...for a rate of 25.4%, up from last year's 22.9% (282/1230).
League-wide, 282 extra points were dumped into the standings in 2008-09 by contests tied after regulation, for 9.4 extra points per team. In a league where 16/30 teams make the playoffs, one can reasonably predict the cutoff for points necessary for qualification as simply 82+the average extra points per team. Last year, 91 was sufficient for Anaheim, but Florida got hosed despite having 93, losing the tiebreaker to The Team From Québec Who Shall Not Be Named.
At this year's 25.4% overtime rate (assuming it persists), we can expect about 312 extra points to end up in the standings by year's end, or 10.4 per team. This suggests that the playoff cutoff will be 92 or 93, with 95 being a virtual lock (somewhere, Andy Murray nods).
Achieving 95 points simply involves reaching +13 in the W/L columns regardless of how many OT points are earned. The Kings currently stand at +5 through 23 games, which projects to +18 (for a nice round 100 points overall). So on the one hand, we could say they only need to go +8 through the last 59 games to reach +13 and make it in, but much more satisfying is seeing that the current pace is more than enough for second season hockey to return to the Staples Center. Should Smyth's and Scuderi's absences knock the Kings off that pace for the second quarter of the season--let's say they only break even in the W/L columns and find themselves still at +5 around the end of the year--they would still be on pace to reach +12, which may very well be enough but is at least a couple points from safe.
We all know that the key to this is for Frolov to simply go to the net after a 30-second behind-the-net possession masterpiece that ends anticlimactically with a dish to the point, so that at least he can set up a screen for whatever frisbee Doughty or JMFJ launches toward the net.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Bullpens, Rotations, and Playoffs: The 6-Man Rotation
A five-man rotation for starting pitchers has been standard for decades. Of the 25 roster spots available, a dozen are allocated to the bullpen, comprising five starters, one closer, one set-up man, perhaps one 7th-inning set-up specialist (for the clubs blessed with the resources to develop their potential future closers with MLB experience), one southpaw specialist or righty submariner for that critical late-inning out against a David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez, and three mop-up long relief guys who come in to eat innings when either their team has a huge lead or the starter has been shelled early, finishing off games while preserving the arms of the more talented relievers. In short, about half the bullpen is called on to manage a close game (or to preserve a small lead), the other half to hopefully record enough outs to enable a comeback or just get a stinker over with so everyone can hit the buffet. Should a team make a comeback and return a snoozer to the realm of excitement, the calls to the 'pen immediately elicit a return to the hold-hold-save crew, and the remaining janitorial contingent returns to erecting bubblegum and sunflower seed sculptures on the bullpen walls.
However, once the playoffs roll around each fall, managers abandon this pattern in favor of getting their best arms on the mound in critical situations. The ace of the staff is expected to start twice in a 5-game series and potentially three times in a 7-game series. Closers are asked to record saves longer than an inning. Middle relievers are all but abandoned in favor of the 4th and 5th starters who probably have better stuff, the trade-off being their
relative lack of familiarity with a routine that allows them to enter a game already in progress. The most epic example, of course, was The Big Unit's Game 7 win in the 2001 World Series, in which he came on to retire four Yankees in the 8th and 9th one night after throwing 104 pitches as a starter.
Coaches of any sport will tell you that the best preparation for performance when the game is on the line (short of actual experience) is...practicing the technical situations associated with a game on the line. Baseball is a 162-game season with an average of one day off per week. The sport is not inherently conducive to practicing game-like situations, nor is there much time during the season for practice of any kind. Batting practice is part of a daily regimen most critical for allowing hitters to acclimate to the visual cues of the backdrop behind the pitcher in order to better pick up the rotation of the pitches that evening. Starting pitchers take one session between outings to keep their arms in shape and work on any mechanics that might require tweaking. Relievers, on the other hand, languish in the bullpen until they are called upon, and may certainly get in some work to stay sharp, but are, in general, not experiencing a regular daily workload.
The six-man rotation has often been discussed in various configurations as a way to rest the stronger starters. However, the economics of paying another starter and not getting as many starts out of your top 2–3 arms seems to be a barrier to implementing such a strategy. What if the work between starts were live, and not in the bullpen? What if, on every third day after a starter had his turn in the rotation, he were considered available for long relief? If that day's starter threw a gem, he could get his work in in the 'pen. If not, he would come on for a relief outing equivalent in pitch count to what he would have thrown anyway. The ~40-50 innings lost to an ace having only ~27-28 starts instead of ~35 would likely be made up for in quality ~2-inning outings in relief that are more than marginal upgrades from those same innings being thrown by dedicated middle relievers.
The pros: better quality middle relief leading to a lower average pitch count for starters, more realistic playoff preparation, more consistent organizational pecking order.
