Message board »Message Board home »Sign-in or register to get started
Online now: 1 member: TABLE SETTER 11; 66 anonymousDiscussion: TEAM PENALIZED FOR GODD DEFENSE AND PITCHING
| Posted | Discussion |
| Aug. 10, 2014 walter mitty 2 posts | TEAM PENALIZED FOR GODD DEFENSE AND PITCHING I have several good friends on a team that has played 65 AAA all season and finds itself rerated to Major just before a national championship tournament. Why? They are 39-17 against other 65AAA teams this season. That's 69% or just over 2/3s. They have hit 5 HRs in 9 tournaments. They win most games by 1-4 runs. Two exceptions are a game playing a team playing it's 5th game of the day in 95 degree heat and another in which the team lost 2 starters to the heat, one being their #4 hitter. They also beat another team in championship play by 2 run with the other team making 14 errors. (Their count) They have won 7 tournaments this year by playing the same 5 average teams every tournament. They played one tournament against other opposition and went 1-4. The one win was by 1 and they lost by 1,8,9, and 13runs. One of the teams among the 5 is rated AA by SSUSA and ISSA but has finished 2nd in two tournaments due to the level of play among this group. The rating organization, unlike SSUSA, has no rules regarding rating except we do it because we can. This saves them the effort of finding someone with softball expertise to actually evaluate teams. It makes them subject to cronyism and collusion which elicits knee jerk reactions when coaches complain about losing. All the players and teams mentioned are good guys with a lot of talent. There is just a great deal of parity. There is no way that the rerated team can compete at the major level with just defense and pitching. 5 Home runs in 9 tournaments? |
| Aug. 10, 2014 birdie Men's 70 802 posts | What team and do you play for them? Thanks Harry #20 NV FORCE |
| Aug. 10, 2014 walter mitty 2 posts | birdie, the team is Huffman Electric in the Southeast. Obviously I am very familiar with them, but I do not play for them. |
| Aug. 10, 2014 swing for the fences Men's 50 1224 posts | I don't like the bump up in the middle of the season deal unless you have a clear-cut team dominating the level.. that means blowing out teams left and right.. I will say that you should look at your bump up as an honor. If you have good pitching and good defense, you will hold your own at the next level.. embrace it! My team got bumped and played our first M+ tourney this weekend. We have a short list of major plus talent on our team, however we have great D and gel like a family on and off the field.. We went 4 and 3 and Played our game of good D and timely hitting. It can win at any level.. Good luck to you guys and I 1000 percent agree that bumps should never happen in the middle of the season unless you have a clear dominate team demolishing teams! IMO |
| Aug. 10, 2014 Perl 212 posts | Huffman is a very good 65AAA team. Can they compete in the Major division, probably so. The unfortunate thing is they should be able to play AAA until they win a true National tournament. Winning a few regional tournaments can be misleading. That said, Huffman has dominated a very good group of 65AAA teams. The rating system benefits some teams and unjustly penalizes others. In this particular case Huffman has to feel the rating system has failed them. Hopefully Huffman excepts this bump and continues to play some great softball. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 Ken#27 2 posts | Perl, this is Kenny Reese, how are you? We do have a very good 65AAA team and we have played a group of other very good 65AAA teams, but give us a chance to play for the AAA National Championship, and then move us. Can we play Major, we don't know until we are put on the field against them. We know we can't match up with homerun power, but we do base-hit the ball really well and play defense. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 taits Men's 65 4548 posts | I misplaced by book and no time to read the site post but I think you play at level you won the right to play for the championship. With that win\loss record, the team should fair well. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 L 85 posts | I would like to ask a question if a team has only hit 5 hrs in that many games what would make you think that this team could come close to hitting 6 in a game and this team has played almost the same teams at all the tournaments. This team has over 80 per cent of its players that have never played anything other than AAA ball and one player that played 1 tournament last year for a Major team that had lost there pitcher before going to Vegas so why playing one tournament makes him Major I dont understand and they didnt win anything. So what about the teams up north and out west that are finishing 1st or 2nd in all the tournaments that they are playing, why are they not moved up and made to compete at the next level or are they going to give them a chance to compete in the Nationals and see how they do. If so why not give this team the same oppertunity to do the same. I would like to see a team overcome the 6hrs per game with just base hitting or even if the team hits 3 a game there is now way a team can score that many runs to over come especially if for some reason that they didnt score 5runs per inning or will it be seven. So dont just single out this team without checking the stats for these other teams in other areas before judging this team. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 L 85 posts | taits just a quick question defense helps you stay in the game but offense wins and if your team has no consistant home run power how do you combat the home run that is hit with players on and a team is not going to get all there runs each inning in most cases. I know you say pick up these players but when you play with guys that you enjoy playing with why should you be forced to do this and put in another class. I think that there is no reason to move this team at the current time and like stated before they should be able to compete AAA and just see how they do in the Nationals before rating and she how they stack up against the teams up North and West and the East as there are teams doing the same as this team. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 Perl 212 posts | Kenny I agree with you , let you play the AAA Nationals and then move you up if warranted. You hate being penalized for playing well. It seems like some teams never get moved up, one in our area in particular but I won't mention thier name since they're my friends. Hopefully you guys can get reclassified to AAA. Good luck and hope to see you soon |
| Aug. 11, 2014 B.K. 49 posts | The same thing happened to No Dice when we played 55 AAA. About 5 years ago. We won one tourney, western nationals. Five teams in tourney , didn't blow anybody out but did go undefeated. We got moved up to majors after that tourney. We did not get to play for the national title, the second place team played the winners of the Eastern nationals. No other team in any age group our division got moved up after the western or eastern tourneys. We never did get an explanation why we couldn't play for the title. We won the Westerns and were entitled to play winners of the Easterns . That left a bad taste in our mouths |
| Aug. 11, 2014 L 85 posts | B.K. We can see that you were also done wrong and I agree with you that you should have been able to play as you won the right to play and you could have won or lost but at least you had the chance to play for a title. |
| Aug. 11, 2014 taits Men's 65 4548 posts | L, I agree with you to a point but both are needed to win. Think that singles or better more often can be more of an advantage than one HR unless the bases are loaded as it were. Think they call it dinging then do death. Have 'learned' that teams tend to get better when they play better teams. I know more than a few teams who bitched the board to death when they got moved up to 3A. But they have been more than capable at that lever for some time. Same goes for a few 3A teams that moved up to M. On other side of coin I also know teams that do not belong where they are. It isn't a perfect world is it, but it is what it is. That all said there are teams that have NEVER moved up from AA and could well be that the came could apple for teams that entered as #A and are stuck there. Book said something like they base ratings on at least 3 qualifiers but they do not say which ones or how far back. Also there is a sentence I mentioned in one of my post on this before that they reserve the right to do this at any time. Kinda a cop out in my book, but I guess sometimes circumstances change just teams loose players and get in a bind. Over all they do the best job out there. In these games I've learned it you don't score the '5' in almost every inning and more in the open, your a lame duck at any level. Still thing with the W\L they have a good chance at majors. Down side for it NOW is timing and the shock just before so soon. |
