US Club rankings released

[CoogansBluff]

Sorry CoogansBluff, but for every one girl on these so called elite teams, there are girls that are just as good if not better, that have parents that live paycheck to paycheck, that cant afford to play for the special teams. So they can stick their ranking the same place where most of these people have their heads. Sorry not PC anymore.
.

No need to apologize. I am not endorsing the rankings, just putting them up for critique.

Now, for sake of discussion, these rankings do not rank players, but teams. So the fact that many really good players aren't part of these teams is not what is important. That's like saying the top 25 of college football is worthless since there are many great players who aren't fortunate enough to play for the top 25 teams. True, but the question is whether these teams are deserving?

Are there many teams that are just as good if not better than the ranked teams that don't attend because of money?

Note that I've already argued that there are regional teams in N.C. that aren't ranked that probably could be. So I'm not arguing against this, just asking what people think.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

The rankings are most accurate at the very top and quickly lose meaning after that.

One issue is aggregating data by team, which is understandable since events use different variants on team names (e.g. Team X, Team X John, Team X Smith). I've seen some teams results fragmented by not being aggregated together and I've seen some results credited to the wrong team.

Besides relying on teams to enter data, the CPI is also flawed by some orgs (e.g. TBolts) claiming players that committed prior to joining them.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Socal Dad nailed it...accurate for about 10-20 slots (although the order can be debated) then it gets really murky. These national lists are a waste of time unless you are talking about the top 20.

 

[29dad]

While some might say it is because they are too good and don't want to play the Daddy Ball Diamonds others say they are scared they will get beat by some regional teams and it might ruin their "elite" status.

Actually neither is true. After high school ball ends the summer season is only 7 weeks long (if that). Since our goal is PGF Premier, June is devoted to PGF qualifiers. if we qualify early (like last year), we'll play the local PGF tourney at the end of June. And by the way, we won that, beating a very good South Dakota Renegades team (finished second at 16U PGF premier) in the championship. So for us to play in one of the goofy MN state tournaments in July, would you like us to give up our slot for IDT? Give up our slot for Demarini? Or give up our slot for TCS nationals? Which one? And of course if we do give it up to stay home in July, we will also have to pay for ASA insurance AND as you well know we'd have to abide by the MMFL rules, meaning we would also be required to join a league (!) and play a minimum of five league games. All for the opportunity to play at MN state in beautiful Bumpkis Bluff, MN in front of 5 college coaches. But then again maybe we're just scared.

 

[MNDad]

Actually neither is true. After high school ball ends the summer season is only 7 weeks long (if that). Since our goal is PGF Premier, June is devoted to PGF qualifiers. if we qualify early (like last year), we'll play the local PGF tourney at the end of June. And by the way, we won that, beating a very good South Dakota Renegades team (finished second at 16U PGF premier) in the championship. So for us to play in one of the goofy MN state tournaments in July, would you like us to give up our slot for IDT? Give up our slot for Demarini? Or give up our slot for TCS nationals? Which one? And of course if we do give it up to stay home in July, we will have to also pay for ASA insurance AND as you well know we'd have to abide by the MMFL rules, meaning we would also be required to join a league (!) and play a minimum of five league games. All for the opportunity to play at MN state in beautiful Bumpkis Bluff, MN in front of 5 college coaches. But then again maybe we're just scared.

Sounds like a throw down!

 

[JJsqueeze]

I just noticed a few of these are pretty hilarious, I see teams on this list that would struggle against a decent rec team ranked 100 slots higher than legit teams that can go deep in most tourneys.

 

[Softball scholar]

Seems pointless as almost all these teams will change since club season is basically over at the end of July and starts over in Sept with new rosters.

Yea, good point. I agree because: Its a new season, its hard to objectively measure and my DD team is not in the top 100.
If her team makes top 100 next year, Ill re-evaluate my opinion.

 

[MNDad]

I think the list is only murky if you treat it as an exact science. Is the #74 team really the 74th best team in the country? Probably not, but most of the teams probably belong somewhere in the top 200. All of the “lists mean nothing” talk most often is just sour grapes from teams that are never on any lists.

 

[55dad]

Sounds like a throw down!

I think that all the best teams in the state should just hire some umps and have their own friendly tourney with no affiliation with any alphabet soup! Invite a bunch of college coaches and call it a showcase. But that wouldn't make anyone money!

 

[29dad]

I think that all the best teams in the state should just hire some umps and have their own friendly tourney with no affiliation with any alphabet soup! Invite a bunch of college coaches and call it a showcase. But that wouldn't make anyone money!

Wow - I just texted nearly the exact same thing to MNDad about 5 minutes ago!!