The cons: fewer innings as a starter for the ace, new routine to learn for starters, fewer opportunities for technical tweaking after a rough start, potentially a new conditioning regimen needed to manage arm health.
Fundamentally, pitchers are going to be starters, closers, or guys aspiring to one or the other. Nobody is sitting in AA or college thinking, "I can't wait to pitch 2.1 innings once or twice a week for the Pirates." The guys with the competitive drive to make it all the way to the show are for the most part required to wait their turn and establish themselves through effective middle relief or set-up duties before earning a spot in the rotation or a job as a closer—no pitcher views the positions that seldom record more than outs, holds, and blown saves as terminal career stages.
So...if a manager is going to eschew middle relievers in favor of late-rotation starters in the playoffs anyway, why not just use them that way in the first place? Not only will the routine be more familiar for all involved, but the added roster spots could be used to add a second specialist and closer. A team using twelve roster spots on pitchers could carry: 6 starters, 2 specialists, 2 set-up guys, and 2 closers, and feel confident that they have an advantage in the late innings as well as a lot of flexibility in case the starter has a rough night.
Why add potentially expensive redundancy to the bullpen? Curious is the practice of pitching relievers in the same order regardless of where in the lineup the opposing team may be. If the trailing team has 2-3-4 due up in the 8th, should a manager go to the set-up man, saving the nominal closer for the 5-6-7 (or most likely 6-7-8 or worse) for the 9th inning? Does it not make more sense to send the best bullpen arm out against the opposing team's best weapons in the 8th, and then let the second-best arm finish the game against the bottom of the lineup? Sure, this would screw with everyone's fantasy league stats (I will refrain from going into a rant about the stupidity of fantasy leagues for now), but, if the set-up man comes in and retires the heart of the order, leaving the closer to annihilate the two weakest hitting position players and a pinch hitter in the next frame, which pitcher deserves the save?
On the road, with the opposing fans creating a atmosphere designed to propel the home team to a comeback, the mental aspect of closer vs. set-up man may supersede the logic of matching up the best guy against the meat of the lineup. That 7-8-PH batting order with 30,000 charged up fans behind them at home in the bottom of the 9th—with each pitch out of the zone sufficient to incite a roar—may be a more formidable opponent than the same batters attempting a comeback on the road in the top of the 9th, where each strike brings more fans to their feet in anticipation of a joyous ride home (or joyous 90-minute parking lot 1.2mph average speed caravan dodging firecrackers thrown by disgruntled Met outfielders while leaving Chavez Ravine, but I digress).
Furthermore, many managers will send their closer out in the 9th inning of a tie game to keep things under control, but then are forced to either continue pitching that guy in the 10th or go to a lesser arm. The former situation is a mental disconnect from the closer's usual job description and is likely only to be effective if the hitters due up in the 10th are mediocre. The latter manages the closer's workload but gives the opponents a greater chance at victory. With the extra roster spots gained from obviating the need for dedicated middle relievers, a second closer could be carried to mitigate both scenarios, especially on the road, where a team must pitch its way out of the bottom of the last inning and certainly doesn't want a guy who isn't good enough to start or close trying to protect that lead.
So, what should a six-man rotation look like? And in what order should the starters actually pitch with respect to their ranking? It seems obvious to a) pair the best starter (S1) with the 
worst (S6) so that S6 pitches the fewest innings assuming that S1 more consistently goes deep into his starts; b) S1, S2, and S3 are NOT consecutive so that they are each likely to pitch in every three-game series (nothing like bailing an opponent out by having them come to town after S1, S2, and S3 had just pitched in the previous series); c) alternate closers so that one is always fresher and we never see careers spiral downward from overuse (sorry Eric Gagné, one epic Cy Young season was also GAME OVER for career as a closer); d) relievers and closers are trained to be ready to go in any inning so that they are more ready to be used as a function of the opponent's lineup rather than the inning; e) if there's no true ace and the S4-S5-S6 are fairly interchangeable, the pitchers should be paired up so that wildly different styles are likely to throw opposing hitters off balance—after Tim Wakefield goes through the rotation two or three times, Brad Penny's stuff is going to look like filthy, filthy lasers of the synthesized-excited-bromide-in-an-argon-matrix ilk. Conversely, having to see Wakefield oblong grapefruit smileyface -36mph wiffle ball knucklers after six innings of fighting off Penny's heat may actually lead to Dramamine being added to the banned substances list.
While a small-market team may have the youth and organizational depth to implement such a rotation, it's probably more likely that a big spender would overpay for the extra starter and closer necessary to make this happen. But, the benefits go beyond rotation flexibility and more realistic playoff preparation for managers: young pitchers would be closer to their target career stage and be directly competing for the respective spots at either end of the bullpen bench. Even better, the "hold" would have to be retired as a mostly useless stat, replaced by ranking relievers the only ways they can be ranked meaningfully: outs, outs per appearance, and outs per batter faced.
