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Online now: 1 member: TABLE SETTER 11; 51 anonymousDiscussion: 50 AAA
| Posted | Discussion |
| May 3, 2019 Bruster55 Men's 60 109 posts | 50 AAA Wondering how a team that has won the last 3 TOC eligible tourneys is still rated AAA? Anyone have any thoughts on this? Just wondering.... |
| May 6, 2019 CLUBBER 18 posts | Crickets !!!! |
| May 6, 2019 TimMcElroy 942 posts | The only automatic bump comes from winning the LVSSA / SSUSA World Masters or SPA World Championship. All other ratings bumps are determined over a period of time using actual game data. The next ratings announcements come in June. |
| May 6, 2019 coop3636 514 posts | Tim, I usually mess with Dave, but here is one for you. I thought the top 2 teams in the Vegas tourney got bumped I know it happened 5 years ago to a 60 major team. Just saying coop3636 |
| May 7, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4312 posts | coop3636 ... Tim mentioned we're going to do the semi-annual rating review in June ... I'm strongly advocating a couple of ideas, maybe they can simplify things ... • Eliminate the three "out-of-rating" exemptions ... You play at the rating level of the highest experience history of any player on your roster (this was the rule as late as 2007) ... OR • Just do a statistical analysis and automatically raise the top 15 to 20% of teams in the AAA (to Major) and the Major (to Major+) ... Maybe even drop the lower end 10% of AAA to AA ... That should more evenly distribute the teams ... What do you think? ... . . . . . . . . . Just kidding! (sort of) ... Got'cha! |
| May 7, 2019 chico senior Men's 60 134 posts | In my opinion there is far too much gray area currently. It drastically affected our team in 2013. We finished 5th in a 22 team bracket and were bumped from AAA to Major. Two of the teams that finished ahead of us remained AAA. I feel that SSUSA should designate all major tournaments as ones that could affect your rating. They should determine by entrants in that group how many will move up or down. For example a group of 6 or less the winner will move up and the last place finisher will move down. In a group of 7 - 16, two will move up and two will move down. This takes all the guess work out of it. For example, the major tournaments that would affect rating changes would be: Winter Nationals Spring Worlds Southwest Championships Reno Western Nationals Eastern Nationals Las Vegas Worlds You can add or subtract from the list. |
| May 7, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4312 posts | chico senior ... Larger tournament fields DO influence discretionary rating decisions ... But as a Director at many of the events you mention, it may surprise you how many teams actually straight out tell me they are "afraid to win" because they (erroneously) believe winning at other than SPA Nationals or LVSSA/SSUSA World Masters will get them bumped up ... It's baffling to me that many teams will sacrifice success and regional championships because they want to avoid being reclassified into a division they absolutely know is where they belong ... |
| May 7, 2019 chico senior Men's 60 134 posts | I am not disagreeing with most of what you stated. What I am saying is that it would be more cut and dry for everyone, including SSUSA, if everyone knew in advance what was going to happen. I know that there are some teams that will ‘play down’ to intentionally stay in same ratings group. It makes no sense to me to do that and waste money going to tournaments with the intention of not trying to win their bracket. However, it is also unfair to go to a tournament and finish behind other teams that do not get bumped up when your team is forced to do just that when you finish below them. I have requested an explanation multiple times and have never been given one. We have only been told that our team deserved the bump and the others did not. How is that even begin to be fair? |
