The New Math

For those of you who labored through my Math for Winners posting, I've got one minor update..One thing that you need to factor in is also the competitiveness of the league. Over the years, as the faces of the UPL have become more consistent, we've had more competitive leagues. In the early years of the UPL, it would be pretty common place for teams out of contention to stop checking their team. But the last few years, particularly in basketball, owners out of contention have been updating teams. The net result should be that points are harder to come by in recent years than in years past.

I think that the trend started in 2005 Baseball, coming off of 2004, when we had some messy situations, partially based on me running away with the league, and partially based on some UPL first-timers (and only-timers) getting annoyed in June, and trying to dump their players. Unfortunately, in 2004, the Commissioner Tools were a little more rudimentary, so there couldn't be much done. But as we started putting in measures in place to prevent things that would disrupt the league, things stabilized, leading to a relatively tight race in 2005, even with a couple teams giving up early.

But what really helped this trend was 2006 Basketball, when Chowtime (in 6th place) went something like 24 out of 25 from the free throw line on the last day of the season to break a 7th place tie (out of 8 places). The loss of that half point put me into a tie w/ C-Lauff, giving him his first UPL championship, and annoying me to no end. Since then, we've had more teams play out the string, leading to fun happenings on the last day of the season, including another tie for the championship in 2007 Baseball with me and Greg, as well as Westy being knocked off the medal podium the last 2 years running by Chowtime. Come to think of it. Chowtime is become a last-day marvel, changing medal counts for the last 3 years.

In any case, what does this do to the math?

It seems that the requirements for victory are a little less stringent. So, instead of needing 85% to lock and 80% to have a good chance at victory in baseball, maybe the numbers shift to 82% and 77%, or maybe a 4.5 point shift downward, making 111 points your victory target, which seems to be holding form so far in 2008 Baseball. And a similar adjustment could be made for basketball, as well.

So what does this mean?

A couple things. First, more strategies become viable. Since the loosened requirements allow for more paths to get adequate points. However, the execution of any given strategy becomes harder, since each category becomes more competitive, top to bottom.

I also believe that this leads more of an emphasis on expected value for teams in the upper half of the league, rather than variance (or "upside"). In the past, you could get away with taking flyers on more players, since you knew that the downside wasn't going to hurt you a lot, since a bunch of teams weren't going to compete.

Let's look at two scenarios.

Scenario A: Let's say you're in 2nd place in a category, say OBP, 10 points back. You're also 10 points up on the team in 3rd and 15 points up on the team in 4th. If you pick up a guy who could improve you by 10 points, or drop you by 3 points, you pick him up every time, since the worst case scenario just closes the gap between 2nd and 3rd, but the best case scenario could get you into first.

Scenario B: You're still in 2nd place, but only 3 points back. But, 3rd place is 1 point back of you, 4th place is 2 points back, and 5th place is 3 points back. Same scenario. A guy is available who can get you 10 points, but may drop you 3 points. He may get you that extra point, but could cost you 2.5 points. Now, you have to think a little bit before you decide to take that chance.

Basically, as each category gets more competitive, then you see a closer bunching of the stats, toward the middle of the bell curve, if you will. So, small missteps when you're fighting for a points here or there are more costly than in years past.

What does this mean? Probably nothing for me, anyway. I'm comfortably ahead in the league standings right now, so maybe this whole competitiveness thing is overrated.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)