Richard Castle - contributing reporter
Have you ever wondered just how competitive is Cobbfather? Our blog writer, Mini, has taken a look into other worlds to see just where Cobbfather ranks in competitiveness. Back in the 2018 rankings we ranked #100 out of 141 worlds; ranking as Below Average. What cost us most in 2018 appears to be how long it took to find replacement owners; with only 20 teams taking longer and ranking below us. Even though we were world average in having to fill 20 owners in 4 seasons. For some reason it was just tough to replace those who dropped or moved on. Another area that effected our rating, was having three more than average 100+ loss teams compared to others. We were league average on everything else the previous rankers used to cast judgement on a world. If Thanos snapped his fingers back then, we wouldn't have survived! But alas, here we are. Surviving Thonas' snap, covid, and the currently the dry spell other leagues are having in finding replacement owners and relying on the existing HBD players with the lack of marketing from WIS themselves.
The new updated rankings that have not been released will similarly be based on the most recent four seasons; ours will include S52-S55. Not released because we are still collecting data, but we've gathered 100 worlds to date, so expect some changes with the final rankings. Cobbfather has made huge strides in some of our "problem" areas but still fall just a hair below average, coming in at 55 of the 108 we've ranked thus far; with another 25 or so to go. The average world has had to fill 14 teams over a course of 4 seasons, while we've thankfully only had to fill 7 teams with new owners. That's fantastic, and speaks to the core of owners we have here. So first of all....thank you all for sticking around!
And especially to people like bjc30 & rawdk27 (54 seasons), ekoontz41 (52 seasons), topoftheworl (44 seasons), alexng6888 (29 seasons), jbburner (28 seasons), slashtc (23 seasons), klown61455 (22 seasons), and cmchristians & alanharwell (21 seasons) who have all been around for 20+ seasons in Cobbfather. That's 10 of our 32 teams who have been around for more than two decades worth of seasons. You guys have really helped make this league what it is! Plenty of others are quickly approaching the 20 season milestone as well.
Not once in those four seasons, have we had to find a replacement for 3+ teams; where the average world has to fill 3+ teams at last two of every four seasons. Less teams to fill obviously lends itself to a quick turn around of a new season. Props to the commish (both past and present) for being on top of that and to everyone who has suggested a friend or recruited from their other leagues. Another area our world gets right, is the number of teams playing in the World Series; we've seen 7 different teams the last 4 seasons make the final series of the year (out of 8), compared to the HBD world average of 5.92. After seeing quite a few worlds be dominated by 2-3 teams, I was pleased to see the variety in ours. We've also been HBD world average on number of different division champs at 16 of 32; despite the recent winnings of Atlanta, Houston, and New Orleans but thanks to the division battles of the NL North, NL East, NL West, AL North, and AL West.
Now why are we so low if we are doing all these things right? Well, the pieces we aren't getting right is the true competitive side of the league. The average HBD world has 14 teams win 100+ games over a span of 4 seasons, where Cobbfather has seen teams win 100+ games 16 times. It's only 2 more teams in a four year span, but that docks us points. We are below average with teams losing 100+ games, so that's positive and shows the world is no more a tanking world than any other. On the tanking note, at least until this season where we had three teams (New York, Dover, and Austin) lose 110+ games, we had not had a team lose that many in the four seasons that were used to rank the league. That's huge, but expect the next updated rankings for us to fall a bit. That said, on average, worlds have 3.5 teams lose 110+ in 4 seasons....AND WE HAD THAT THIS SEASON ALONE! On the flip, we also saw above average number of teams win 110+ times; recording 7 in those 4 seasons. The HBD average is 4. So that's quite a few teams winning 110+ games. But all said and done, what really matters; at least in my opinion is the teams making the World Series. Just because you win 110+ games doesn't mean the Series is yours. The chance to win keeps the competitiveness alive.
The last area our world struggles with, plays off the dominance of the regular season by a few teams and the recent trend of challenging for the top pick in the draft. On average, the run differential between the top 3 and the bottom 3 teams in HBD is 1039 runs; Cobbfather sits at 1087 over the last four. Not huge, but that's 48 runs a season. Some of the more competitive leagues sit in the 800-950 range. The last area that shows we struggle with is the number of teams that missed the division title by less than 8 games. This doesn't account for teams that still make the playoffs; just talking about the division races. As you might know, the league lately appears to be on coasting mode by the time the trade deadline comes around; the HBD average is 16.5 teams missing it, we were down at 10. That's not leaving much of the division races; even those mentioned above. Some of the other more competitive leagues sit around 20 teams missing by under 8 games. As for being blown out of the division, those same competitive teams usually sit around 25-30 games for missing the division by more than 25 games; with the HBD average being 33. Over the last four, we had 41 teams miss the divisions by more than 25 games. If you subtract out the division winners, that's 41 of the possible 96 teams missing the division lead by more than 25 games and only 10 being less than 8 games!
Every league has it's ups and downs, as does every team as they go from rebuild to challenging for the title to rebuilding again. But we'll need to be careful for Cobbfather might become known as a min/max league where it's all about the haves and future haves as teams push for their next dynasty.
But in the end, I think a lot of owners have fun in Cobbfather, even if down seasons. Obviously the goal is to win it all, but you guys are still keeping Cobbfather fun. I know I've enjoyed looking up data and writing the blog, so thanks for letting me.
Good luck moving forward!