Look here for schedules to import into OOTP6

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Muppetus Galacticus

Do you know if single leagues such as the PCL (if any others) ever used the 40 man roster in the final month? If not then I think I would like to keep September to a minimum - at the expense of the midseason break if need be. If the rosters have been expanded then maybe I'll just give that a go.

I'm quite sure I have no idea. I would just guess that the expanded rosters thing is fairly modern and MLB-exclusive. That sounds like a good question to post in Talks Sports or maybe the game discussions forums.

Is it simple enough for me to move the league forward a few weeks if I decide to include September? If so then the April-Early September format would be great.

If you have a spreadsheet program, it sure is. At least I think so having done it so many times now. You just copy the schedule data into the spreadsheet and create a replacement column for the day numbers, then resave the data. I can give a step-by-step if/when you need it. It really is just a few steps. You could use it to shift the entire schedule or in this case with no problem parts of it, like to put in or remove your midseason offweek.

[DreamTeams]

Originally Posted by gmo

With 16 games per opponent, 8 games home and 8 away works out to perfect balance. So it seems having those 8 games divided into a pair of 4-game series would work out nicely. It does, except that you cannot fit two 4-game series within a week. If you go only with 4-gamers then you lose the meaning of the days of the week, plus though the offdays can be staggered some there is not much variety in them. I could go that route for you, and it would certainly make it less likely to have teams miss pitchers in the rotation.

A better idea though may be to not hold the 8H/8A breakdown for the 16 games against each opponent. I believe that if I split most of the 16 down 9H/7A and 7H/9A I could at least almost completely eliminate the 2-game series and still keep everything else nicely intact. Teams would still have the same total numbers of home & away games (56 & 56), they would just not be balanced perfectly team-by-team. Is it okay to go with attempting that option?

I had thought, and really still do, that the piling in of 2-game series can help balance out some schedule. But I can understand why you are wanting less of them. In this the numbers worked out where breaking the matchups into many more than typical 2- & 4-game series made everything even out. You can do different things when you have many weeks with a 2-game series and a 4-game series rather than a pair of 3-game series. In other cases a pair of 2-game series to start a week can take the spot a single 4-game series would otherwise hold.

So the short series are mainly useful these days for helping try to get closer to the ideal of playing teams equal numbers of times overall and equal numbers home and away. But short series mean at least more travel, and like you noted the quick in-then-out nature can perhaps leave fans wanting. But it is LGO's job to give a better explanation on the 2-game series

Thanks for the reply, GMO. I'd rather keep the schedule in perfect balance. Besides, I've always thought the two game series was cool. But, I'm wondering if the schedule could be re-worked with less of the two game series? If not, I'm still happy with the current schedule.

[gmo]

Originally Posted by DreamTeams

Thanks for the reply, GMO. I'd rather keep the schedule in perfect balance. Besides, I've always thought the two game series was cool. But, I'm wondering if the schedule could be re-worked with less of the two game series? If not, I'm still happy with the current schedule.

I played with some numbers, and it appears I can trim back from 13 two-game series to only 2 and keep the same layout otherwise with the number of offdays and the time frame in which it fits. However, that would require splitting the 16 games against the opponents 8H/8A against only 1 other team, 7H/9A against 3 teams, and 9H/7A against the remaining 3 league teams.

MLB does those kinds of slightly uneven splits frequently, but I can understand wanting to have perfect home/away balance. Again, the only way to really trim out the two-game series and maintain all the even 8H/8A splits would be to go with all 4-game, which would require giving up on the days of the week maintaining meaning as the series would run through whatever days where they fell. For instance the first matchups could go Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu, then the next set could be Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue after a Fri offday or Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon then with a Tue offday.

So just let me know if you'd like to try either the slightly uneven H/A splits or the all 4-game series route.

[DreamTeams]

Originally Posted by gmo

I played with some numbers, and it appears I can trim back from 13 two-game series to only 2 and keep the same layout otherwise with the number of offdays and the time frame in which it fits. However, that would require splitting the 16 games against the opponents 8H/8A against only 1 other team, 7H/9A against 3 teams, and 9H/7A against the remaining 3 league teams.

MLB does those kinds of slightly uneven splits frequently, but I can understand wanting to have perfect home/away balance. Again, the only way to really trim out the two-game series and maintain all the even 8H/8A splits would be to go with all 4-game, which would require giving up on the days of the week maintaining meaning as the series would run through whatever days where they fell. For instance the first matchups could go Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu, then the next set could be Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue after a Fri offday or Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon then with a Tue offday.

