BUT..... Just when you thought you understood how the league standings work, you read the rules again (for the umpteenth time), and there it is spelled out in front of you:
It turns out the overall season ratio is NOT what is used to determine tie breakers! Instead it is the ratio "for only those games played among those teams that are tied". Woah. So for those of you trying to follow along at home, the famous "ratio" on the standings page has absolutely no effect on the final standings. Yikes. If you are one of the teams that are tied (and in 2016 there will be at least 3 of these such teams), ignore the overall ratio. Focus instead on the ratio of only the games you played against teams with whom you are tied. And by "focus", I actually mean calculate manually, since there is nowhere on the website that actually displays this :)
What does this mean? For one thing, the website is not accurate in how it handles tie breakers (it currently shows in order of overall season ratio). For another thing (and obviously related to the first one), this writer now has some work to do on the underlying code that generates the standings.
Anyone want to buy a round of beer?