| May 7, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4312 posts | chico ... I didn't perceive any disagreement ... No worries here! ... Trying (hopefuly) to be short, the only "automatic" bumps come from winning the SPA Nationals or the LVSSA/SSUSA World Masters ... Everything else is "discretionary/subjective", and that's where it gets both difficult (for us) and perplexing at times (for you) ... ALL subjective moves involve a detailed data analysis of run production, won-lost records, average run differentials, size of the event(s) played and several other factors ... And this data is cut by inside and outside of your native age and rating, so playing up/down in age and/or rating is calculated and considered ... We cut the data by seeding games vs. bracket games because, quite candidly, there are more than a few teams that will sacrifice success in seeding games in order to keep their "numbers" in line (down) before brackets commence ... We also seek input from Directors on site who actually observe the teams and games, so it's not just a random decision based only on numbers from a green-bar paper data printout ... We are happy to take a call from you at any time on your team, but we very very rarely comment publicly on "other teams" ... That's consistent with our general philosophy of not getting into a specific team debate in an unregulated anonymous message board! ... Hope this is somewhat helpful ... |
| May 7, 2019 Funwiththesuns 37 posts | For teams and players that play SSUSA softball tournament I want to say this. Our teams goes to these tournaments to win, regardless of who we play. We know that some of these teams should be in a higher division, but still we pay a lot of money to enter, hotels, meals and plane ticket to come and play. I always thought you do your best to win no matter who you play against. If the team you play in your opinion should be high rated and you beat them, than how would you and your team feel. You won, what next. If you win a tournament or 2 or 3, you should be proud of your team. I have played softball since I was 16 yrs old. My manager has taught me "You go out there, play to win", do your best. I started in a single A division want to win to get to the Major division. The same applies her in SSUSA, we started a AA, moved up to AAA, now wanting to win to get to Majors. This is what every teams should thrive for. Be a winner not a loser, shoot for the moon. |
| May 7, 2019 Dbax Men's 65 2100 posts | I've posted this before. If a you legally assemble a team within SSUSA rules you should not be bumped up mid season if you are successful. Some teams dream of winning the Triple Crown or just the Worlds and are built with that in mind. They should be allowed to try and attain that goal. The way it is now, if a team wins a tournament they avoid playing another major tournament the rest of the year in hopes of not getting bumped up. I say just make your bumps after th World Championships. |
| May 7, 2019 DaveDowell Men's 70 4312 posts | Dbax ... We've had this discussion before, and I don't necessarily disagree under normal circumstances, but don't agree as an absolute prohibition ... Our internal policy is that "It's OK to be good" ... We will, in all likelihood, be moving up some teams at the mid-Season ratings review after the Reno event ... But those will be clear-cut decisions involving teams that would dominate the lower division if left there through the World Masters ... The ultimate goal is to have EVERY team in the proper rating level at Las Vegas, and to have those moves completed as early as possible ... We want every team to have a chance, if they play well, to be able to win in Las Vegas, but having one over matched team is a heck of a lot better than having a dominant team that negates the chance for 30 or 40 other teams to have ANY chance at success ... As a totally made up example, if a team won the Winter Worlds, Spring Worlds, Southwest and Reno in larger brackets, there's a really good chance they're going to get the challenge at the next level ... But an occasional win, or even two, would not normally be an inescapable conclusion for a bump ... It has also been many years since we have moved up a team just before the Eastern or Western Nationals .. Any rating moves in that time line are the result of manager initiated roster changes (read: additions), where they just have to have that guy or those guys, usually from teams who have chosen not to go to Las Vegas and have released their players ... |
| May 7, 2019 coop3636 514 posts | Hey Dave Here is what I think (since you asked) We should only have 2 divisions (more teams per division) call it lower and upper (less awards to be given out) Lower will be 3 hrs with outs no one ups (5 runs per inning) Upper will be 6 hrs with walks and one ups (7 runs per inning) Let the teams that want to hit homeruns, hit them The rest can play lower This will get more teams in each division (tired of playing the same 3 teams each tourney) Make mandatory move ups every 2 years.. (according to tournament results) Just because you have one good tourney, doesn't mean that you should be moved up. Also teams like to defend their titles. I don't think it is fair if the only tournament you win is the SPA worlds in Dalton (which might only have 6 teams in your division) Most teams have at least one good tourney a year and if its that one, you get moved up to a division that you don't belong. I know this probably wont happen, but you asked.. coop3636 |
