11-22-2022, 02:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-23-2022, 03:38 PM by Caleb_H. Edited 2 times in total.)
I'm sure by now many of you have noticed that this season we had a very rare occurence with both the ISFL and the DSFL having a team with a winless record. For this post we're going to specifically take a look at the DSFL side of things and explore the theory that a DSFL team can have a fairly quick downturn from great to horrendous, and on the opposite side of the coin we're going to evaluate how long it has taken for these spectacularly bad teams to dig their way out of the hole and return to relevancy.
My theory originally has always been that a successful DSFL team will often be gutted the most by call ups due to the nature of success in the league. Having a lot of good players tends to get you a good record, but then by being good players they should in theory spend less time playing in the minor leagues or at least be more prepared for a call up than a team of players who are less successful. I also would suggest that with the DSFL experiencing a full league generation every 4 seasons that the upswing could happen faster than the ISFL because the player situation becomes so volatile.
To explore this we're going to assess the five worst teams in DSFL history as determined by their end of season records. We will be looking at the season prior to their Hall of Shame worthy season to see whether their record dropped off a cliff, or if it was a gradual decline. Finally we will check to see how long it took for them to turn it around by looking at how long it took for the teams to eventually return to having a winning record.
Without further adieu, starting with the most recent inductees, your DSFL Hall of Shame teams;
Honorable mention goes to the Palm Bay Solar Bears for their 1-12-1 season in S9 but I was uncertain of if this was a bot team so they have not been included. My first observation here is that all of these hall of shame seasons (except S19 Norfolk) have been more recent and it appears that prior to these seasons the DSFL experienced more parity than it has on average since then and maybe that's a topic worth exploring in a future post as well.
We'll start with the most recent team and work our way from one bookended winless season to the only other in DSFL history at the other end.
It's an easy spot to start because we don't have the upswing yet, but the drop off certainly seems to agree with my original hypothesis, there's not much more of a decline that a team can experience than going from winning it all to winning literally nothing. Without a future record to assess yet, all we can really say for sure is that this is a team that has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows all in the space of two seasons. Congrats and commiserations to Bondi Beach for your Hall of Shame induction.
We can start getting into the good stuff now, this doesn't line up well with my hypothesis, the Royals had the most average season possible prior to their worst ever. A record of 7-7 in the DSFL is by no means a bad result, however in this circumstance it was the worst record in their division and saw them miss the playoffs. It is worth mentioning that the Royals did have an 11-3 season in S28 and won the ultimini, so while only just outside our metrics the decline was still fairly steep over the two season, but more gradual than our first example.
The return to relevance in this case was fairly long, and while the Royals had a 7-7 season in S35 we are looking for winning seasons here so it comes close but doesn't quite hit the mark. For the Royals, it took 6 seasons to come back from their Hall of Shame season, well outside my expectation given the full league turnover every 4 seasons. Once again, this does not bode well for my theory, or Bondi Beach.
The two-time Hall of Shamers definitely did not drop off a cliff to get there in this case, a 4-10 record does not imply success in any way shape or form. This definitely seems more like a case of a gradual decline, no immediate ultimini in the Seawolve's past either. Though they made playoffs two seasons prior (S26, 7-7) their combined record over the three seasons leading into the Hall of Shame season was 13-29. Again though, we're only looking at the immediate change from the season prior here but we can say with certainty the S27 4-10 Seawolves were unsuccessful.
With all that said, the folk in Norfolk didn't take too long to turn their fortunes around with a 9-5 season only three seasons after, taking half the time the Royals took after S30. This is less than the league's 4 season full turnover but much more in line with my expectations, good draft picks for a few seasons due to bad records should generally pay off not too long after. There is hope for Bondi yet.
The Yotes are helping me see a pattern emerge which is contrary to my hypothesis at least in one of the two factors, as their season prior to entering the Hall of Shame was much like the Royals with a 7-7 season and a gradual decline, except this time much like Norfolk, no immediate ultimini in their past. The S25 Coyotes weren't bad, but they weren't good and in my eyes that classifies as an unsuccessful team when it doesn't lead to a playoff berth.
