Tournament Format - Tie Breaker

[tghorley]

My DGD's team played in a tournament this weekend with a first-time format for us. 32 teams were broken down into 4 pools and each team played 7 games with the top team in each pool moving on to a semi-championship game followed by a championship game.

Our team did great in pool play going 6-1, losing one game by 1 run and advanced. Unfortunately the championship round was not played because of rain.

It did not happen in this tournament but I am not sure whether I agree or disagree with the tie breakers:
Win/Loss Record,
Head to Head,
Run Differential (+7/-7)
Runs Allowed
Coin Toss

The head to head is what has been bothering me. For example team A beats team B by 1 run. Team C beats team A by 5 runs. Team B beats team C by 8 runs. At the end of the 7 games, teams A and B are tied at 6-1 records. According to tie breaker rules, team A would advance. But are they the best team to advance based on the three games as described above?

Your thoughts.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Direct head to head i.e., A v. B? or Head to head v. common opponent i.e., A v C and B v C? Although, there's really no good way to break a tie in this situation, I'd drop the run differential as it rewards a team running up the score v. a weak oponent. Actually, if there's no direct head to head comparison possible, you'd be best off going directly to flipping a coin because there's no way to quantify the comparative strength of each pool.

 

[David Carter]

I think it is as fair as possible, I don't know what else you would do. Maybe run diff would promote running up the score but if you play with a 5 or 6 run inning cap that might help. Usually record and head to head would break most ties.

 

[Momo'sDad]

In your format, the team with the best W-L record wins the pool, regardless of who beat whom and by how much.

If 2 teams are tied with the same W-L, then the 1st tiebreaker is head-to-head. In your scenario, A and B were both 6-1, and since A beat B, then A wins that tiebreaker. Results vs C do not factor in.

If 3 or more teams were tied with the same W-L record - or if teams A and B had tied - then run differential becomes the 1st tiebreaker.

In our area, most of the tournament directors prefer to have runs allowed as the 1st tiebreaker in a situation where 3 teams are tied in pool play. Runs scored would be the 2nd tiebreaker. Some people mistakenly think this is the same as run differential, but that's not the case.

Coin flip would be last option.

 

[JAD]

I'd drop the run differential as it rewards a team running up the score v. a weak oponent.QUOTE]

Most tournaments use "runs allowed" as a tie breaker before "run differential" for this exact reason....

 

[chinamigarden]

Can't get much fairer for a tie breaker then head to head. If you lost to team A then team A was better then you for at least that one game.

If you want to ensure the fairest possible outcome. Win them all.

 

[CoogansBluff]

In this scenario, there is no good way to break the tie, but head-to-head is the least of the evils, IMO.

Tournament softball is more difficult than other sports to settle ties because softball games are rarely played to their conclusion. Some games are 4 innings. Some games are 5 innings. Some games are 5.5 innings. The home team sometimes does not bat. Games are shortened by run rules, or extended by extra innings or ITB's. As a result, run differentials and runs allowed can't be computed fairly.

I believe that using head to head is taking the easy way out, but there's really nothing else you can do that