The economic barrier to carrying an extra starter and closer instead of two nondescript middle relievers is obvious, exacerbated by the fact that there may not be enough depth in the talent pool to even make such a move. However, if a team consistently brings pitchers up through its farm system with the understanding that they will debut in middle relief before establishing themselves as either starters or closers, the pipeline should achieve steady-state, and the pitchers who would take over in the starting or closing rotation should a starter or closer falter are already on the big club, next in line.
However, once the playoffs roll around each fall, managers abandon this pattern in favor of getting their best arms on the mound in critical situations. The ace of the staff is expected to start twice in a 5-game series and potentially three times in a 7-game series. Closers are asked to record saves longer than an inning. Middle relievers are all but abandoned in favor of the 4th and 5th starters who probably have better stuff, the trade-off being their
relative lack of familiarity with a routine that allows them to enter a game already in progress. The most epic example, of course, was The Big Unit's Game 7 win in the 2001 World Series, in which he came on to retire four Yankees in the 8th and 9th one night after throwing 104 pitches as a starter.Coaches of any sport will tell you that the best preparation for performance when the game is on the line (short of actual experience) is...practicing the technical situations associated with a game on the line. Baseball is a 162-game season with an average of one day off per week. The sport is not inherently conducive to practicing game-like situations, nor is there much time during the season for practice of any kind. Batting practice is part of a daily regimen most critical for allowing hitters to acclimate to the visual cues of the backdrop behind the pitcher in order to better pick up the rotation of the pitches that evening. Starting pitchers take one session between outings to keep their arms in shape and work on any mechanics that might require tweaking. Relievers, on the other hand, languish in the bullpen until they are called upon, and may certainly get in some work to stay sharp, but are, in general, not experiencing a regular daily workload.
The six-man rotation has often been discussed in various configurations as a way to rest the stronger starters. However, the economics of paying another starter and not getting as many starts out of your top 2–3 arms seems to be a barrier to implementing such a strategy. What if the work between starts were live, and not in the bullpen? What if, on every third day after a starter had his turn in the rotation, he were considered available for long relief? If that day's starter threw a gem, he could get his work in in the 'pen. If not, he would come on for a relief outing equivalent in pitch count to what he would have thrown anyway. The ~40-50 innings lost to an ace having only ~27-28 starts instead of ~35 would likely be made up for in quality ~2-inning outings in relief that are more than marginal upgrades from those same innings being thrown by dedicated middle relievers.
The pros: better quality middle relief leading to a lower average pitch count for starters, more realistic playoff preparation, more consistent organizational pecking order.
The cons: fewer innings as a starter for the ace, new routine to learn for starters, fewer opportunities for technical tweaking after a rough start, potentially a new conditioning regimen needed to manage arm health.
Fundamentally, pitchers are going to be starters, closers, or guys aspiring to one or the other. Nobody is sitting in AA or college thinking, "I can't wait to pitch 2.1 innings once or twice a week for the Pirates." The guys with the competitive drive to make it all the way to the show are for the most part required to wait their turn and establish themselves through effective middle relief or set-up duties before earning a spot in the rotation or a job as a closer—no pitcher views the positions that seldom record more than outs, holds, and blown saves as terminal career stages.
So...if a manager is going to eschew middle relievers in favor of late-rotation starters in the playoffs anyway, why not just use them that way in the first place? Not only will the routine be more familiar for all involved, but the added roster spots could be used to add a second specialist and closer. A team using twelve roster spots on pitchers could carry: 6 starters, 2 specialists, 2 set-up guys, and 2 closers, and feel confident that they have an advantage in the late innings as well as a lot of flexibility in case the starter has a rough night.
Why add potentially expensive redundancy to the bullpen? Curious is the practice of pitching relievers in the same order regardless of where in the lineup the opposing team may be. If the trailing team has 2-3-4 due up in the 8th, should a manager go to the set-up man, saving the nominal closer for the 5-6-7 (or most likely 6-7-8 or worse) for the 9th inning? Does it not make more sense to send the best bullpen arm out against the opposing team's best weapons in the 8th, and then let the second-best arm finish the game against the bottom of the lineup? Sure, this would screw with everyone's fantasy league stats (I will refrain from going into a rant about the stupidity of fantasy leagues for now), but, if the set-up man comes in and retires the heart of the order, leaving the closer to annihilate the two weakest hitting position players and a pinch hitter in the next frame, which pitcher deserves the save?