At first glance, Kansas City had a similar path to relevancy as Norfolk did, however with a closer look we can see that their S27 season immediately after their induction was 7-7, followed by another 7-7 in S28 before finally reaching a positive win rate in S29 with a 8-5-1 record. We're only looking at how long it took to get there, so it's a three season turn around again - but with an honorable mention for being close the two seasons prior as well. Once again, bringing the slimmest of hopes back to Bondi Beach.
We've returned back to what we hate to see, with a winless season as the opening induction of the Hall of Shame. Once again confirming that my hypothesis was made up and based on nothing but gut feeling, we can see that the previous season Seawolves were almost worthy of an induction into the Hall themselves. While it seems like a gradual decline, this Norfolk team had only ever had one winning season prior to this (to be fair to them, the team was run and exclusively filled by robots for a large part of this history) so therefore this was more of a rolling plains than a cliff or even steep decline.
The big upside here is that the return to relevancy shows the worst team can still recover quickly, with the Seawolves turning it around in only two seasons. I'm sure that this in large part is due to the massive influx of players that came with the Reddit recruitment class, but nevertheless it is impressive when compared to the other rebounds we've seen so far.
Looking at all of these seasons, their seasons prior and after it does seem like the worst teams did not neccesarily have a grand fall from grace as I'd expected, with Bondi Beach being the only team to even make playoffs in the season prior. On the other hand, I'd say for the most part the estimate of a reasonably quick rebound was not as inaccurate, with the average time to return to relevancy between the four teams that have had that experience is three and a half seasons, representing just a touch underneath that general full league turnover mark of four seasons. My takeaway from this is that a Hall of Shame season can come from the best of the best, or from an already struggling team with no discrimination and that generally the rebound while not expedited does not lead to long term issues.
Good luck to the Bondi Beach Buccaneers on their mission to return to relevancy!
My theory originally has always been that a successful DSFL team will often be gutted the most by call ups due to the nature of success in the league. Having a lot of good players tends to get you a good record, but then by being good players they should in theory spend less time playing in the minor leagues or at least be more prepared for a call up than a team of players who are less successful. I also would suggest that with the DSFL experiencing a full league generation every 4 seasons that the upswing could happen faster than the ISFL because the player situation becomes so volatile.
To explore this we're going to assess the five worst teams in DSFL history as determined by their end of season records. We will be looking at the season prior to their Hall of Shame worthy season to see whether their record dropped off a cliff, or if it was a gradual decline. Finally we will check to see how long it took for them to turn it around by looking at how long it took for the teams to eventually return to having a winning record.
Without further adieu, starting with the most recent inductees, your DSFL Hall of Shame teams;
S38 - Bondi Beach Buccaneers (0-14)
S30 - London Royals (1-13)
S28 - Norfolk Seawolves (1-13)
S26 - Kansas City Coyotes (1-13)
S19 - Norfolk Seawolves (0-14)
Honorable mention goes to the Palm Bay Solar Bears for their 1-12-1 season in S9 but I was uncertain of if this was a bot team so they have not been included. My first observation here is that all of these hall of shame seasons (except S19 Norfolk) have been more recent and it appears that prior to these seasons the DSFL experienced more parity than it has on average since then and maybe that's a topic worth exploring in a future post as well.
We'll start with the most recent team and work our way from one bookended winless season to the only other in DSFL history at the other end.
S38 - Bondi Beach Buccaneers (0-14)
Previous season record: 11-3, won ultimini
Return to relevance: TBD
It's an easy spot to start because we don't have the upswing yet, but the drop off certainly seems to agree with my original hypothesis, there's not much more of a decline that a team can experience than going from winning it all to winning literally nothing. Without a future record to assess yet, all we can really say for sure is that this is a team that has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows all in the space of two seasons. Congrats and commiserations to Bondi Beach for your Hall of Shame induction.
