I just take comfort that we are better than any Team from Tennessee.
GOLD/A/B/C Why do we have it?
- Thread starter Jquick823
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- Jun 22, 2008
- 3,438
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Kevin,
I agree, being a "Gold" team should be something special. I have a friend who worked the 18U Gold this year and came home disappointed at the level of ball, specifically pitching, that he experienced. He stated he saw much better ball at the 2011 16U in Chattanooga.
OTOH, can you imagine the fury if ASA started to lock down certain requirements to be a gold team?
- Nov 18, 2013
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The lower and mid level club teams are really in a no win situation. The higher level organizations think they're a joke and don't belong with them and the B/C level teams call them trophy chasers if they play at their level.
- May 29, 2013
- 50
- 0
I think the various levels make sense so more teams have more chances to play in competitive games. No one enjoys a 3-inning run-rule loss; not even the team that wins.
I think teams labeling themselves above their real competitiveness should be self-correcting over time. Either getting crushed at every tournament will make them better until they can compete at their chosen level, or kids and parents will eventually give up and look for other teams. It's unfortunate for players and families that might have been duped by a fancy name or "A" level cache, but if you're switching to a new organization, do your homework to minimize this risk.
For teams "trophy hunting" and/or playing below their real competitiveness level, it's a harder problem. The only fix for that is for sanctioning organizations to move teams up. To do this effectively, they often have to move up a bunch of teams at once. I've posted about this before, but USSSA mid-Atlantic did this at several age groups last year and I think it worked well. There were a bunch of teams that were playing at C that were actually more like average to slightly-below average B teams. Since they were all playing each other competitively (and so winning and losing close games), none felt dominant enough to move themselves up ("Hey we haven't even won a tournament at C... maybe we're not ready for B yet."), but the younger/newer "C" teams basically were one-and-done every Sunday. Because they moved up a bunch of teams at once, the new B teams that just moved up still had teams they were competitive against -- and as it turned out many of the teams that were moved up did pretty well even against the teams that had been playing B tournaments all along. So kudos to USSSA mid-Atlantic. (The only downside was that the mid-Atlantic World Series had only Open and C divisions, so a bunch of teams that had been playing C in June found themselves playing regional powerhouse A teams mid-July in the World Series.)
I think teams labeling themselves above their real competitiveness should be self-correcting over time. Either getting crushed at every tournament will make them better until they can compete at their chosen level, or kids and parents will eventually give up and look for other teams. It's unfortunate for players and families that might have been duped by a fancy name or "A" level cache, but if you're switching to a new organization, do your homework to minimize this risk.
For teams "trophy hunting" and/or playing below their real competitiveness level, it's a harder problem. The only fix for that is for sanctioning organizations to move teams up. To do this effectively, they often have to move up a bunch of teams at once. I've posted about this before, but USSSA mid-Atlantic did this at several age groups last year and I think it worked well. There were a bunch of teams that were playing at C that were actually more like average to slightly-below average B teams. Since they were all playing each other competitively (and so winning and losing close games), none felt dominant enough to move themselves up ("Hey we haven't even won a tournament at C... maybe we're not ready for B yet."), but the younger/newer "C" teams basically were one-and-done every Sunday. Because they moved up a bunch of teams at once, the new B teams that just moved up still had teams they were competitive against -- and as it turned out many of the teams that were moved up did pretty well even against the teams that had been playing B tournaments all along. So kudos to USSSA mid-Atlantic. (The only downside was that the mid-Atlantic World Series had only Open and C divisions, so a bunch of teams that had been playing C in June found themselves playing regional powerhouse A teams mid-July in the World Series.)
A friend's DD just joined the Fury. I hear they are pretty good.
We have 18U Gold teams in our area that have NEVER played a Gold qualifier. Of the 10 to 12 Gold teams in our area, only 3 or 4 are legitimate Gold teams and can compete with teams from the South and West. The rest play showcases (primarily in PA and NJ) and never go further away than NY and MD.
It's a fallacy to think that teams can be placed into clear-cut divisions. If you have 100 teams, best you can do is rank them 1-100. If 20 show up to a tournament, divide them into groups based on their ranking, not their divisions. Divide them in groups of 6-6-8 or some such. There is no clear-cut place to divide A from B from C.
I often hear people say ''there are 8 true A-level teams in the state,'' or something like that. So you're saying #8 is more similar to #1 than to #9?
I often hear people say ''there are 8 true A-level teams in the state,'' or something like that. So you're saying #8 is more similar to #1 than to #9?
I was just pulling GoingDeep chain, I know they have a lot of really good Teams.
- Jun 7, 2013
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The fall fastpitch softball league that my DDs have played in for the past several years have, previously, asked each team so self-identify its level of play by ranking itself 1-10 (10 being the best). They would then take this ranking and try to schedule games that match teams of similar ability for the games that are played on Sundays (i.e. Rank 4 teams would play other Rank 4 teams, etc.). This ranking would change from week-to-week (i.e. If you win two games your ranking would go up 2 points or down 2 points for two losses). However, due to massive "fraud" the league just started everyone this year at 0.
- Nov 18, 2013
- 2,258
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,,
I always got a kick out of the way organizations advertised themselves as "the best" and then ranked their teams at 7 or 8 to get easier games. I admired the community programs that ranked themselves 10 to play with the top club programs.
I always got a kick out of the way organizations advertised themselves as "the best" and then ranked their teams at 7 or 8 to get easier games. I admired the community programs that ranked themselves 10 to play with the top club programs.