| May 7, 2019 GI Men's 60 228 posts | Hi group, Some interesting notes from both sides. DBax I tend to agree with you about having chance to win a Triple Crown, They do not occur all that often unless your a team that wins all tournaments every year. I play for Rezults out of Vegas, I started playing in Feb of 2018 as a AAA team. We won the Feb Vegas tournament that had I believe had 3-4 teams in our division. I believe we did not win another tournament till Worlds In Sept 2018. We lost at least half of our team after being moved to major as guys did not want to be moved up. Coach has done his best to play if we could get enough players and played Dec and March at Rick Siefmans tournament in AZ going 0 for 10. We even lost to a 65 AAA team that had won I believe the 2019 Feb TOC Maybe as a AA or AAA team. WE went to Worlds in April fighting to come up with 11 players. To Senior softball credit they allowed us one add on player to get to 11. We ended up using bench coach in last game to keep 11 on field. Good news is we one first game by 1 run after a great open and than lost the next four games for a 1 and 14 record since worlds.We wanted to play Perris but came up short. Hard to believe with a sponsor and winning a Worlds we would have this problem. We plan to play Flagstaff and Vegas in June so maybe we will be considered for a level drop but that is out of my control. I will continue as I believe rest of team we have to give our best, Life sometimes are full of setbacks but nothing compared to what some have to face in life. One of my 1st grade students has cancer, Now that is a major problem that most of us will not have to face. I have said in past and will say again, I enjoy this game of softball and thank God for a chance to still be on the field around so many friends. See you on the field. GI |
| May 7, 2019 TimMcElroy 942 posts | I don't necessarily agree with Dbax on this one. We all know that there are major caliber players hanging out on AAA rosters. If somebody stockpiles all of those guys and they start running through tournaments then they ought to play up. My basic belief on classification is this- just because you aren't the best Major team out there doesn't mean that you belong in AAA. |
| May 7, 2019 Dbax Men's 65 2100 posts | The point is teams get bumped up without running through tournaments. My team last year won the Winter Worlds with 10 teams entered. Then we won Spring Worlds with 8 teams entered. Went to Southwest Championships and took third. Only 8 teams entered. Bumped to Major Plus for rest of year. Went to Worlds and went 1-4. Year over. Would have been exciting to play for a chance to win the 60 Major bracket that had 31 teams. Another thing is teams lose players to injury or other circumstances and SSUSA makes their bumps without any clue but tournament results. No disrespect, but whoever is in charge of ratings most of the time does not know what's going on on the field. Oh and Major players are allowed to hang out in AAA. By your own rules each team is allowed three. |
| May 7, 2019 Hobie#10 Gray&Con 5 posts | First time poster!!! Oh ya - watch out I agree with a lot of items discussed: good points We play the game because we love it.. Win or lose We are a AAA team that signs up for the tournaments and play who they tell us to play. We have always said if we deserve to get moved up move us up. We play to win every time we step on the field just like I would assume 100% of all teams. Our next tourney is Sac in August and we will be trying to win in AAA or Major to represent the West to put a beat down on whoever we play in Vegas. Stay healthy and love the game!!! Grayed and Confused bat boy - mainly confused |
| May 8, 2019 curveball Men's 65 705 posts | "We play the game because we love it" Just curious, love the game and don't play till August? Reason... |
| May 8, 2019 Hobie#10 Gray&Con 5 posts | Curveball - We never stop playing - Local tournaments with our kids teams and the numerous other hobbies we have like Golfing, fishing, boating, hunting, hiking, and camping to name a few. Loved to have gone to Reno but had to many guys out doing other things with their family’s. See you all in Sac and good luck!!!! |
| May 8, 2019 Swing14 Men's 50 9 posts | Just thought we would let someone else win won this year😜 Could only imagine what the conversation would be if we won Reno too. 🤔🤔 Keep swinging for the fence.. |