So just let me know if you'd like to try either the slightly uneven H/A splits or the all 4-game series route.

Thanks for looking into this, GMO. I'd like to try the 4-game series route. Sounds neat as both pitching staffs will be involved in every series. I'm not as big a stickler for the weekend series as I am for a perfectly balanced schedule. Plus, with two fine schedules I'd be able to switch out schedules after a decade or so and both will be perfectly balanced.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by gmo

With 16 games per opponent, 8 games home and 8 away works out to perfect balance. So it seems having those 8 games divided into a pair of 4-game series would work out nicely. It does, except that you cannot fit two 4-game series within a week. If you go only with 4-gamers then you lose the meaning of the days of the week, plus though the offdays can be staggered some there is not much variety in them.

Call that the "minor league" style schedule approach. Most of the minors go that route, using four game series as much as possible, stuffing them into the schedule with little regard for which day a series starts or ends on. Most begin and end on the usual days, but some will end on a Saturday with a new series beginning on a Sunday, for example.

The off days generally fall on the same day for all the teams in a league, but that's mostly due to the schedules being fairly time-compressed.

Originally Posted by gmo

A better idea though may be to not hold the 8H/8A breakdown for the 16 games against each opponent. I believe that if I split most of the 16 down 9H/7A and 7H/9A I could at least almost completely eliminate the 2-game series and still keep everything else nicely intact. Teams would still have the same total numbers of home & away games (56 & 56), they would just not be balanced perfectly team-by-team.

Call that the "major league" style approach, which has been used to one degree or another since 1998. It does also happen in the minors from time to time, depending on what's needed to complete the schedule.

[gmo]

8 team, 126 game schedules

1 league, 1 division, 8 teams
18 games per opponent

By request this schedule is all 3-game series and all teams are always off on Wednesdays. The season runs April through August.

The zip file contains the original version, one with an offweek added in the middle of the season, and one with that offweek with everything shifted 4 weeks later.

See the top of the files for more details.

[gmo]

8 team, 162 game schedule

2 leagues, 1 division per league, 4 teams per division
90 games in the division/league (30 per opponent)
72 interleague games (18 per opponent)

To meet a request this schedule is simply the schedule of one league from this 16-team schedule without interleague play.

See the top of the file for more details.

[Muppetus Galacticus]

Thanks so much gmo - three for the price of one, outstanding work. Much appreciated

[Skywalker76]

10 Teams, 132 schedule
2 leagues, 1 division, 5 teams per division

With 117 games in division/league
and 15 games (a series each) of interleague play.


Thanks a lot. I know there is already a 132 schedule but it has too much interleague play in it.

Skywalker76

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Skywalker76

10 Teams, 132 schedule
2 leagues, 1 division, 5 teams per division

With 117 games in division/league
and 15 games (a series each) of interleague play.

There are a couple of problems with your request. A tiny thing is that with 5-team leagues there must be an even number of games within the division for all teams to play the same number of games. Looking back at your similar request from a couple of months ago for something with 120-140 games, I'd assume a small adjustment to that 117 league games number would be acceptable.

The larger problem is that with an odd number of teams in each league there must at all times be either at least one interleague series or one team in each league not playing. Your request to trim back to 1 series per interleague opponent for each team poses a problem as that adds up to a total of 25 interleague series when there are about 40 half-week blocks with series occurring. So those other 15 (or perhaps more) half weeks would need to have teams off for those 3-4 days in a row. That breaks down to about 3 or 4 such 3-4 day off-stretches per team.

So would you like me to give the fewer interleague games but more offdays a try? I would try to make it otherwise similar in form to the 134-game schedule I made before after your previous request, though I believe that it would work out best at about 129 or 131 total games. If you want this, would you prefer the offday blocks be used up in the first half of the season, saved until late in the season, put in the middle several weeks of the season, or spread throughout the whole season?

[Skywalker76]

Originally Posted by gmo

There are a couple of problems with your request. A tiny thing is that with 5-team leagues there must be an even number of games within the division for all teams to play the same number of games. Looking back at your similar request from a couple of months ago for something with 120-140 games, I'd assume a small adjustment to that 117 league games number would be acceptable.

The larger problem is that with an odd number of teams in each league there must at all times be either at least one interleague series or one team in each league not playing. Your request to trim back to 1 series per interleague opponent for each team poses a problem as that adds up to a total of 25 interleague series when there are about 40 half-week blocks with series occurring. So those other 15 (or perhaps more) half weeks would need to have teams off for those 3-4 days in a row. That breaks down to about 3 or 4 such 3-4 day off-stretches per team.