On the road, with the opposing fans creating a atmosphere designed to propel the home team to a comeback, the mental aspect of closer vs. set-up man may supersede the logic of matching up the best guy against the meat of the lineup. That 7-8-PH batting order with 30,000 charged up fans behind them at home in the bottom of the 9th—with each pitch out of the zone sufficient to incite a roar—may be a more formidable opponent than the same batters attempting a comeback on the road in the top of the 9th, where each strike brings more fans to their feet in anticipation of a joyous ride home (or joyous 90-minute parking lot 1.2mph average speed caravan dodging firecrackers thrown by disgruntled Met outfielders while leaving Chavez Ravine, but I digress).
Furthermore, many managers will send their closer out in the 9th inning of a tie game to keep things under control, but then are forced to either continue pitching that guy in the 10th or go to a lesser arm. The former situation is a mental disconnect from the closer's usual job description and is likely only to be effective if the hitters due up in the 10th are mediocre. The latter manages the closer's workload but gives the opponents a greater chance at victory. With the extra roster spots gained from obviating the need for dedicated middle relievers, a second closer could be carried to mitigate both scenarios, especially on the road, where a team must pitch its way out of the bottom of the last inning and certainly doesn't want a guy who isn't good enough to start or close trying to protect that lead.
So, what should a six-man rotation look like? And in what order should the starters actually pitch with respect to their ranking? It seems obvious to a) pair the best starter (S1) with the worst (S6) so that S6 pitches the fewest innings assuming that S1 more consistently goes deep into his starts; b) S1, S2, and S3 are NOT consecutive so that they are each likely to pitch in every three-game series (nothing like bailing an opponent out by having them come to town after S1, S2, and S3 had just pitched in the previous series); c) alternate closers so that one is always fresher and we never see careers spiral downward from overuse (sorry Eric Gagné, one epic Cy Young season was also GAME OVER for career as a closer); d) relievers and closers are trained to be ready to go in any inning so that they are more ready to be used as a function of the opponent's lineup rather than the inning; e) if there's no true ace and the S4-S5-S6 are fairly interchangeable, the pitchers should be paired up so that wildly different styles are likely to throw opposing hitters off balance—after Tim Wakefield goes through the rotation two or three times, Brad Penny's stuff is going to look like filthy, filthy lasers of the synthesized-excited-bromide-in-an-argon-matrix ilk. Conversely, having to see Wakefield oblong grapefruit smileyface -36mph wiffle ball knucklers after six innings of fighting off Penny's heat may actually lead to Dramamine being added to the banned substances list.While a small-market team may have the youth and organizational depth to implement such a rotation, it's probably more likely that a big spender would overpay for the extra starter and closer necessary to make this happen. But, the benefits go beyond rotation flexibility and more realistic playoff preparation for managers: young pitchers would be closer to their target career stage and be directly competing for the respective spots at either end of the bullpen bench. Even better, the "hold" would have to be retired as a mostly useless stat, replaced by ranking relievers the only ways they can be ranked meaningfully: outs, outs per appearance, and outs per batter faced.
The economic barrier to carrying an extra starter and closer instead of two nondescript middle relievers is obvious, exacerbated by the fact that there may not be enough depth in the talent pool to even make such a move. However, if a team consistently brings pitchers up through its farm system with the understanding that they will debut in middle relief before establishing themselves as either starters or closers, the pipeline should achieve steady-state, and the pitchers who would take over in the starting or closing rotation should a starter or closer falter are already on the big club, next in line.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tweaks to make the NHL even better
The evolution of the NHL's rules since the lockout has undoubtedly improved game play in what is already the best professional sports league on the planet. Below, I will describe a few tweaks that could make the game even better. I'm going to skip the draft order, since I've covered that in the past.
Starting with scheduling, to keep with this string of posts, a mild realignment putting Vancouver in the Pacific and moving Dallas to Northwest (renamed to Mountain or something suitable) would make it more likely that an extra Canadian team would make the playoffs. The NHL is obviously a North American League, but there's no doubt that stronger Cana
dian franchises are good for the league as a whole. Consolidating the six Canadian teams into two divisions just serves to have them beat each other up all year; even as late as '92-'93, only the Patrick Division lacked a Canadian team. Then again, back then 16/21 teams made the playoffs, so maybe that's a topic for another day.
More urgent than realignment is scheduling. The league recognized the need to have every team play every other team at least once each season, which is fantastic. However, to make up the three extra interconference games necessary to fill out an 82-game schedule, bonus games were added arbitrarily. For example, this past season, LA played New Jersey, Washington, and Philadelphia twice. Nobody knows why, although I suppose getting to see Bruce Boudreau twice was fun for the former Monarchs, and with Dean Lombardi and Ron Hextall in the front office, an extra trip to Philly is nothing to complain about. So, as it stands, teams play 6 games against 4 division rivals (24); 4 games against 10 conference opponents (40), and 15+3 (18) games against teams from the opposite conference. This is pretty good, but those three interconference bonus matchups should be against teams who finished in the same place the previous season, a move facilitated by there being an even number of teams in each division (at least until Jim Basille gets the expansion Hamilton Blackberries skating). While we're only talking about three games, there could still be a mild compression effect.
