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Online now: 2 members: MLGrif, TABLE SETTER 11; 84 anonymousDiscussion: Runs Scored vs. Runs Allowed
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| April 28, 2015 SKings24 60 posts | Runs Scored vs. Runs Allowed With these bats and balls and scoring 5 runs an inning why are runs allowed more important than runs scored for breaking ties in the seeding round? Runs scored should be of importance in this group compared to the young up and comers where defense is important for the Men's D and E programs outside of the Senior Program. |
| April 28, 2015 SSUSA Staff 3485 posts | We're going to try to catch all three of your somewhat related posts in one reply rather than cluttering up all three threads ... Hopefully this works! ... • SEEDING NO COIN FLIP NEEDED • This is an SSUSA Rules Committee item, and the Committee meets once annually, at the SSUSA Convention in late November or early December ... The sense of the majority of the Committee when this has come to us for consideration in the past is that the coin flip is more random and more fair when there is such a limited number of seeding games ... There are only two such games in brackets of five or more teams ... Our experience has been that teams approach seeding games differently, with some trying to achieve that high seed and others attempting to get more playing time for those who may not be the "go to guys" late Sunday afternoon ... The first of those two reasons is more important to us, as the second is a team based decision, but the current coin toss rule achieves the Committee's desire for preventing a competitive advantage during bracket play ... It's fine that you believe you should be rewarded for seeding performance, but you already are rewarded in terms of playing lower seeded teams if you are a higher seed ... • RUNS SCORED vs. RUNS ALLOWED • The tie breakers (after W-L record) are [1] head-to-head result, if any, [2] aggregate runs allowed and [3] run differential (which is really the runs scored criteria) ... Rewarding teams for playing defense is a sportsmanship issue that has the additional benefit of yielding a desired tie-breaker result ... It's in the best interest of the game and the tournament to avoid hearing a team say "We can get better seed if we can pour on a couple dozen more runs on this team we are already leading by 10 runs going into the Open" ... We could do this if we made the "flip flop" rule mandatory in pool play, but we will try to avoid ugly situations so long as the "flip-flop" is discretionary in pool play ... This criteria also avoids the matter of a home team leading after 6½ innings and then wanting to bat in the bottom of the 7th to get more runs, which is not going to happen ... Any team winning a game has defended seven times, and if they haven't, it's because they lost the game as a visiting team, with that loss being its own detriment in seeding ... • GROUP OF TEAMS FOR BETTER SEEDING • Grouping teams into multiple seeding groups is theoretically achievable, and we have actually done it in the past when fields are so tight that we can't schedule a large bracket all in one place ... It is also done in some of the larger (more than 40 teams) brackets at the World Masters ... We see a potential downside with your proposal of the multiple pod-group seeding winners then being reassigned ... This introduces a subjective element into who is paired where unless those match ups are predetermined ... The schedule philosophy employed currently attempts to play teams in seeding against teams they may not see regularly ... If we do that well, then the following is true: We are solely responsible for who you play in seeding games, but you are solely responsible for who you play in the bracket, based on how you performed in seeding ... Unless and until the Rules Committee meets this winter, you will not see the changes you propose, but this represents the current thinking of the majority of the Rules Committee on the items you raise ... Thank you for the input! |
| April 28, 2015 SKings24 60 posts | I appreciate the follow up on all three items. Though as I run events in my area and we agree to disagree on what was brought up. 1)Sure the higher seed gets to play a lower seed but like you said a team could bat all there players for time and not care and then when it comes to the bracket the games they sit those players for a stronger lineup and get those hitters up more. Thus the better seed regardless should be the Home team. We can go back and forth all day on this but it is conceivable your product and the suggestions are just trying to help make it better. 2) Runs Scored, sure defense is important but we are talking guys 40 and up and don't have the range like we did back in our 20's. The point of running it up is a tough one to grasp as we only get 5 runs an inning until the open inning and there are times where a team will score no runs in that open inning to so call run it up. This is why in Pool Play you take the Visitor to get your last at bat in case you don't get your chance in the open inning as the Home team. 3) Grouping teams would still give you the same amount of games regardless if they are in groups or in one big group. If you have 16 teams you will play 16 games either way and the bracket would not be affected with 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B and so on for groups C and D. Again I appreciate you taking this into consideration at your next meeting. |
| April 28, 2015 Omar Khayyam 1357 posts | SKings24, I believe the policy is that the SSUSA leadership does NOT take comments made on this forum into account when thinking about a change in policy or procedure or rules. They expect interested parties to attend the annual meeting for them to be heard (and perhaps, to snail-mail ideas). You should plan now to attend the meeting (I hear it is very visitor-friendly) and present your arguments for changes. Don't depend on them remembering all the arguments and suggestions made here over the year on this forum, especially when some of them contradict each other. |
| April 29, 2015 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | I dont't have time to read the replies but I can quickly say that runs scored shouldn't be considered because if your team happened to be home team they may not get the chanced to bat in the open innings if they are ahead. |
