The clubhouse revelry is over. All the Wolverines have gone their separate ways, ready for the long, darkening offseason, to be savored with family and friends. The clean-up crew has arrived to clear away the old detritus of the season and its celebration.
So here are a couple of housecleaning items.
Number 1: New Awards?
We haven’t made a practice of awarding in season awards, other than the league trophy. But why? Shouldn’t there be other awards? Here are a couple of ideas to start the brainstorming. You can respond with your own ideas, and add nominees, too boot.
- The Team of the Month Award: to the team which wins the most games each month.
- The Dipoto Award: to the owner who makes the most transactions. This year that would be Jamie Johnson.
- The Wait ‘Til Next Year Award: The team most likely to win it all in 2024 (current champion excluded).
- …
Some of these awards would be in-season (like the Team of the Month, probably doomed to be shortened to The TOM Award). Others would be handed out at the end of the season, or at the Winter Meeting.
Number 2: The offseason draft order:
Number 3. The standings had we just paid attention to season rs/ra:
Here are our official standings as announced yesterday:
| Old Detroit | 94.6 | 67.4 | 0.584 | 0.0 |
| Flint Hill | 91.6 | 70.4 | 0.565 | 3.1 |
| Pittsburgh | 91.1 | 70.9 | 0.562 | 3.6 |
| Salem | 86.7 | 75.3 | 0.535 | 7.9 |
| Canberra | 84.4 | 77.6 | 0.521 | 10.2 |
| Haviland | 83.6 | 78.4 | 0.516 | 11.0 |
| Portland | 83.6 | 78.4 | 0.516 | 11.1 |
| Peshastin | 82.7 | 79.3 | 0.511 | 11.9 |
| Kaline | 72.0 | 90.0 | 0.444 | 22.6 |
| Bellingham | 68.5 | 93.5 | 0.423 | 26.2 |
| D.C. | 59.2 | 102.8 | 0.365 | 35.4 |
Here are our standings had we used raw rs/ra (regardless of the opposition):
| RS | RA | DIFF | Pro W | ProL | % | GB | |
| Flint Hill | 879.6 | 716.5 | 163.2 | 97.4 | 64.6 | 0.601 | 0 | |
| Old Detroit | 804.6 | 674.0 | 130.6 | 95.2 | 66.8 | 0.588 | 2.2 | |
| Pittsburgh | 786.4 | 697.4 | 89.0 | 90.7 | 71.3 | 0.560 | 6.7 | |
| Haviland | 827.9 | 740.4 | 87.5 | 90.0 | 72.0 | 0.556 | 7.4 | |
| Canberra | 807.8 | 745.0 | 62.8 | 87.5 | 74.5 | 0.540 | 9.9 | |
| Salem | 835.8 | 791.2 | 44.6 | 85.4 | 76.6 | 0.527 | 11.9 | |
| Peshastin | 785.8 | 811.4 | -25.6 | 78.4 | 83.6 | 0.484 | 19.0 | |
| Portland | 783.5 | 813.3 | -29.7 | 78.0 | 84.0 | 0.481 | 19.4 | |
| Bellingham | 596.5 | 744.0 | -147.5 | 63.4 | 98.6 | 0.391 | 34.0 | |
| D.C. | 704.9 | 883.4 | -178.5 | 63.0 | 99.0 | 0.389 | 34.4 | |
| Kaline | 637.7 | 802.5 | -164.8 | 62.7 | 99.3 | 0.387 | 34.7 |
It’s not like I am insensitive to the unfairness on display. I admit Flint Hill was the better team this year. (And I admit: the race for the first draft pick would have been super-dramatic.)
But our experience does better resemble life in MLB.
Consider the MLB final Wild Card Standings, with the two leagues merged:
| Atlanta | 104 | 58 | 0.642 |
| Baltimore | 101 | 61 | 0.623 |
| LA Dodgers | 100 | 62 | 0.617 |
| Tampa Bay | 99 | 63 | 0.611 |
| Milwaukee | 92 | 70 | 0.568 |
| Texas | 90 | 72 | 0.556 |
| Houston | 90 | 72 | 0.556 |
| Philadelphia | 90 | 72 | 0.556 |
| Toronto | 89 | 73 | 0.549 |
| Seattle | 88 | 74 | 0.543 |
| Minnesota | 87 | 75 | 0.537 |
| Arizona | 84 | 78 | 0.519 |
| Miami | 84 | 77 | 0.522 |
Yeah, Seattle doesn’t belong on this list. Already a bug in the system. Now let’s look at how these teams would stand if MLB only considered rs/ra:
Nw we can see that Baltmore got boosted 5 places in the rankings compared to how it would have done on pure rs/ra. Miami got into the playoffs ahead of 9 better teams. Arizona leapfrogged 5 teams. Seattle got shafted, as did San Diego and the Cubs.