The league is already considering an 84-game schedule that allows each team to visit every city every year: 6 games against division rivals (24), 3 games against 10 conference foes (30), and 2 games against interconference teams (30). The extra home game in the intraconference games can rotate annually but track by division—i.e., Pacific teams would visit Northwest teams twice but host them only once; Northwest visits Central twice but hosts only once; Central visits Pacific twice but hosts only once. Rock paper scissors, flips to srossics repap kcor every other year.
Should the league find a way to expand to 32 teams, I would hope that the league would consider restoring the classic division names and realigning to 4 divisions of 8 teams each. In this scenario, the 4x7 division (28)/3x8 conference (24)/2x16 interconference (32) plan for an 84-game schedule would be best. It would be critical following expansion for each market and arena to get a visit from every team every year, even if the travel costs eat away at the margins. Furthermore, rivalries are born in the playoffs, not redundant regular season division matchups.
OK, on to game play.
Eliminating the two-line pass has helped counter the neutral-zone trap that had, along with extensive clutching and grabbing, crippled game flow. The problem with the NZT is that it works: New Jersey won three Stanley Cups between 1995 and 2003 while playing a borderline unwatchable brand of hockey. Martin Brodeur is a genius, but, there are only so many 2-1 games dominated by possession changes in the neutral zone that a fan can watch before those hours are better spent elsewhere.
The trapezoid restricting goalies playing the puck is a mixed bag: freeing up the corners allows teams with less skilled forwards to focus on gaining the zone through dump-and-chase and relying on their forecheck to establish an offensive cycle. However, goalies skilled at making the long outlet stretch passes are not as likely to be able to take advantage of the elimination of the two-line pass rule. The fact that teams on the penalty kill are allowed to clear without being whistled for icing is a little strange, actually; they suddenly have a tactical advantage allowing a full-length dump for a line change. However, I'm too much of a purist to deny home fans the chance to cheer their PK units for quality clears that frustrate the opposition. The legality of goalies contacting the puck outside the trapezoid is logically related to icing, and should be connected as follows...
Proposal: allow a goalie to play the puck outside the trapezoid and behind the goal line if a) his team is on the power play, thus reducing the time killed by a clear and marginally increasing the number of scoring chances each power play opportunity should yield; b) if the opposing team has just iced the puck, such that a team could choose to touch up for an offensive zone draw with the offenders prevented from changing skaters OR keep momentum going with a stretch pass that might prevent the opponents from changing lines anyway.
Automatic offensive zone faceoffs following penalties are terrific for improving the chances that the attacking team will get their power play set up early and often. However, minor penalties that are interrupted by an intermission between periods unfairly dilute that advantage.
Proposal: if a period starts with one team on the power play, drop the first puck in the attacking zone. Center ice faceoffs look great on TV but most broadcasts miss them anyway while they're talking about...nothing in particular.
Requiring a full zone clear on a delayed penalty rather than a possession change or freeze has been covered by PuckDaddy, but I'm in favor of it.
When a puck is shot or deflected out of play in the offensive zone, the faceoff stays in if it was last touched by the defenders or the crossbar/post. Great. Why not keep the faceoff in the zone following any shot, regardless of who touched it last? There is absolutely no circumstance in which an attacking team would deliberately shoot the puck out of play; keeping the possession alive is paramount. If the man doing the dirty work in front of the net is taking crosschecks from a defenseman just so that he can set up a screen and get a deflection, and he gets a little too high or opens the blade up a little too much and puts the puck into the protective net, why should the faceoff come out of the zone? The defending team is already perfectly happy to accept the freeze and change lines; their gaining further advantage with the faceoff coming outside is unnecessarily punitive.
Proposal: faceoff stays in the zone following any shot attempt that results in a puck out of play. Reward shooting.
Whistles are bad. Visors are ubiquitous. Knocking the puck out of the air with a high stick is...what, a safety rule? But...there's already a penalty for high-sticking, right? So...if...I...use...enough...ellipses...
Proposal: don't add whistles and freeze play for something that is pretty much irrelevant. If someone fouls another player with a high stick while trying to play a puck out of the air, he's an idiot. Maybe it's not worth it to risk an eye to save a few whistles, but, it's a silly violation punished with a defensive zone faceoff.
