they even got to make a selection.  Michelle McNomNom laid 3 eggs in anger.

I really don't blame her. Hopefully everyone in attendance learned the simple mathematical concept that anything involving human choice is never random. We could do multiple mock-drafts and see the same result almost every time.  One conference will fill up much faster than the second, and the lower selections would be placed in the other conference by default. The social science aspect of it is quite fascinating. It wasn't until Off Constantly picked (at selection #7 I believe) that someone chose to play with BnD. Ty made the obvious corporate decision, which I'm sure is not popular with the PAL Parking Attendants on his team.

At some point during the process, Team Fabulous switched over to A, which defeats the whole purpose of a random draft order if you let teams move after conferences start filling up. This allowed the ToeJammers to debate and choose A giving the final spot in B to chant-less Pick Me Up.

So where does all this leave us? Probably with the exact same conferences we'd have if you let me divide them by female hotness.  BOOM!  I kid.  But seriously... next season it should be truly random.

Next week I'll breakdown each conference and provide an overall power ranking.

9 comments:

YellowBird said...

I agree that the ball was dropped. teams who got numbers 13-16 might as well just left the room and drank. This was a very easy thing to pull off. Just put 16 pieces of paper face down. 8 with As and 8 with Bs. Every team walks up and takes one. Totally random. No fuss.

But we didn't account for the "Tyrus Touch" and it quickly turned to poop, like most things.

Rob said...

Are you going to factor the RPI and VBDI rankings into your overall rankings?

Signed,
Divk Vitale?

Chandler said...

I might.

M. Gorecki said...

In the words of snookie from Jersey Shore "waaaa". No matter what system Ty came up with, someone is not going to agree with it. Did anyone speak up and object to it as he explained what the numbers that people had picked up and chose, the very FIRST topic of the meeting? No. It wasnt until we all learned that B-N-D was the first pick and walked up to write their name on it and we soon witnessed the next 6 or so teams write their name on the other side. Ty described his system as a draft and thats what he conducted.

Now I do not agree with (and didnt learn till now) that he allowed Team Fab to switch sides. Once you choose and a team after you choses sides, that should be final. I think Team Fab is confused about alot things given they continue to "choose" to wear pink. Do they even know shirt colors are chosen based on seniority?

So anyways, the point of me posting was not to go on a TY-Raid (bud dam dum) but to ask if someone can post what teams are in what divisions... If you need help these are the ones i remember...

Conf A:
Balls N dolls
Toe Jammers
SuperBad
Team Fab
Off Constantly

Conf B:
Ligers
Alcoballics
Beer Nuts
I'd Kick That
Yeagabombs
Pick Me Up

??
Camel Toes 2.0
Dollar Wells
Playground Bullies
Shockers
Wakashame

Chandler said...

Mike...

First of all... click the link for the Winter 2010 Standings on the right side of the blog to see the divisions.

As for the rest of what you said, I do agree with you. I'm really not trying to "pile-on" Ty. What he set up sounded fine on paper as he described it. It's not until we were into the exercise that it occurred to us there were flaws. Trial-and-error is ok with me, especially for one season. As I mentioned, the social-science aspect intrigues me.

It would have been interesting if #1 and #2 were reversed, and if BnD signed up for whatever league the Ligers were in. Would teams follow suit? Or join the other conference to avoid BnD? We may never know...

Florian said...

How are the conferences organized in the standings page, by projected finish? I hope not since we are last in our conference then. lol

M. Gorecki said...

Thanks for the link chandler. i didnt think to click the standings link as it shows the standings at the bottom of the main page and they arent divided out yet. Way to "TY"things together ty!

And i signed our team name to your conf cause we want to play you and didnt get the chance to last season. b-n-d handed us our first loss late into the reg season and then had the rematch with them in the semi finals. so we have a decent rivalry going and its been friendly for the most part. so im sure we wouldve signed our name right under b-n-d's if that reversed scenario played its way out.

Chandler said...

So you just wanted to hand us a loss then? Thanks.

And in my next post breaking down the conferences... I'll explain why there is a standings list NOT divided up. That is still in play this season...

RÜBS said...

i mentioned this way back, subjectivity would be the issue and its fun being right. you are all correct that not everyone will be happy with the system but a system with the least amount of subjectivity was our best bet. as proposed, odd and even ranked teams from the previous season. we the toejammers have a lot of friendly rivalries and I understand we have as a league grown to a level where we cant have every game we want. it is not ideal but it is fact. even and odd splits up the top and bottom fairly enough to set conferences and allows for movement every season depending on the strength of the league and your team. and yes at the meeting i did object and ty said that if this does not work this season that something different would be attempted next season. and while i understand he is doing his best to mange all our personalities, i do not understand how something that clearly went wrong cant addressed since the season has not started. so if one team can switch after this process was to be law then why not readdress the conferences before 2/11. WAKA is a business, if by some circumstance this conference process we attempted had cost WAKA money, i guarantee they would readdress it before the season started. so lets readdress it for the customer. honestly if this is the hardest thing we have to fix all season then thats a pretty lax season.