Playoff Tie-Breaker between Non-Playoff Teams

[trreinhard]

My regular season just came to an end and I got an unexpected tie-breaker game. I have a 48-team league with 2 conferences of 4 6-team divisions. I have custom playoffs enabled with the four division winners and top 4 wildcards in each conference making the playoffs. I completed my last day of regular season games and checked my standings. There were no ties atop any of the divisions and the top 4 wildcards in each conference were clearly defined. I advanced to the next day and was surprised to see a tie-breaker game suddenly scheduled between teams not expected to make the playoffs. I looked at my standings to see where the two teams in question where tied. They were tied for the 8th and 9th spots in one of the conference's wildcard standings.

I had already saved this in version #10.4.29 when I noticed this. I double checked my playoff settings to make sure it is indeed the top four wildcards that are suppose to qualify. I had no extra games scheduled last season that could have carried over and caused this. In fact, I got the season ending news release on the date I would have now expected it after the regularly scheduled games have completed.

A side note on the season ending news release: If there are multiple teams tied causing multiple days of tie-breakers, I noticed a season ending news release each day there was a tie breaker game until the final playoff spots were determined. I saw this happen with a couple of my minor leagues.

If you need, I can upload a zip file containing my .dat files.

Thanks,
Todd

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by trreinhard

I completed my last day of regular season games and checked my standings. There were no ties atop any of the divisions and the top 4 wildcards in each conference were clearly defined. I advanced to the next day and was surprised to see a tie-breaker game suddenly scheduled between teams not expected to make the playoffs. I looked at my standings to see where the two teams in question where tied. They were tied for the 8th and 9th spots in one of the conference's wildcard standings.

I'm a little confused by what you said here. It looks like you are saying one day the playoffs spots were straight forward, then the next day there was a tie. Are you saying the standings changed after you advanced this next day?

Or are you saying the the 8th and 9th teams in the wild card should both have been excluded because they had a better record than one of the division winners?

Maybe a pic of the division and wild card standings might be worth 1000 words here.

Though I will jump ahead and say that OOTP has some deficiencies when it comes to tiebreakers. This is exascerbated by customization of playoff conditions because it just doesn't settle complex ties between division winners and wildcards very well. The system is generally adequate for MLB-type playoffs, but isn't great at other scenarios. I know this doesn't really offer much help.

[trreinhard]

Nothing changed standings-wise from one day to the next. It was just that two team further down the wild-card standings, who were not in the top four or ahead of any of the division leaders, now had a tie-breaker game scheduled.

[TribeFanInNC]

Originally Posted by trreinhard

Nothing changed standings-wise from one day to the next. It was just that two team further down the wild-card standings, who were not in the top four or ahead of any of the division leaders, now had a tie-breaker game scheduled.

Oh, I think I get it now. Only the top 4 from the wild card standings should have been there, but teams 8 & 9 were playing a tiebreaker.

Hmmm...I can't explain that. But I admit, I don't use multiple wild cards ever I don't think. Maybe someone else can chime in that uses customized playoffs more..