Reminder: Home Field Advantange (+7 points)

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

Last week every game was decided by more than a touchdown (much more, actually!). But this week, one of the 4 games was a nail biter! GREATSHEPSKI vs. THE RABID LLAMAS in the Toilet Bowl Bracket. Although Greatshepski's team appeared to have eked out a 115.45 to 114.50 victory. However, since the LLAMAS were the higher seed, they get the +7 home field advantage... and the victory.

Here's the point in our rules that spells this out...

12F. Home Field Advantage
The higher seed in the 1st two rounds of the playoffs will have 7 points added to their score as a home field advantage. There will be no home field advantage in the championship game since that is considered to take place at a neutral site.

[Burt the Butcher]

hmmm...if we decided not to allow Toilet Bowl teams to pick up players, why are we giving home field advantage points? Seems we should follow suit, and not ?

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

Interesting point.
I just assumed home field advantage should carry over into that bracket, too... rewarding good play.
However, this is new territory, as it's our first year.

[Burt the Butcher]

If anything, maybe we should be allowing lousy team advantage, to give the worse teams more equal footing? Of course, we can't do that now...

But I think since we did not specify that Frenzy Bowl rules would apply to Toilet Bowl, we should leave it as defined, and discuss which parts we want to add to it next year?

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

It definitely sounds like we need to think this out further.
Other ideas?

[Burt the Butcher]

doesn't seem like it...I guess you'll need to make a ruling before tomorrow's games begin....

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

I think since nothing was spelled out, we go with what we have on the record for postseason games... +7 home field advantage.

If we're using the Toilet Bowl bracket as an incentive for teams to try hard during the regular season despite being out of the Frenzy Championship race, then a home field advantage in the playoffs makes sense to me.

That's not to say that we can't revisit it in the offseason and get the Toilet Bowl bracket the way we'd like to be moving forward.

Brackets stand as is.

[Burt the Butcher]

Sounds good Jim...I'll adjust the percentages for this past weeks games...

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

I've already made the point changes on the league website... so if you can do the percentages, that would be great!

[RManz]

Guys - I like what you've done with the lottery system for the first two picks. I've done similar things in other leagues (including a leaf blower driven "lotto-matic" which ejects ping pong balls through a tube in a 5 gallon bucket... but I digress). I like home field for the higher seeded teams making a title run.

But for teams not making that run, I don't think we should reward a lower seeded team. We want teams putting together their best line up every week. You are creating the lottery system in order to support that and remove the guarantee of the top pick by tanking. If we now reward the lower seeded teams with home field, then we've just created a different reward for tanking.

So not to overthink it, but my vote is to keep it with the higher seeded team (and lower the points awarded if that helps) or eliminate home field and we play straight up for the bonus %. I just can't see how giving bonus points to a lower seeded will play out as a good thing during the regular season.

Just my 2 cents

[emerald]

I am in agreement with Rich. I think the decision to give the home field advantage points this year is the correct decision BUT we should address this in the off season with a vote to decide if the majority wants the 7 point home field advantage to apply to the draft pick consolation playoffs (as Jim suggested).

[Burt the Butcher]

I, surprisingly ;-), disagree. I think with adding a 7 point advantage, we almost assure the higher seeded teams will win, as can be seen with who is playing in final game. I think giving the lower seeded teams make things a bit more even, and will actually better encourage those teams to put out their best lineups. At the very least, I would vote for eliminating the points completely...

Once post season starts, we can move these discussions to a new thread to get those involved that have already drifted off...

[Flaxwless]

My two cents....

- 7 pt HA for Championship bracket.
- No home field advantage for Toilet Bowl

Award people for regular season strength, but does not severely impact the weak teams by further reducing their % at the top pick.

[Royal Hawaiian Opihi]

I'm probably leaning towards no HFA for the toilet bowl division for next year.