Here's a fun one. Everyone loves penalty shots awarded during a game (shootouts are another story). Why not award the minor penalty if the penalty shot fails? If a player without great shootout moves gets a breakaway, why wouldn't a defender just take him down? Sure, it's a penalty shot, but it's one awarded to a player with average skill going up against a goalie with plenty of preparation. The PS fails, play continues, no power play. Not really much of an advantage to the offensive team. Success rates for penalty shots hover around 31%; for power plays, roughly 20%. Giving the minor after a missed penalty shot would bring the expected value of that PS/PP combo up to 0.5 from 0.3, and unless the league can come up with
some way to make penalty shots more frequent, that increase would be a good thing. Along those lines, there's a difference between penalties taken during possession and positional battles and penalties that directly impede scoring chances...
Proposal: award a penalty shot for any penalty that directly prevents a shot on goal within a specified area on the ice (rectangle between the offensive zone faceoff dots and the goal line, or a trapezoid defined by the goal crease and faceoff dots), regardless of clear path to the net. Following any failed penalty shot, award the minor penalty that would have been called anyway. This will not only increase scoring, but also make it easier for referees to decide whether to call a minor or a penalty shot.
This post is getting longer than I'd originally intended so I'll sign off with a couple requests of the online and print media responsible for publishing box scores: try organizing the individual players according to the line combos that started the game. Even if they get changed up over the course of a game, it's a valuable aid for fans...at least those of us who can't be bothered to deconvolve the combos and pairings from the plus/minus and time on ice stats.
RIP Peter Zezel 1965-2009.
Starting with scheduling, to keep with this string of posts, a mild realignment putting Vancouver in the Pacific and moving Dallas to Northwest (renamed to Mountain or something suitable) would make it more likely that an extra Canadian team would make the playoffs. The NHL is obviously a North American League, but there's no doubt that stronger Cana
dian franchises are good for the league as a whole. Consolidating the six Canadian teams into two divisions just serves to have them beat each other up all year; even as late as '92-'93, only the Patrick Division lacked a Canadian team. Then again, back then 16/21 teams made the playoffs, so maybe that's a topic for another day.More urgent than realignment is scheduling. The league recognized the need to have every team play every other team at least once each season, which is fantastic. However, to make up the three extra interconference games necessary to fill out an 82-game schedule, bonus games were added arbitrarily. For example, this past season, LA played New Jersey, Washington, and Philadelphia twice. Nobody knows why, although I suppose getting to see Bruce Boudreau twice was fun for the former Monarchs, and with Dean Lombardi and Ron Hextall in the front office, an extra trip to Philly is nothing to complain about. So, as it stands, teams play 6 games against 4 division rivals (24); 4 games against 10 conference opponents (40), and 15+3 (18) games against teams from the opposite conference. This is pretty good, but those three interconference bonus matchups should be against teams who finished in the same place the previous season, a move facilitated by there being an even number of teams in each division (at least until Jim Basille gets the expansion Hamilton Blackberries skating). While we're only talking about three games, there could still be a mild compression effect.
The league is already considering an 84-game schedule that allows each team to visit every city every year: 6 games against division rivals (24), 3 games against 10 conference foes (30), and 2 games against interconference teams (30). The extra home game in the intraconference games can rotate annually but track by division—i.e., Pacific teams would visit Northwest teams twice but host them only once; Northwest visits Central twice but hosts only once; Central visits Pacific twice but hosts only once. Rock paper scissors, flips to srossics repap kcor every other year.
Should the league find a way to expand to 32 teams, I would hope that the league would consider restoring the classic division names and realigning to 4 divisions of 8 teams each. In this scenario, the 4x7 division (28)/3x8 conference (24)/2x16 interconference (32) plan for an 84-game schedule would be best. It would be critical following expansion for each market and arena to get a visit from every team every year, even if the travel costs eat away at the margins. Furthermore, rivalries are born in the playoffs, not redundant regular season division matchups.
OK, on to game play.
Eliminating the two-line pass has helped counter the neutral-zone trap that had, along with extensive clutching and grabbing, crippled game flow. The problem with the NZT is that it works: New Jersey won three Stanley Cups between 1995 and 2003 while playing a borderline unwatchable brand of hockey. Martin Brodeur is a genius, but, there are only so many 2-1 games dominated by possession changes in the neutral zone that a fan can watch before those hours are better spent elsewhere.
The trapezoid restricting goalies playing the puck is a mixed bag: freeing up the corners allows teams with less skilled forwards to focus on gaining the zone through dump-and-chase and relying on their forecheck to establish an offensive cycle. However, goalies skilled at making the long outlet stretch passes are not as likely to be able to take advantage of the elimination of the two-line pass rule. The fact that teams on the penalty kill are allowed to clear without being whistled for icing is a little strange, actually; they suddenly have a tactical advantage allowing a full-length dump for a line change. However, I'm too much of a purist to deny home fans the chance to cheer their PK units for quality clears that frustrate the opposition. The legality of goalies contacting the puck outside the trapezoid is logically related to icing, and should be connected as follows...