So would you like me to give the fewer interleague games but more offdays a try? I would try to make it otherwise similar in form to the 134-game schedule I made before after your previous request, though I believe that it would work out best at about 129 or 131 total games. If you want this, would you prefer the offday blocks be used up in the first half of the season, saved until late in the season, put in the middle several weeks of the season, or spread throughout the whole season?

First of all thanks for your help. This schedule is for a 1898 fictional league. I want the schedule shorter than 162 but bigger than 130 games and it should be a number which I can use for any time/number of teams in my league. So if it's not too unrealistic please spread the offdays through the season.
Thanks
Skywalker76

[gmo]

Originally Posted by Skywalker76

I want the schedule shorter than 162 but bigger than 130 games and it should be a number which I can use for any time/number of teams in my league. So if it's not too unrealistic please spread the offdays through the season.

That broad of a range in acceptable number of games gives lots of leeway, but I'll have to play with some combinations to find what will work well. I've been thinking of 131, so I may check that first, though something in the low-140s might work better.

However, with an odd number of games as this case must have with an odd number of interleague game, it will be exceedingly difficult to keep that exact number if in the future the league had different numbers of teams. It would probably be easy enough to keep within a few games, but I should warn you not to expect precisely the number for whatever works in this case to work for say 12-team or 16-team leagues with different configurations.

EDIT: I should also mention that with an odd number of games teams must play either 1 or 3 more games either home or away so those splits will not be even.

[gmo]

16 team, 112 game schedule

2 leagues, 1 division per league, 8 teams per division
all 112 games in the division/league (16 per opponent)
no interleague games

By request this schedule is all 4-game series. Otherwise in format it matches this similar schedule in layout and timeframe.

See the comments at the top of the file for more details.

[DreamTeams]

Originally Posted by gmo

16 team, 112 game schedule

2 leagues, 1 division per league, 8 teams per division
all 112 games in the division/league (16 per opponent)
no interleague games

By request this schedule is all 4-game series. Otherwise in format it matches this similar schedule in layout and timeframe.

See the comments at the top of the file for more details.

Thanks, GMO. This is excellent.

[gmo]

10 team, 131 game schedule

2 leagues, 1 division per league, 5 teams per division
116 games in the division/league (29 per opponent)
15 interleague games (3 per opponent)

This schedule does not have enough interleague play to keep all teams continually playing, so through the course of the season each team has a few stretches of a few offdays in a row.

See the comments at the top of the file for more details.

[Skywalker76]

Nevertheless thanks a lot gmo.

[Skywalker76]

Btw. gmo what is the chance when I expand my league to 12, 14, 16 teams that I can also have a 131 schedule ?

[gmo]

Exactly 131? I usually don't think much about odd total game numbers since the home & away game totals are thus not equal. It's probably possible, but I'm wary of simply immediately saying that would be no problem. I would be much more comfortable saying that 12, 14, and 16 could all likely work out fairly nicely with somewhere between 130-134 games.

[goroyals]

Hey guys, great work on the 19th century schedule. It has given me some very competive seasons. I have however decided to expand the schedule to kind of mimic the real NL. Thus I'm looking for:

8 team, 70 game schedule

That runs from about April 15 to September 20, with no Sunday games.

Thanks and keep up the great work

[gmo]

Originally Posted by goroyals

8 team, 70 game schedule

That runs from about April 15 to September 20, with no Sunday games.

Here's a idea again avoiding originality... The 1879 NL schedule (as originally planned I presume) has 12 games per opponent. It would be routine to pull 1 game home and 1 away off of every set of team matchups to trim it down to the 70 games you want. It runs May 1 through Sept 30, which can be bumped forward a week or two to more fit your request, and it has no Sunday games.

The games are all laid out in 3-game series, and as best I could tell by quick glance each team plays pretty much only one such series a week. That is part of why it would be easy to just pull out single ones here and there to get down from 84 games to 70 games per team. The major exception is the Boston & Providence games that are all single games, as the teams are so near each other, with many of them at the end of the year and going back and forth between home parks as opposed to being strictly single game matchups. In some cases during the year those single games appear to add to the regular 3 games per week or maybe force a series to wrap around a Sunday. If you told me the ID numbers of two teams that are very close to each other in your league I could set those to mimic BOS/PRO.

Of course, you have to okay the plan. How's it sound?