S30 - London Royals (1-13)
Previous season record: 7-7 did not make playoffs
Return to relevance: S36 (8-6), 6 Seasons
We can start getting into the good stuff now, this doesn't line up well with my hypothesis, the Royals had the most average season possible prior to their worst ever. A record of 7-7 in the DSFL is by no means a bad result, however in this circumstance it was the worst record in their division and saw them miss the playoffs. It is worth mentioning that the Royals did have an 11-3 season in S28 and won the ultimini, so while only just outside our metrics the decline was still fairly steep over the two season, but more gradual than our first example.
The return to relevance in this case was fairly long, and while the Royals had a 7-7 season in S35 we are looking for winning seasons here so it comes close but doesn't quite hit the mark. For the Royals, it took 6 seasons to come back from their Hall of Shame season, well outside my expectation given the full league turnover every 4 seasons. Once again, this does not bode well for my theory, or Bondi Beach.
S28 - Norfolk Seawolves (1-13)
Previous season record: 4-10 did not make playoffs
Return to relevance: S31 (9-5), 3 Seasons
The two-time Hall of Shamers definitely did not drop off a cliff to get there in this case, a 4-10 record does not imply success in any way shape or form. This definitely seems more like a case of a gradual decline, no immediate ultimini in the Seawolve's past either. Though they made playoffs two seasons prior (S26, 7-7) their combined record over the three seasons leading into the Hall of Shame season was 13-29. Again though, we're only looking at the immediate change from the season prior here but we can say with certainty the S27 4-10 Seawolves were unsuccessful.
With all that said, the folk in Norfolk didn't take too long to turn their fortunes around with a 9-5 season only three seasons after, taking half the time the Royals took after S30. This is less than the league's 4 season full turnover but much more in line with my expectations, good draft picks for a few seasons due to bad records should generally pay off not too long after. There is hope for Bondi yet.
S26 - Kansas City Coyotes (1-13)
Previous season record: 7-7 did not make playoffs
Return to relevance: S29 (8-5-1), 3 Seasons
The Yotes are helping me see a pattern emerge which is contrary to my hypothesis at least in one of the two factors, as their season prior to entering the Hall of Shame was much like the Royals with a 7-7 season and a gradual decline, except this time much like Norfolk, no immediate ultimini in their past. The S25 Coyotes weren't bad, but they weren't good and in my eyes that classifies as an unsuccessful team when it doesn't lead to a playoff berth.
At first glance, Kansas City had a similar path to relevancy as Norfolk did, however with a closer look we can see that their S27 season immediately after their induction was 7-7, followed by another 7-7 in S28 before finally reaching a positive win rate in S29 with a 8-5-1 record. We're only looking at how long it took to get there, so it's a three season turn around again - but with an honorable mention for being close the two seasons prior as well. Once again, bringing the slimmest of hopes back to Bondi Beach.
S19 - Norfolk Seawolves (0-14)
Previous season record: 3-11
Return to relevancy: S21 (8-6), 2 Seasons
We've returned back to what we hate to see, with a winless season as the opening induction of the Hall of Shame. Once again confirming that my hypothesis was made up and based on nothing but gut feeling, we can see that the previous season Seawolves were almost worthy of an induction into the Hall themselves. While it seems like a gradual decline, this Norfolk team had only ever had one winning season prior to this (to be fair to them, the team was run and exclusively filled by robots for a large part of this history) so therefore this was more of a rolling plains than a cliff or even steep decline.
The big upside here is that the return to relevancy shows the worst team can still recover quickly, with the Seawolves turning it around in only two seasons. I'm sure that this in large part is due to the massive influx of players that came with the Reddit recruitment class, but nevertheless it is impressive when compared to the other rebounds we've seen so far.
Looking at all of these seasons, their seasons prior and after it does seem like the worst teams did not neccesarily have a grand fall from grace as I'd expected, with Bondi Beach being the only team to even make playoffs in the season prior. On the other hand, I'd say for the most part the estimate of a reasonably quick rebound was not as inaccurate, with the average time to return to relevancy between the four teams that have had that experience is three and a half seasons, representing just a touch underneath that general full league turnover mark of four seasons. My takeaway from this is that a Hall of Shame season can come from the best of the best, or from an already struggling team with no discrimination and that generally the rebound while not expedited does not lead to long term issues.
Good luck to the Bondi Beach Buccaneers on their mission to return to relevancy!