Proposal: allow a goalie to play the puck outside the trapezoid and behind the goal line if a) his team is on the power play, thus reducing the time killed by a clear and marginally increasing the number of scoring chances each power play opportunity should yield; b) if the opposing team has just iced the puck, such that a team could choose to touch up for an offensive zone draw with the offenders prevented from changing skaters OR keep momentum going with a stretch pass that might prevent the opponents from changing lines anyway.
Automatic offensive zone faceoffs following penalties are terrific for improving the chances that the attacking team will get their power play set up early and often. However, minor penalties that are interrupted by an intermission between periods unfairly dilute that advantage.
Proposal: if a period starts with one team on the power play, drop the first puck in the attacking zone. Center ice faceoffs look great on TV but most broadcasts miss them anyway while they're talking about...nothing in particular.
Requiring a full zone clear on a delayed penalty rather than a possession change or freeze has been covered by PuckDaddy, but I'm in favor of it.
When a puck is shot or deflected out of play in the offensive zone, the faceoff stays in if it was last touched by the defenders or the crossbar/post. Great. Why not keep the faceoff in the zone following any shot, regardless of who touched it last? There is absolutely no circumstance in which an attacking team would deliberately shoot the puck out of play; keeping the possession alive is paramount. If the man doing the dirty work in front of the net is taking crosschecks from a defenseman just so that he can set up a screen and get a deflection, and he gets a little too high or opens the blade up a little too much and puts the puck into the protective net, why should the faceoff come out of the zone? The defending team is already perfectly happy to accept the freeze and change lines; their gaining further advantage with the faceoff coming outside is unnecessarily punitive.
Proposal: faceoff stays in the zone following any shot attempt that results in a puck out of play. Reward shooting.
Whistles are bad. Visors are ubiquitous. Knocking the puck out of the air with a high stick is...what, a safety rule? But...there's already a penalty for high-sticking, right? So...if...I...use...enough...ellipses...
Proposal: don't add whistles and freeze play for something that is pretty much irrelevant. If someone fouls another player with a high stick while trying to play a puck out of the air, he's an idiot. Maybe it's not worth it to risk an eye to save a few whistles, but, it's a silly violation punished with a defensive zone faceoff.
Here's a fun one. Everyone loves penalty shots awarded during a game (shootouts are another story). Why not award the minor penalty if the penalty shot fails? If a player without great shootout moves gets a breakaway, why wouldn't a defender just take him down? Sure, it's a penalty shot, but it's one awarded to a player with average skill going up against a goalie with plenty of preparation. The PS fails, play continues, no power play. Not really much of an advantage to the offensive team. Success rates for penalty shots hover around 31%; for power plays, roughly 20%. Giving the minor after a missed penalty shot would bring the expected value of that PS/PP combo up to 0.5 from 0.3, and unless the league can come up with
some way to make penalty shots more frequent, that increase would be a good thing. Along those lines, there's a difference between penalties taken during possession and positional battles and penalties that directly impede scoring chances...Proposal: award a penalty shot for any penalty that directly prevents a shot on goal within a specified area on the ice (rectangle between the offensive zone faceoff dots and the goal line, or a trapezoid defined by the goal crease and faceoff dots), regardless of clear path to the net. Following any failed penalty shot, award the minor penalty that would have been called anyway. This will not only increase scoring, but also make it easier for referees to decide whether to call a minor or a penalty shot.
This post is getting longer than I'd originally intended so I'll sign off with a couple requests of the online and print media responsible for publishing box scores: try organizing the individual players according to the line combos that started the game. Even if they get changed up over the course of a game, it's a valuable aid for fans...at least those of us who can't be bothered to deconvolve the combos and pairings from the plus/minus and time on ice stats.
RIP Peter Zezel 1965-2009.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
MLB Interleague Play
This is the first of what will be a multi-part series of posts on scheduling in pro sports.
Baseball has an untapped source of excitement in interleague play. While players complain about visiting cities that are neither historical nor geographical rivals, the league correctly cites the increased attendance as a mark of success, as the novelty of seeing a team that doesn't normally visit your market is a significant motivation for casual fans--the sort that catch one or two games a year--to take the family to the park.
Mathematically, however, MLB is failing to make the most of the potential for interleague play to provide competitive enhancement commensurate with its entertainment value. The All-Star Game tie debacle and subsequent assignment of World Series home-field advantage to the winner of an exhibition game was a knee-jerk reaction and poor execution of logic. Furthermore, the sequence of expansions and realignments that left one league with 14 teams and the other 16 was absurd.
