2057.28 View Form Above-Who’s my rival?

[Krathan]

View From Above

I needed a space to write about things that don’t fit into the “Flight Log” or “Sky Writing” style articles, or my new “Flight Tracker Podcast”. “View From Above” will be for ideas and ramblings related to the team or league that are coming from my viewpoint as the general manager. These will likely be different every time, some may be from the vantage point of the in-game general manager while others may come from my perspective outside the game. I’m not sure what all will happen in this space, but I wanted to throw out an initial idea of what this is.

My first article for “View From Above” is a look at who might be the most likely rival for the Charlotte franchise and fanbase. I originally felt like I had a kind of natural rivalry against Montreal due to the fact that the Breums and I battled it out in the GBC in 2055 and then both ended up in the Atlantic Division for the 2056 season. I don’t know that there is really anything to that, but it sort of has a bit of a feeling of a potential long term fun rivalry. That may have had a bit to do with wanting to write that article last season where my manager went nuts because a stray pitch from a Blazers pitcher broke Robert Menzies’ thumb. I like and respect the Breums and their way of approaching the game, it’s not a rivalry based on animosity. I don’t know that the Breums feel any sort of rivalry with my team, in fact, I feel like their early Montreal results have put them in position to feel more of a rivalry with Charm City than Charlotte.

However, that doesn’t actually make for a true in-game rivalry that’s based on anything the fans would care about. For that reason, I went into my team history and looked at a number of things to determine what team my team, and the Charlotte fans would have most likely developed a rivalry with over the years.

I looked at head to head records in the regular season and the postseason for every team that the Flyers have played since joining the league in 2040. After looking at it for a while, it became clear that the biggest rival would have to be from the Atlantic, even though there have been some really close matchups between the Flyers and teams in the Frontier Division. Playing a team more often is more likely to create a strong rivalry, so I had to eliminate the Frontier Division from the competition. I actually looked at all Atlantic Division teams as part of the process and ranked all of the teams against each other.

Things that I considered when coming up with the rankings I’m about to share: (All data is based on games played before 2058.)
Regular Season Record
Regular Season Run Differential
Postseason Record
Postseason Run Differential
From that list, I ranked the teams based on the closeness of those categories. After doing this for all 8 teams, I compared the rivalry rankings against each other, averaging the rankings and came up with a “Rivalry Strength” number. The lower the number, the stronger the rivalry. The strongest possible rivalry strength is 1 and the weakest possible score is 7.

Without further ado, here is what I came up with in determining Charlotte’s greatest rival. The teams are ranked from least likely to most likely rival.

7. The least likely team for Charlotte to have developed a rivalry with is Charm City. While fans in Charlotte may hate the Jimmies, it’s not because they have had a history of great battles. No, it’s because Charm City has dominated the Flyers. The Jimmies have a +56 win differential in the team’s all-time regular season matchups, outsourcing Charlotte by 229 runs in their 266 regular season meetings. They have never played each other in the postseason. Rivalry Ranking: 7. Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 7 Rivalry Strength Score: 7

6. On the other side of the coin is Brooklyn. Charlotte has destroyed the Robins over the years, with a +46 win differential and a run differential of +274 in 268 regular season games. The two teams have never played each other in the postseason. Brooklyn actually has several one-sided matchups, so Charlotte is higher on their list than they are on Charlotte’s list. Rivalry Ranking 6: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 3 Rivalry Strength Score: 4.5

5. Jacksonville is next on the list. The Hurricanes have a +34 win differential and +165 run differential in 268 regular season games. The two teams have not played each other in the postseason. Neither team is particularly high on each other’s list but Jacksonville fans don’t seem to care quite as much as Charlotte fans do about this rivalry. Rivalry Ranking 5: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 7 Rivalry Strength Score: 6

4. Montreal has a +4 regular season win differential with a +59 run differential in 268 games. The two teams have not faced each other in the playoffs. Rivalry Ranking 4: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 5 Rivalry Strength Score: 4.5

3. Rockville is the third biggest rival for Charlotte. During the 269 regular season games played between the two teams, Rockville has a +26 win differential and a +61 run differential. The two teams have never played each other in the postseason. Rivalry Ranking 3: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 3 Rivalry Strength Score: 3

2. The second biggest rival, according to fans in Charlotte, is New Orleans. The two teams have played each other 275 times in the regular season. New Orleans owns a +17 win differential with an impressive +134 run differential. The thing that puts New Orleans ahead of Rockville for me is that the two teams have actually faced each other in the postseason, with Charlotte winning all 4 games with a run differential of +19. Charlotte fans hold the rivalry in higher regard than Crawdads fans do. Rivalry Ranking 2: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 4 Rivalry Strength Score: 3

1. The clear choice as Charlotte’s top rival is the Atlantic City Gamblers. The two teams have played each other 269 times. Charlotte has a +5 win differential. Despite the fact that the Flyers have won more games, Atlantic City has a +36 run differential. The teams have played each other in the postseason twice, totaling 9 games. Each team has won 1 series and Charlotte has a +1 win differential with a +17 run differential in those 9 games. Rivalry Ranking 1: Opponent Rivalry Ranking: 1 Rivalry Strength Score: 1

So, after reviewing all of that day I just have this to say:

SCREW THE GAMBLERS! BEAT AC!

[RonCo]

I like it.

[7teen]

Now that is awesome. Good stuff.

Portland’s is Vancouver only because I carried my, going on 6 decade now, rivalry with Mounties over from my time in Madison.

I think I tried early on creating another one with Seattle just due to proximity of the teams but my disdain for Vancouver always won out.

Screw you Douglas Newhouse