Currently, interleague play is combined into large schedule islands, with the matchups rotating year-to-year at the divisional level, with some exceptions made to preserve regional rivalries and balance out the number of games played (a necessary artifact of there being 14 AL and 16 NL teams).
If instead, interleague matchups were based on the previous year's final standings, two enormously positive consequences may result: first, marquee matchups, most likely including both a rematch of the previous year's World Series and a preview of the upcoming fall classic; second, natural compression of the standings, as weaker teams would have marginally weaker schedules and should theoretically last longer in the pennant races. The net result of such a set-up could be a season with no team boasting a 0.600 winning rate and no team at 0.400 or worse.
Realignment to three divisions in each league and the addition of the wild-card extended the pennant race intrigue deep into September: brilliant. However, the scheduling imbalances caused by having leagues with different numbers of teams and 4-, 5-, and 6-team divisions make things murky at best. The following steps would clear all of this up and add a ninth race to the eight playoff berths:
Step 1: Put the Brewers back in the AL Central.
Step 2: Put the Royals in the AL West.
Step 3: With 6 divisions of 5 teams each, scheduling 162 games is simple: 16 games against the other 4 teams in the division (64, a 5-game and a 3-game series in each park); 8 games against the other 10 teams in the league (80, a 4-game series in each park); 6 games against 3 teams from the other league (18, a 3-game series in each park): one from each division that finished in the same place as your team last year.
Step 4: Make the overall AL vs. NL interleague record decide WS home-field advantage, with the ASG as a tiebreaker. This will create a ninth race that will not be decided until as late as the playoff participants themselves are ironed out--and there can be a ticker on the standings that updates with each day's interleague contest.
Step 5: With 15 teams in each league, interleague play must be happening every night, thus potentially creating an additional point of interest in September, as the AL vs. NL composite record is yet undecided. Lost are the weird mid-summer interleague sideshows; gained is the "Tonight's Interleague Matchup" tagline on Sportscenter.
Baseball has an untapped source of excitement in interleague play. While players complain about visiting cities that are neither historical nor geographical rivals, the league correctly cites the increased attendance as a mark of success, as the novelty of seeing a team that doesn't normally visit your market is a significant motivation for casual fans--the sort that catch one or two games a year--to take the family to the park.
Mathematically, however, MLB is failing to make the most of the potential for interleague play to provide competitive enhancement commensurate with its entertainment value. The All-Star Game tie debacle and subsequent assignment of World Series home-field advantage to the winner of an exhibition game was a knee-jerk reaction and poor execution of logic. Furthermore, the sequence of expansions and realignments that left one league with 14 teams and the other 16 was absurd.
Currently, interleague play is combined into large schedule islands, with the matchups rotating year-to-year at the divisional level, with some exceptions made to preserve regional rivalries and balance out the number of games played (a necessary artifact of there being 14 AL and 16 NL teams).
If instead, interleague matchups were based on the previous year's final standings, two enormously positive consequences may result: first, marquee matchups, most likely including both a rematch of the previous year's World Series and a preview of the upcoming fall classic; second, natural compression of the standings, as weaker teams would have marginally weaker schedules and should theoretically last longer in the pennant races. The net result of such a set-up could be a season with no team boasting a 0.600 winning rate and no team at 0.400 or worse.
Realignment to three divisions in each league and the addition of the wild-card extended the pennant race intrigue deep into September: brilliant. However, the scheduling imbalances caused by having leagues with different numbers of teams and 4-, 5-, and 6-team divisions make things murky at best. The following steps would clear all of this up and add a ninth race to the eight playoff berths:
Step 1: Put the Brewers back in the AL Central.
Step 2: Put the Royals in the AL West.
Step 3: With 6 divisions of 5 teams each, scheduling 162 games is simple: 16 games against the other 4 teams in the division (64, a 5-game and a 3-game series in each park); 8 games against the other 10 teams in the league (80, a 4-game series in each park); 6 games against 3 teams from the other league (18, a 3-game series in each park): one from each division that finished in the same place as your team last year.
Step 4: Make the overall AL vs. NL interleague record decide WS home-field advantage, with the ASG as a tiebreaker. This will create a ninth race that will not be decided until as late as the playoff participants themselves are ironed out--and there can be a ticker on the standings that updates with each day's interleague contest.
Step 5: With 15 teams in each league, interleague play must be happening every night, thus potentially creating an additional point of interest in September, as the AL vs. NL composite record is yet undecided. Lost are the weird mid-summer interleague sideshows; gained is the "Tonight's Interleague Matchup" tagline on Sportscenter.
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